HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Southern Miss appears to have avoided a major injury scare with the presumed leader of its current three-way quarterback competition.

Head coach Blake Anderson provided an encouraging update on redshirt-senior quarterback Ethan Hampton after Tuesday's practice. Hampton exited the Golden Eagles' first fall camp scrimmage on Saturday with an injury to his throwing hand. Anderson said Hampton's hand is structurally sound, leaving soreness and swelling as the primary issues while the veteran works toward a potential return for this weekend's second scrimmage.

"He was a little bit better [today]," Anderson said after Hampton progressed from not wearing a helmet or throwing a football on Monday to doing so on Tuesday. "He threw probably 20-25 yards today with it. It is structurally fine, so now it's just dealing with soreness and swelling. But he'll be fine."

Anderson openly wondered if expecting Hampton back by Saturday's scrimmage is "optimistic," but given how things have progressed so far, that possibility should be in the cards.

"I'd like to think he's going to be ready by Saturday," Anderson said. "I don't know if that's optimistic or not, but knowing that there's no structual issues, we don't have a surgery in our future, it's just a matter of getting through the soreness and swelling."

There have been times throughout Anderson's career where players with a similar type of injury have had to miss extended time, so he feels "fortunate" that the Golden Eagles have avoided that with Hampton.

"I feel like we're pretty fortunate," Anderson said. "We've lost guys in the past through the same injury, and so we're pretty fortunate. We'll see how he does. Little by little, he went from really throwing the ball from me to you to throwing it 25 yards today. He did inside drill and didn't have any issues. So we're optimistic we'll get him back in the next few days."

Before Hampton suffered the hand injury on Saturday, he completed all three of his passes for 34 yards and also broke open a long run after making a nice read on an RPO play. Although Anderson has yet to officially announce Hampton as the starter for Week 1 of the season against Alcorn State at home, that figures to be the most likely outcome if he can stay healthy between now and then.

Stay tuned to Southern Miss Golden Eagles On SI for more fall camp updates leading up to this weekend's Fan Fest scrimmage at The Rock, which will begin at 11 a.m.