Pair of future South Carolina football opponents appear much more beatable after Saturday clunkers
By Kevin Miller
When the South Carolina football schedule was released ahead of the 2024 season, fans noticed a few things. One, annual rivalry games against Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida were missing. Two, the schedule, as a whole, was slightly lighter than in recent years. And three, the "light-ness" of the slate was all but negated by one of the most difficult stretches of any team in the country in the month of October.
October 5th, October 12th, and October 19th stuck out on the Carolina schedule as the Gamecocks had to play against preseason #6 Ole Miss at home, preseason #5 Alabama on the road, and preseason 16th-ranked Oklahoma in Norman. Most national analysts (and even many within the South Carolina football fanbase) wrote "L, L, L" on their predictions for Shane Beamer's team in the trio of contests.
While there is no denying that those games still remaining extremely tough tests for the Gamecocks, the task of facing off against the Rebels, Crimson Tide, and Sooners appears less daunting than it did a month ago.
On Saturday, while USC watched from home while on their bye week, Ole Miss and Oklahoma did not look like preseason elite teams.
Facing off against a Kentucky Wildcats squad that South Carolina boat raced three weeks ago, Ole Miss couldn't get much going on offense and fell by a final score of 20-17. The Rebels struggled to move the ball on the ground, gave up a lot of pressure on quarterback Jaxson Dart, and Juice Wells (a player who is, theoretically, the #2 receiver for Lane Kiffin's offense) didn't have a catch.
Ole Miss had not been tested prior to Saturday's matchup with Kentucky (Wake Forest was the best team they played during their 4-0 start), and the loss to Big Blue revealed a few more chinks in the Rebels' armor than many knew existed.
Brent Venables' Oklahoma Sooners team didn't lose on Saturday, but they didn't look very convincing in a squeaker over a mediocre-at-best Auburn Tigers group. Trailing 21-10 in the 4th quarter, the Sooners came back thanks in large part to a busted Auburn coverage and a very on-brand throw from Tigers QB Payton Thorne that became a pick-6.
Oklahoma may have gotten the win against Auburn, but they were outplayed for most of the game, and quarterback play is still an issue. After Jackson Arnold was benched last week, replacement Michael Hawkins had just 101 passing yards until his late-game bomb to JJ Hester. He never looked particularly comfortable in the pocket (when his offensive line gave him one), and he finished the game with just 10 completions.
All of a sudden, the outlook of "getting a win in just 1 of those 3 games would be nice" looks to be too small a hope for Gamecock fans. South Carolina is 3-1 at the time of this writing and very easily could be 4-0 had a couple of...questionable...calls gone their way against LSU.
Based solely on on-field production against quality competition, Gamecock fans have to feel like their favorite team is very capable of knocking off Ole Miss or Oklahoma in the coming weeks, and the garnet and black has some experience beating a highly-ranked Alabama team, too.
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