5 final thoughts, prediction for South Carolina football vs. No. 3 Texas A&M
After spending last week on a bye, South Carolina returns to action on Saturday to face No. 3 Texas A&M.
While the Aggies (9-0, 6-0 SEC) are in prime position to make the College Football Playoff for the first time, the Gamecocks (3-6, 1-6 SEC) need to win their final three games to become bowl-eligible.
South Carolina and Texas A&M have played every year since 2014. While the Gamecocks have won two of the last three meetings, the Aggies are 9-2 all time against the Gamecocks and have never lost to USC at Kyle Field.
The game will kick off at noon ET (11 a.m. in College Station) and be broadcast on ESPN. As of Thursday evening, DraftKings Sportsbook had Texas A&M as a 19.5-point favorite.
Those are some facts. Here are some thoughts:
1. Not sure there are enough wrinkles in the world
If you were so inclined to talk yourself into South Carolina pulling the massive upset, you would draw on some precedent from earlier this year. Like when winless UCLA changed its offensive coordinator and won three straight games. Or when Auburn fired Hugh Freeze, thus changing play-callers, and scored 38 points against Vanderbilt.
Sometimes it just takes a new voice, a new play-caller, to change everything.
That is certainly what South Carolina is banking on after head coach Shane Beamer fired offensive coordinator Mike Shula and gave wide receivers coach Mike Furrey play-calling duties.
Certainly one would expect South Carolina’s offense to include some new wrinkles on Saturday, some different formations and plays than the Gamecocks showed under Shula. The problem: Throwing the kitchen sink at this Texas A&M defense still might not be enough.
Because while great play-callers can temporarily mask an awful offensive line, they cannot fix it for 60 minutes. And that is going to be a problem against this Aggies team.
Texas A&M is averaging nearly four sacks a game (3.78), which is tied with Texas for the most in the nation. That’s not good news for a South Carolina squad that allows more sacks (coincidentally also 3.78 per game) than all but two teams in the nation.
Even more concerning: No defense in America has been better on third down than Texas A&M’s, which allows conversions on less than a quarter of its opponents’ third downs (24%). Again, that is especially bad for the Gamecocks, which convert on just 32.5% of their third downs (121st in America).
Beamer was asked this week if there’s a path for Furrey to get the full-time OC job next year and he didn’t rule it out. If the Gamecocks can somehow score enough points to beat this A&M team, Furrey should be the frontrunner.
2. Beamer’s revisionist history
A few times every year, South Carolina’s head coach will get behind a microphone and say things that you almost can’t believe are coming out of his mouth. And it’s not that he’s lying or wrong. It’s just the timing.
Like a few weeks ago when the Gamecocks got dominated by Oklahoma and Beamer, unprompted, was raving about how the Gamecocks practiced that week, even adding that his team “had a hell of a walk-through (Friday) at the stadium.”
It’s one of those things that, even if it’s true, why say it?
Well, that leads us to Tuesday. TheBigSpur’s John Whittle mentioned that Beamer’s three offensive coordinator hires at South Carolina all had NFL ties and asked the USC head coach if he was “married” to his next OC having pro experience.
He could have simply said “no” and explained that while, yes, Marcus Satterfield, Dowell Loggains and Mike Shula all had NFL experience, they each also had experience coaching in college football. Instead, he went on this long spiel defending each hire.
“I push back a little bit on the narrative that we haven’t necessarily gotten these, I haven’t gotten these coordinator hires right,” Beamer said. “Have we been efficient enough on offense and consistent enough on offense? Absolutely not. But let’s also not act like we brought in three coordinators, and we’ve just fired all of them, and we just threw up our hands.”
You can argue that Loggains, who left USC last December to take the head coaching job at App State, was a success. Trying to find positives around Satterfield and Shula is tougher task.
In any case: Beamer understands he needs to nail this offensive coordinator hire. In doing so, it might also be smart to look at the failures of the past.
3. Finally, the five-game stretch ends
Just over a month ago, it seemed every college football fan finally took a look at South Carolina’s schedule and the insane five-game gauntlet the Gamecocks were about to face: No. 11 LSU, No. 6 Oklahoma, No. 8 Alabama, No. 4 Ole Miss and No. 5 Texas A&M.
Back then, it seemed reasonable to expect USC to win one or two of those games. Surely the Gamecocks would pull an upset.
Yet, barring a miracle, South Carolina will go 0-5 through the toughest-part of its schedule — which is somehow both unexpected and easy to believe.
It should also not be lost that — aside from LSU — every team is still ranked in the top 11 of the College Football Playoff Rankings. South Carolina just lost to excellent teams.
4. Feel bad for South Carolina’s defense
It is almost incredible to think that South Carolina is 3-6 given how well its defense has played.
That is not to say this Gamecocks’ defense is the best in the SEC, or that it’s better than the 2024 unit. But Clayton White’s group is quite good at keeping teams out of the end zone. Think about this: Only three SEC teams — Oklahoma, Texas and Alabama — have allowed fewer touchdowns than South Carolina.
The defense has kept the Gamecocks in almost every game — just to watch the offense do nothing.
They have been incredible. The problem: This offenses requires them to be perfect.
5. Travian Robertson back on the field
There was a pretty amazing image from South Carolina’s practice on Thursday.
Two-and-a-half months after defensive line coach Travian Robertson got in a serious car accident — a crash that claimed the life of the other driver and required Robertson to get multiple surgeries — he was back on the practice field Thursday, standing and coaching his guys for the first time all season.
“This field feels different when you’ve fought to stand on it again,” Robertson wrote on X. “Thankful for grace, strength, and second chances.”
It’ll be interesting to see if Robertson travels with the Gamecocks to College Station.
PREDICTION: Texas A&M 27, South Carolina 13
