South Carolina Gamecocks Football: Previewing the UNC Tar Heels

The South Carolina Gamecocks are set for another meeting with their neighbor to the north, the Tar Heels, and this year’s meeting could have some big implications.

In 2013, South Carolina’s 27-10 win against North Carolina was pretty disappointing, especially if you listened to the “experts” working for ESPN. Our team looked heavily fatigued, our star player Jadeveon Clowney looked as sluggish as ever, and definitely not like the Clowney we had expectations in watching play. The Head Ball Coach even told the media after the game, “We’ll try and work on our conditioning for the entire team.”

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If you look at both teams going into that game, our Gamecocks were ranked No. 6 in the nation with a great defense and offense coming back, looking to break past our back to back eleven win seasons. The Tar Heels were a team expected to be better on offense in their two year system, but their defense had question marks.

Fast forward two years and now our Gamecocks seem to have more questions on both sides of the ball, while UNC seem to have a pretty good offense coming into the game but also a questionable defense that Gene Chizik looks to fix up just like our new co-defensive coordinator Jon Hoke.

The History

Just like I previously mentioned, the Gamecocks are the latest winners in this rivalry labeled as the, “Battle of the Carolinas”. South Carolina holds a two game winning streak from 2013 and 2007. UNC owns the series with 34 wins and the Gamecocks only winning 18 games with 4 ties. Both teams hold 5 game winning streaks, the Gamecocks from 1967-1974 and the Tar Heels winning 5 straight from 1903-1911. South Carolina’s biggest victory against the Heels is 27-5 and the Heels biggest victory against the Gamecocks is 48-0.

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What to look out for

UNC has by far the most experienced starting quarterback in the ACC in fifth-year senior Marquise Williams. They also have arguably the most experienced team in the ACC with this amount of returning players on Offense (10) and defense (7). Look out for how our Gamecocks defensive line plays against a experienced offensive line in North Carolina’s. If we dominate the line of scrimmage in this game than you can be sure to expect a much better season in 2015 than last years.

Prediction

The Gamecocks prove to be the true ‘Carolina’ and take down UNC in Charlotte 34-17. I expect Connor Mitch to have a heck of a game and prove to Gamecock Nation why he was a four star recruit coming out of high school and why the Head Ball Coach has given him the starting job for the season. I expect Hoke to have our defense tackling better and playing their position like NFL talents that he has coached, holding a talented UNC offense to only two touchdowns and a field goal.

The game will kickoff at 6 p.m. EST and televised nationally on ESPN Thursday, September 3.

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