CBS Sports predicts brutal season for South Carolina football

South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer will lead his team into a critical 2024 season this fall. In what will be his fourth year at the helm of the program, Beamer's team has a wide variance in prediction outcomes for the season, but the Gamecocks need a solid showing to return to the obvious upward trajectory that USC seemed to be on after the strong finish to the 2022 campaign.

With an over-under typically set at 5.5 this offseason, projections for the Gamecocks' record this fall have come in anywhere from 4-8 and 8-4, largely depending on how high outlets are on the large crop of transfer portal players who will play and the team's new starting quarterback LaNorris Sellers.

This week, another national outlet published their win-loss records for the 2024 version of the South Carolina football team (and the entire SEC). CBS Sports' Will Backus' season preview is not friendly to the Gamecocks as he decisively picked the under.

Suggesting that Carolina will go 4-8, Backus believes that the Gamecocks will win only the games in which they are heavy favorites. That means home contests against Old Dominion, Akron, and Wofford and a road contest at Vanderbilt are the only USC wins in Backus' hypothetical 2024 season. That outcome would mean a disastrous 1-7 showing in the SEC (with losses at home to LSU, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, and Missouri and road defeats against Kentucky, Alabama, and Oklahoma) and a second-straight loss to the rival Clemson Tigers.

The good news for the Gamecock Faithful, though, is that there is plenty of reason for optimism that the garnet and black will be better than Backus thinks they will be.

A veteran defense that received an influx of talent through the transfer portal should be much improved, especially if they continue their strong play from the end of 2023 when they switched to a 3-3-5.

The offense has question marks, but last year's unit was doomed from the start thanks to the issues on the offensive line (both poor play and a large number of injuries). The line should be better in 2024, the running back room was replenished through the portal, and quarterback LaNorris Sellers is an intriguing talent with a high ceiling.

The season will begin on August 31st when the Old Dominion Monarchs come to Columbia for a 4:15 kickoff at Williams-Brice Stadium.