As I’ll be in Athens for most of the day today, I’ve got quite a few games queued up on the DVR for watching over the holiday break.
One of those, for obvious reasons, is South Carolina’s home opener against Coastal Carolina. With the heavy emphasis on intangibles for Georgia’s SEC opener in Columbia, it will be interesting to compare the mindset of both the ‘Cocks and the Dawgs today. Who’s better prepared not to get caught looking forward to bigger fish to fry Saturday week?
As Bud Elliott puts it,
Coastal Carolina +29.5 (-105) at South Carolina: The Gamecocks were extremely lucky last season (6-1 in single-score games). This is an opportunity to bet against an inflated reputation from 2017. And South Carolina has a lookahead situation, with Georgia coming to town next week.
Believe it or not, this has been an issue for South Carolina over the years. Here’s a sample of that.
Matt Melton goes into greater detail.
- South Carolina’s largest margin of victory under Will Muschamp is 26 points (and that took three defensive touchdowns).
- South Carolina has played three Group of Five teams at home under Will Muschamp. They have beaten those teams by five, six, and one point respectively.
- South Carolina has a pretty big home game coming up on the Saturday after this one. I don’t know that the Chanticleers will have the Gamecocks full attention. I have a little bit of data to back that claim up. Since 2005, South Carolina has opened against a mid-major program with Georgia on-deck four times (2005, 2007, 2010, 2011). They won all four of those openers, but only covered once.
None of this is to say we’re about to see an outright upset for the ages. (Boom’s probably used up his quota in that department.) But if this really is supposed to be a South Carolina team ready to step up to divisional contender status, then history shouldn’t be repeating in a game against a decided underdog.
Who does a better job of taking care of business today?
Get The Picture 
APU is in the FCS top 25. CCU didn’t even receive any votes. I trust our staff to have these guys ready to play. Both win big, but I think the Dawgs are on a mission.
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I’m curious about the condition of the SC field after play today and before we head there next week. If you watch that game, take a look at traction the line gets and “ripples” in the sod. It will be unthinkable to put UGA players in an injury-prone situation.
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Coastal is bad. 2 years in 1a ball and they started 13 different qbs so I read. Starting a new one today too. I doubt you get much watching this game. May be able to see if the offense has potential to be dangerous.
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Both teams have huge lines to cover. Question which one will? For UGA I think it’s more important . We don’t want to give up he National pundints something to squawk about.
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Watching SC now..they’re getting some home cooking from the refs…Coastal able to move it on the ground so far, but clearly overmatched on defense.
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Turf doesn’t seem to be a problem.
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Yea that run D definitely looks suspect so far
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Hard to evaluate given the level of competition, but: SC seems comfortable with rhythm and execution of the new O scheme. OL looks serviceable. On the other side, they look vulnerable on D. Maybe they didn’t practice defending the option with UGA next week, but DL is needing LB/S help to get pressure and slow the run. Secondary hasn’t been tested. SC will pull away in 2nd half and likely cover, but far from a dominant first half.
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