Beat Georgia, lose to App State. South Carolina explains unique combo in trying season
Since Oct. 13, South Carolina is 1-3 with losses to the likes of Tennessee and Appalachian State.
Since Oct. 13, Georgia is 3-0 with a win over top-10 Florida and a climb back into College Football Playoff discussion.
The Gamecocks and Bulldogs have gone in opposite directions since they formed an unpredictable result at Sanford Stadium. It turns out USC’s double-overtime upset of UGA wasn’t a springboard for Will Muschamp’s team. Rather, it’s the highlight (anomaly?) of an otherwise underwhelming season in Columbia.
The Gamecocks are 4-6 (3-4 SEC) and on the brink of falling out of bowl contention for the first time in Muschamp’s four years as head coach. They travel to Texas A&M on Saturday and then close the regular season Nov. 30 at home against No. 3 Clemson.
The Aggies and Tigers are a combined 16-3. ESPN’s Power Football Index gives Carolina just a 22.1% chance of beating A&M and an 8.9% chance of beating Clemson. But then again, the same projection system gave the Gamecocks a 10.9% percent chance to top Georgia.
Can the Gamecocks channel that effort from Athens and bring it to these next two games?
“If you go back and look at the Georgia game, you can see when it’s clicking for us, we’re a real good team,” said USC sophomore linebacker Ernest Jones. “And when it’s not, you see what happens.
“You go back and look at the Georgia game and everything just went well that day, and we came out on top. And Georgia’s been the best team, I believe, that we’ve faced all year, so you get confidence knowing that hey, you beat those guys, you can play and you can do the things necessary to win these big games. And that’s what we’re going to have to do these next two (games).”
Each loss since the Georgia win has been its own story. Against Florida, it was hard to ignore the role played by officials. Against Tennessee, it was a second half meltdown. Against App State, it was a lack of firepower from a depleted, unbalanced offense.
The latter gave South Carolina’s season a rare distinction: Win over a top 5 team, loss to a team from the Sun Belt Conference.
Such was noted on Twitter, despite the Mountaineers’ 8-1 record.
“You sit there and think about it sometimes,” Jones said, “but being a football player, you know that any given week it could be your week to lose. Everybody we’ve played so far has been good. There hasn’t been a team where they didn’t have good players or they didn’t have certain things going for them.
“The six losses, the other teams had more productive plays. They won more plays, so they won the game.”
NEXT
Who: South Carolina at Texas A&M
When: 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 16
Where: Kyle Field
TV: SEC Network
This story was originally published November 13, 2019 at 2:15 PM.
