If USC beat Bama or LSU in ’24, would national conversation be different right now?
——This is part of a summer series. Leading up to the start of South Carolina’s 2025 season, The State is answering 25 of the most interesting questions surrounding the Gamecocks football team. This is No. 22. ——
Hypotheticals involve one of two things. Either there is one change while all else stays the same — or changing one thing cascades into a butterfly effect that affects a million other things.
Which brings us to last November.
Demetrius Knight had just dived underneath a bobbled pass. South Carolina knocked off Clemson for the second time in three years. The Gamecocks extended their winning streak to six games, furthering their case as the hottest team in America. And, well, it didn’t matter. It didn’t mean anything because the committee apparently valued “data points,” which basically translated to number of victories.
South Carolina was on the outside looking in because it only had nine wins. Because the Gamecocks couldn’t hold onto leads against LSU and Alabama — and that, of course, led to every South Carolina fan playing the what-if game.
What if competent officials were in charge of the USC-LSU game — you know, refs who didn’t throw flags willy-nilly for offensive pass interference, who didn’t call unnecessary roughness for something that happened nowhere near the action? Heck, what if QB LaNorris Sellers hadn’t gotten hurt that afternoon? There’s no chance Carolina blows a 17-point fourth-quarter lead with QB1.
OK, let’s say all of that was justified — well, South Carolina should’ve beaten Alabama.
What if Alex Herrera made that fourth-quarter field goal? What if Sellers didn’t fumble late in the game? What if the Gamecocks could have just executed that two-point conversion? What if Sellers had just checked down in the final seconds? Surely Carolina could’ve found one more miracle.
If any one of those things goes different, fans would argue, the Gamecocks would’ve been in the playoff. They would’ve jumped Ole Miss (9-3), Miami (10-2), Alabama (9-3) and SMU (11-2) and probably been playing Penn State in mid-December.
Perhaps. But that’s assuming everything else remained constant.
It assumes that South Carolina was going to find a spark in victory. That losing heartbreakers against LSU and then — the linchpin — at Alabama didn’t trigger the Gamecocks’ dominance down the stretch. Heck, even Shane Beamer admits to that Alabama loss sparking something in his squad.
“It was just a different feel in the locker room after that game of very much just, ‘We’re tired of this,’” Beamer told CBS Sports’ Josh Pate about the Alabama game. “That was the first time I walked in the locker room and there was rage, anger, whatever about the loss — not that we didn’t feel that way about Ole Miss and LSU, don’t get me wrong — but it was just a different feeling that day in Tuscaloosa.”
So, it’s easy to say that if South Carolina had just won those LSU and Alabama games, that it would’ve cruised to the playoff, that the Gamecocks would be in the Top 10 of every preseason poll, that folks would be picking the Gamecocks as national championship contenders. And maybe that’s true.
Or, perhaps, South Carolina needed those losses — that pain — to become the team it became. That Sellers, who went into the Bama game as the country’s most prolific fumbler and hardly fumbled the rest of the season, needed those losses to grow. That the entire team needed those defeats to dial in even more. That without those losses, maybe Carolina doesn’t even win nine games.
This, of course, is all up for debate. And hypotheticals might be pointless, but they sure are fun.
25 QUESTIONS FOR THE 2025 SEASON:
No. 25 — What South Carolina positions have the most question marks heading into season?
No. 24 — A Gamecocks victory over Va. Tech would be biggest season-opening win since when?
No. 23 — How will South Carolina’s QB room shake out in 2025 and beyond?
No. 22 — If USC beat Bama or LSU in ’24, would national conversation be different right now?
No. 21 — Can the Gamecocks’ offensive line take a step forward in 2025?
No. 20 — What former South Carolina football player will get his jersey retired next?
No. 19 — Can South Carolina get to the LSU game undefeated?
No. 18 — Will Fred Johnson be South Carolina’s next great LB?
No. 17 — What’s the most important stretch in USC’s 2025 schedule?
No. 16 — Can South Carolina’s defense stay elite despite all its roster turnover?
No. 15 — What South Carolina school records could be broken in 2025?
No. 14 — What’s the ceiling for USC’s running backs, with or without Rahsul Faison?
No. 13 — Can South Carolina’s special teams get back to Beamer Ball standard?
No. 12 — Have Gamecocks found right balance of high school football talent, transfers?
No. 11 — How will Shane Beamer go viral this year with South Carolina?
No. 10 — Is South Carolina too young at wide receiver?
No. 9 — Is this South Carolina’s easiest schedule in the Shane Beamer era?
No. 8 — Will there be noticeable changes in Mike Shula’s offense at South Carolina?
No. 7 — Can South Carolina football stay relatively healthy again in 2025?
No. 6 — Is this the last year for Williams-Brice Stadium as we know it?
No. 5 — What does a path to the playoff look like for South Carolina?
No. 4 — What happens if South Carolina football is no longer an underdog?
No. 3 — How would a 10-win season in 2025 shape Shane Beamer’s legacy in Columbia?
No. 2 — Can Dylan Stewart have a better season than Jadeveon Clowney did in 2012?
No. 1 — Can LaNorris Sellers become the best QB in South Carolina history?
This story was originally published June 26, 2025 at 7:00 AM.
