Being a South Carolina fan was pretty rough during the 2025-26 sports season. The football team finished 4-8, the worst finish under head coach Shane Beamer and lowest mark since Beamer's third season finish of 5-7 in 2023.Â
In women's college basketball, Dawn Staley's team earned a No. 1 seed in the tournament and knocked off UConn in the Final Four. The Gamecocks then lost to the UCLA Bruins in the national title game. The men's basketball team also missed the postseason entirely, as did the baseball team, which finished with a program-low 35 losses. Softball also fell early in the postseason.Â
It certainly was a lot of suffering for the garnet and black fanbase. On3 Sports' Josh Pate released his most tortured fanbase rankings, and the Gamecocks checked in pretty high. South Carolina was third on Pate's list, behind Arkansas and Virginia Tech:Â
Who is the most tortured fanbase in college football?
— Bussin' With The Boys (@BussinWTB) May 30, 2026
Via @JoshPateCFB pic.twitter.com/wZYyF9PmFJ
With an overall program record of 614-592-41 all-time, it's easy to see Pate's justification for putting the Gamecocks third. There have been flashes of incredible seasons on the gridiron—Steve Spurrier's three straight 11-win seasons in 2011-13 come to mind.Â
But there have been many more seasons where Gamecock fans entered with high expectations and the team fell well short. Take last season, for example—South Carolina had a huge 9-4 season in 2025, and returned star quarterback LaNorris Sellers. Instead, the Gamecocks won just four games in a season to forget on the football field in Columbia.Â
What do you think of Pate's rankings, is South Carolina too high or too low?  Â
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