When did South Carolina start planning for Georgia? Not this week

Going into South Carolina’s football opener against Coastal Carolina, Gamecocks football coach Will Muschamp told everyone who asked, all focus was on the Chanticleers.

That was in some senses only somewhat accurate.

The players were thinking Coastal. The staff had already put things in place for this week’s SEC East showdown with No. 3 Georgia. They did it a while ago.

“This game has been game-planned (since) this summer,” Muschamp said. “We’re just kind of brushing up the game plan this week, and I’m sure they’re doing the same.”

One factor there is the Bulldogs played Austin Peay last week, and while that gives a look at a few new players, a 45-0 blowout isn’t all that illustrative.

But these coaches have all been around a while. The chances they make dramatic changes are pretty low. Georgia coach Kirby Smart has been running what he runs for a while, same for Georgia offensive coordinator Jim Chaney.

So the game plan could be built months in advance, without much worry about a team evolving in the last week (chances are, a team would be studying mostly last year’s film anyway).

“I think we all know each other pretty well, from a coordinator standpoint and from a play-caller standpoint,” Muschamp said. “They’ll be some new wrinkles and some different things they’ve worked on in the offseason. We’ll have (those) as well. Again, knowing our structure and their structure, and how we do things.”

This story was originally published September 6, 2018 at 3:12 PM.