Five final thoughts, score prediction ahead of South Carolina vs. Wofford game
No. 18 South Carolina (7-3, 5-3 SEC) plays its final home game of the 2024 season on Saturday, taking on FCS foe Wofford (5-6) as the Gamecocks look to secure eight wins before taking on Clemson next week.
Kickoff will be at 4 p.m. The senior day celebration is expected to begin around 3:30 p.m. And the game will be streamed on SEC Network Plus and ESPN+.
Those are the facts. Here are some thoughts.
1. Senior Day festivities are gonna take awhile
Shane Beamer spent a few minutes at the beginning of his Tuesday press conference urging fans to shut the tailgates down early and get inside Williams-Brice Stadium for the senior day ceremonies.
And, well, the ceremony will start at 3:30 p.m., a half-hour before kickoff. It’s gonna take awhile to get through every name.
South Carolina has 36 fourth-, fifth- or sixth-year seniors. Only Eastern Michigan (39) has more. It’s not clear exactly how many of those three-dozen seniors will walk — a number have eligibility remaining — but it will be a lot.
And what you might notice as name after name is read off is that you recognize most of them, especially on defense. That can be rare in this day and age of college football, when players transfers and roster flip over more than pancakes at IHOP.
It is easy for folks to think that this South Carolina defense is so good because of the studs the Gamecocks added this offseason — edge Kyle Kennard (Georgia Tech), linebacker Demetrius Knight (Charlotte) and edge Dylan Stewart (freshman) — but that almost takes away from the fact that they returned basically the entire defensive front and secondary.
In some ways, maybe it’s a blueprint for the Gamecocks: Retain as many starters as possible and simply use the transfer portal to supplement the returners and add depth.
“We played really good defense down the stretch last season and that whole group returned outside of (CB) Marcellas Dial, (edge) Jordan Strachan and two linebackers (Stone Blanton and Pup Howard),” Beamer said.
“We brought a lot back, but we knew we needed to improve the pass rush,” Beamer added. “There’s no question about it — i.e. Kyle Kennard and Dylan Stewart.”
2. Sellers is at his best in the most-stressful moments
Back when he was in the NFL, Dowell Loggains only needed a few metrics to determine a good quarterback. How did they perform in two-minute drills? How did they do on third down? What happened when the pocket got messy?
“That’s where we’d start,” said Loggains, South Carolina’s second-year offensive coordinator. “And we’d look at your win-loss record.”
Which brings us to quarterback LaNorris Sellers, who torched Missouri last week for a career-high 353 passing yards and five touchdowns.
Over the past few weeks, though, it’s in the nitty-gritty of Loggains’ stats of success where Sellers is even more impressive.
Two-minute drives: You of course know about the game winner against Missouri, when Sellers led South Carolina 70 yards in 47 seconds, tossing a shovel pass to running back Rocket Sanders for the go-ahead touchdown.
But he’s also led end-of-the-half scoring drives in the Texas A&M (field goal) and Missouri (touchdown) games that gave the Gamecocks some momentum going to the break.
Then there’s this: the down numbers are impressive. In the past two games, South Carolina is 59% (13-22) on third downs. That’s great. But, of those, Sellers has passed the ball seven times. He’s completed every pass for 103 yards and the Gamecocks converted all but once. Now that’s elite.
We’ve already written about Sellers shapeshifting out sacks in messy pockets, which should just be icing on everything else.
3. Does it matter whether the Gamecocks play a cupcake before Clemson?
For years, there is a pretty fair stereotype that SEC teams game their scheduling by slotting some low-level, non-conference opponent the week before they play their rival.
It’s viewed as a little bit of a tune-up, a way to get healthy and prepared for rivalry week, perhaps a conference championship and even a bowl game.
What’s odd: South Carolina has not done that for years.
Here’s who the Gamecocks have played leading into Clemson week since Beamer took over.
2023 — vs. Kentucky
2021 — vs. Auburn
The Gamecocks won all three of those games and did beat Clemson once (2022), but the scheduling will change. Obviously the Gamecocks play Wofford on Saturday before traveling to Clemson next week, but USC has scheduled Coastal Carolina for its penultimate regular-season game next season.
Does Beamer have a preference?
“I really hadn’t thought about it,” Beamer said of scheduling a non-conference team ahead of Clemson week. “There’s merit to both of them.”
4. The Navy loss still stings, 40 years later
Let’s remember that anything can happen at any time, no matter the opponent.
Forty years ago, South Carolina was in the hunt for the national championship. The 1984 Gamecocks, led by coach Joe Morrison, were 9-0 and if the Gamecocks could win just one more game, the Orange Bowl was surely going to extend an invitation.
Instead came perhaps the worst defeat in South Carolina history. The No. 2 Gamecocks lost 38-21 to unranked Navy. They beat Clemson a week later but fell to Oklahoma State in the Gator Bowl, finishing the season ranked 11th after a 10-2 season.
And, 40 years later, the what-if lives on — especially for the players who left Annapolis, Maryland on Nov. 17, 1984 blindsided.
“Oh my goodness, that one still haunts me to this day,” said Bryant Gillard told the State last month. “I just know for me, I didn’t feel comfortable at all, in terms of my pregame feel. Something seemed out of place.”
“We went into that game thinking it was going to be a breeze,” said DB Earl Johnson. “We went into that game confident, but I think we were overly confident and didn’t take that game like we took the previous eight games.”
“I was out the whole Navy game,” said DB Otis Morris. “So the worst thing for me was not traveling and having to watch that on TV. That was tough. We just did not have it.”
“A lost opportunity,” said linebacker Carl Hill. “Even though we fell short, we still achieved a real memorable and proud achievement.”
5. The 2024 Palmetto Bowl could be in rare air
Let’s say nothing crazy happens this weekend: No. 18 South Carolina beats Wofford and No. 17 Clemson beats The Citadel. That would set up a ranked South Carolina versus a ranked Clemson in the Palmetto Bowl next Saturday in the Upstate.
It would be just the seventh time in 121 meetings that the Gamecocks and Tigers would both be ranked facing each other, and the first time in over a decade.
Here’s how the other six have played out:
- 1979: #13 South Carolina 13, #13 Clemson 9
- 1987: #12 South Carolina 20, #8 Clemson 7
- 2000: #16 Clemson 16, #25 South Carolina 14
- 2011: #14 South Carolina 34, #18 Clemson 13
- 2012: #13 South Carolina 27, #12 Clemson 17
- 2013: #10 South Carolina 31, #6 Clemson 17
If both teams are ranked next week, history favors the Gamecocks.
PREDICTION: South Carolina 49, Wofford 6
This story was originally published November 22, 2024 at 8:00 AM.
