South Carolina Football’s GOAT Series: Top-10 greatest defenses of all-time
By Kevin Miller
South Carolina Football’s No. 10 Greatest Defense of All-Time:
1999
It might sound strange to call anything from a winless 1999 campaign “great,” but the Carolina defense would be remembered as such had the rest of the team not been such a disaster.
14 players who got snaps for that defense made it onto an NFL roster, including potential NFL Hall of Famer John Abraham and three future All-Americans (Kalimba Edwards, Rashad Faison, and Sheldon Brown). The talented group held four of its five ranked opponents to 24 points or less and held eight of their eleven foes below their season’s scoring average.
One of the country’s worst offenses put a very good defense in difficult situations multiple times every time out as the Gamecocks put up an impossibly-low scoring output of fewer than 8 points per game.
Arguably the defense’s best performance came in a 17-point loss when the mighty Florida Gator offense (led by future Gamecock head coach Steve Spurrier) could only muster up 20 points in the matchup.