Another pair of South Carolina football stars win SEC Player of the Week honors

South Carolina football is 2-0 after a dominating win over the rival Kentucky Wildcats. For the second week in a row, the Gamecock defense was tremendous in a win, and also for the second week in a row, USC has had a pair of players named SEC Player of the Week.

Safety Nick Emmanwori is the week 2 edition of SEC Defensive Player of the Week, and punter Kai Kroeger brought home the SEC Special Teams Player of the Week award.

For Emmanwori, the Kentucky game brought forth a career-first achievement. For the first time in garnet and black, the Columbia native intercepted a pass and brought it back for a touchdown. After about 20 games without a single interception, Emmanwori now has 3 picks in his last 4 games, as well. Against the Wildcats, #7 led the Gamecocks in total tackles (7) and added his back-breaking interception and defensive score. On the season, Emmanwori is second on the team in tackles, trailing only linebacker Debo Williams.

Kai Kroeger looked like the 2022 version of himself on Saturday. That season, Kroeger was an All-American, and against Kentucky, he had even better punting numbers. On 5 punts, the senior left-footer boomed the pigskin for a 51.6 average, and his net average (punt length minus return and/or touchback yardage) was over 41 yards per punt even with 3 return attempts and 1 touchback. With a long kick of 58 yards, Kroeger also pinned the Wildcats inside their own 20-yard line on two occasions.

Emmanwori and Kroeger join Gamecock EDGE players Dylan Stewart and Kyle Kennard as SEC weekly award winners so far in the 2024 season. The latter pair were the SEC co-Defensive Linemen of the Week following South Carolina's week 1 win over Old Dominion.

The Gamecocks will face off next with the LSU Tigers with College GameDay in town. The Saturday kickoff is slated for Noon ET and will be broadcast on ABC and streamed on ESPN+ and the ESPN app.

(For South Carolina football fans with DirecTV, here is a helpful guide for how you can still watch this weekend's game despite the ongoing carriage dispute with Disney. The guide was for last week's game but still applies this week as the game will be shown on ABC again.)