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South Carolina’s Keir Thomas explains why players like him need the season
By Keith Farner
Published:
Much has been made about players with household names from conferences like the Big 10 and Pac-12 missing out on the season, and that affecting their NFL future. But SEC players like South Carolina’s Keir Thomas see playing the 2020 season in the fall is essential to their plans to make it as a pro.
“I need the film, and a lot of us do. … I mean, we need to play,” Thomas said, according to The Athletic’s Josh Kendall.
The defensive lineman is in a unique but not unheard of position across the SEC. A veteran player who missed a large chunk of the 2019 because of an injury is now trying to make a splash and impress NFL scouts. He’s fully recovered from ankle surgery and two post-surgery infections that cut short his 2019 season.
Thomas has plenty of experience. He’s appeared in 40 games and made 25 starts. He has 110 career tackles with 13 tackles for loss, 5.5 sacks and 8 quarterback hurries.
“It’s the best I felt since the injury,” he said, according to the Post and Courier. “Probably one of these days exactly a year ago, that’s when I was infected real bad. It was a horrible feeling just being away from the team.”
Thomas is also in the difficult situation to be a leader, which these days telling younger teammates to live the boring life that coach Will Muschamp has preached in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
“I tell the guys around me all the time, ‘Yo, like coach Muschamp says, we got to live a very boring life,’” Thomas said. “I’m standing on that just as much as him. … I didn’t think I was going to be here a fifth year, but that’s how things worked out.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.