South Carolina Football: Gamecocks’ schedule to be revealed on primetime television
By Kevin Miller
![SEC commissioner Greg Sankey signed a contract extension to keep him as the head of the league through 2028. Syndication/Tuscaloosa News. Staff Photo/Gary Cosby Jr.]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape%2Fcover%2Fsport%2Fa207913d2846b63a19184aadf50a16a1d4dce7607a07f9ced7b33e0d161c916d.jpg "SEC commissioner Greg Sankey signed a contract extension to keep him as the head of the league through 2028. Syndication/Tuscaloosa News. Staff Photo/Gary Cosby Jr.]")
Shortly after news broke that the SEC would be utilizing a custom 8-game conference schedule in the 2024 football season, SEC football fans learned that the specialized schedule would be revealed during a primetime show on SECNetwork. South Carolina football fans will be able to tune in on June 14th to find out who their Gamecocks will play, according to a report from the Action Network’s Brett McMurphy.
2024 will be the first season in which the SEC will have 16 teams as Oklahoma and Texas will be moving over from the Big 12. The 8-game schedule will not necessarily be put together with previous seasons in mind. Early speculation regarding the format is that teams will have historical rivalries honored as best as possible, and then the league office would piece together the rest of the schedule.
Oklahoma-Texas, Alabama-Auburn, Georgia-Florida, and Ole Miss-Mississippi State are rivalry matchups that would, frankly, be shocking to see end. After that, it is more difficult to predict, and it is likely that some smaller rivalries will be skipped in 2024 and, pending the future schedule formats, moving forward, as well.
For the Gamecocks, it is unclear which matchups if any would be protected. The biggest “rival” in SEC play for South Carolina is the Georgia Bulldogs, but UGA has more intra-conference rivals than just about any other team as the ‘Dawgs are rivals with South Carolina, Florida, Auburn, and Tennessee.
The rest of the SEC East (Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, Missouri, and Vanderbilt) all could make sense for the Gamecocks’ schedule, but with divisions officially dissolving after the 2023 season, none of those games are guaranteed.
This will not be the first time the SEC has televised a “schedule reveal,” but it will be the first time the conference actually will be revealing opponents. In years past, the “schedule reveals” have only been about dates (and, potentially, a handful of kickoff times). This reveal will be different as there are no set-in-stone details already known about the 2024 season schedule.
The exact time for the schedule reveal has not been set, but it will be aired on the SECNetwork and is expected to be during primetime on June 14th.
The SEC will likely move forward with a 9-game schedule at some point in the near future, and South Carolina football (because of its built-in rivalry with the Clemson Tigers) will be among the teams that are most adversely affected by the additional tough game on the schedule.