South-Carolina
2024 Alabama Football Early Opponent Preview, Game 6: South Carolina
With the addition of Texas an Oklahoma to the SEC snd elimination of divisions in the Southeastern conference, South Carolina forever gets the distinct honor of being the last SEC East team to beat Alabama in the regular season.
In front of a packed house at Williams-Brice Stadium, the Gamecocks upset Alabama in 2010. The Crimson Tide made the trip back to Columbia in 2019, but South Carolina hasn’t played inside Bryant-Denny Stadium since 2009. That changes this season when Shane Beamer’s Gamecocks roll into Tuscaloosa for Game 6.
Beamer took South Carolina to bowl games in each of his first two seasons as head coach before a disappointing 5-7 finish last season. The Gamecocks got off to a 2-6 start before rallying down the final stretch of the season. Beamer isn’t necessarily on the hot seat heading into 2024, but he can’t afford to get off to another poor start with a challenging SEC slate ahead.
South Carolina’s offense was pass-reliant in 2023 with Spencer Rattler at quarterback and first-rounder Xavier Legette at receiver. Both players are gone now, so offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains will be working with a new QB in his second year with the Gamecocks.
Beamer named redshirt freshman LaNorris Sellers the starter after spring football. Sellers appeared on three games for South Carolina last season with just four total pass attempts, but two touchdowns against Furman.
Not only did the Gamecocks not have an individual 1000-yard rusher last season, but the offense barely crossed 1,000 yards total rushing as a team. Leading rusher Mario Anderson transferred to Memphis, but Beamer added two running backs out of the portal in North Texas’ Oscar Adaway III and Arkansas’ Raheim Sanders. The former Arkansas back missed time with injury last season, but 1443 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2022.
Returner Nyck Harbor (12 catches for 195 yards) and transfers Ahmari Huggins-Bruce (Louisville) and Jared Brown (Coastal Carolina) will look to pick up the production gap left behind by Legette. With a lot of new faces to work into the offense at the skill positions, South Carolina does bring back a lot of experience along the offensive line. All five starters up front have at least one start under their belt with the Gamecocks. The O-line will need to show improvement after allowing 41 sacks a season ago.
Defensive coordinator Clayton White has been with Beamer all three seasons in Columbia so far, but has never had a defense finish higher than 41st in the country. They have really struggled the past two seasons finishing 89th in 2022 and 90th in 2023, allowing nearly 400 yards per game last season.
South Carolina obviously needs to improve on those numbers if it wants to have more success in 2024. The defense is headlined by all-SEC linebacker Debo Williams, who led the Gamecocks with 113 tackles a year ago.
The Gamecocks have three talented returners leading in the secondary with sophomore Jalon Kilgore, who earned freshman all-American honors with 76 tackles and an interception last season in 10 starts, junior Nick Emmanwori and redshirt senior O’Donnell Fortune.
Junior defensive tackle T.J. Sanders led South Carolina with 4.5 sacks last season and looks to build on that breakout season in his redshirt junior campaign alongside redshirt senior Tonka Hemingway.
South Carolina faces Alabama in the middle of a brutal three-game stretch for the Gamecocks against three straight projected top-25 teams starting with Ole Miss at home followed by road games at Alabama and Oklahoma.
For Alabama, the schedule will be a little lighter at this point with a matchup at Vanderbilt the week before. However, the Crimson Tide does have a big road game at Tennessee after facing South Carolina, so Alabama could get caught looking ahead. Both the Crimson Tide and Gamecocks will have already had one of their two bye weeks for the season ahead of this matchup in September.
Alabama will likely by double-digit home favorites over South Carolina for this mid-October matchup. Both teams should be settled into the season by this point, but the Gamecocks have a lot more questions surrounding their team than the Crimson Tide. Jalen Milroe will be returning as starting quarterback for Alabama, and South Carolina will either be breaking in a redshirt freshman or transfer at the position.
Beamer has done a good job trying to turn around the South Carolina program over the last three years, but Alabama still has a much deeper and more talented roster.
South Carolina only has one win in Tuscaloosa all time (2004), and I don’t see that changing this season.
Date: Oct. 12
Time: 11 a.m. CT
TV: TBD
Location: Bryant-Denny Stadium
Series history: Alabama leads, 11-4
Last meeting: Alabama beat South Carolina 47-23 in Columbia in 2019. Tua Tagovailoa threw for 444 yards and five touchdowns.
Coach: Shane Beamer, fourth season, 20-18 record
Offensive coordinator: Dowell Loggains
Defensive coordinator: Clayton White
2023 record: 5-7 (3-5 SEC)
2023 rankings: Total offense (83rd), Total defense (90th)
Returning Starters
11 (four on offense, seven on defense)
Players to Watch
RB Raheim Sanders, WR Nyck Harbor, LB Debo Williams, DT Tonka Hemingway, DB Nick Emmanwori, DB Jalon Kilgore
Top Newcomer:
Arkansas transfer running back Raheim Sanders will bring a new dynamic to the South Carolina offense if he can stay healthy. His career with the Razorbacks was hampered by injuries, but he has 2,230 yards and 17 rushing touchdowns in his career.
Biggest Question
Will Sellers be able to settle into the starting quarterback job, or will Beamer have to turn to Auburn transfer Robbie Ashford or Pitt transfer Davis Beville?
Location: Columbia, South Carolina
Founded: 1801
Enrollment: 53,455
Nickname: Gamecocks
Colors: Garnet, black and white
Mascot: Sir Big Spur
Last time beat Alabama: 2010
Last time won SEC: Never
Last time won SEC East: 2010
National championships: None
Playoff Appearances: None
Conference championships: 1 (1969 in ACC)
Bowl record: 10-15
Last season missed bowl: 2023
Heisman trophies: 1 (George Rogers- 1980)
2024 NFL Draft:
Last four recruiting class rankings: No. 22 (2024), No. 16 (2023), No. 24 (2022), No. 80 (2021)
Aug. 31: Old Dominion
Sept. 7: at Kentucky
Sept. 14: LSU
Sept. 21: Akron
Oct. 5: Ole Miss
Oct. 12: at Alabama
Oct. 19: at Oklahoma
Nov. 2: Texas A&M
Nov. 9: at Vanderbilt
Nov. 16: Missouri
Nov. 23: Wofford
Nov. 30: at Clemson
A three-star navy rear-admiral fired by Pete Hegseth last year in the defense secretary’s purge of senior US military officials has won the Democratic primary in a closely watched congressional race.
Nancy Lacore secured the party’s nomination for the US House of Representatives in South Carolina’s first congressional district on Tuesday after defeating Mac Deford, a US Coast Guard veteran, in a runoff.
Lacore’s focus will now turn to November, when she will lead an ambitious Democratic bid to flip the Republican seat in the US midterm elections.
The district is currently represented by the Republican Nancy Mace, who chose to forgo seeking re-election to focus on her failed challenge for South Carolina governor. Jenny Costa Honeycutt, a member of Charleston county council, secured the Republican nomination for the election on Tuesday.
Lacore was among dozens of officers fired during Hegseth’s ongoing elimination from senior military roles of those considered to have crossed the Trump administration, or who do not fit the US defense secretary’s vision for the makeup of the armed services.
She is backed by several veterans’ groups, and Emilys List, which supports Democratic pro-choice candidates running for office. She raised $500,000 in her first two weeks as a candidate, and more than $1.4m through late May, according to a New York Times analysis of federal campaign finance records.
She is also one of 12 House candidates backed by the Bench, a Democratic strategy group advising candidates in districts seen as harder to win, the outlet said.
Six days into a firefight at a massive frozen-food storage facility near downtown Los Angeles, firefighters have yet to enter the building and have begun moving parts of the exterior walls to try to gain access.
Smoke is billowing from the warehouse, which is roughly 500,000-square-foot (46,451-square-meter), covered in solar panels and insulated like a freezer. It’s located across the street from homes in Boyle Heights, a working-class neighborhood east of downtown, and city officials on Monday warned people to stay inside or wear masks due to smoke pollution.
A large warehouse fire can typically be put out in a day, but in a cold storage facility, it can take weeks, authorities said. The fire sparked Wednesday.
Here’s what to know:
Why is it taking so long to put it out?
Fires in cold storage facilities often burn for weeks because their heavily insulated ceilings, roofs and walls make them difficult to extinguish, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Jamie Stewart said.
Firefighters have not been able to enter the building due to the danger posed by floor-to-ceiling heavy-duty steel rack shelving, he said. They also have been unable to quickly ventilate the roof due to the insulation, which is what they would typically do to release gas and smoke and gain visibility inside a warehouse, he said.
The warehouse has rows that are 65-feet (20 meters) tall and 650-feet (200 meters) long loaded with pallets and boxes filled with frozen food, similar to the interior of a Costco or Home Depot warehouse store, Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore said during Monday’s news conference. There were about 85 million pounds (38.6 million kilograms) of frozen food stored inside, he said.
“I don’t know that we’ll ever get firefighters inside because the entire roof has been compromised and it is sitting on top of (those) 65-foot towers,” Moore said. “It’s extremely dangerous, and I don’t foresee ever putting our firefighters in that type of danger.”
Firefighters have been stripping away exterior walls on certain sides of the building and dousing it with heavy streams of water.
What caused the fire?
Michigan-based company Lineage Logistics, which operates the facility, said in a statement it believes the fire began when subcontractors were working on solar panels on the roof. But the official cause of the fire hasn’t been determined, the company said.
Lineage is working with fire officials investigating the blaze, the statement said.
Moore said the fire department continues to investigate but that preliminary information shows Lineage, which rents the warehouse, was leasing the roof to a solar company that what was working on the panels when the fired started.
“They attempted to try to extinguish it. They dialed 911, and it was off to the races,” he said.
What is stored at the facility?
The facility, called Big Bear, stores products such as seafood, pork, beef and poultry before they’re shipped to grocery stores and restaurants on the U.S. West Coast, Lineage said on its website.
A message sent to Lineage seeking details about the food and the companies affected by it was not immediately returned.
What are the air quality concerns?
The South Coast Air Quality Management District extended a warning about poor air quality in the area until Tuesday afternoon, saying the blaze continues to produce smoke impacting the neighborhood and areas north and east of the fire. The smoke is carrying microscopic particles known as PM2.5 that can penetrate deep into the lungs.
Light winds will also push the smoke in all directions, potentially impacting other parts of metropolitan LA, the district said.
Residents in the most impacted area were told to avoid vigorous physical activity and close all windows, doors and vents, turn off air conditioning and bring people and pets to an inside room because of the risk of hazardous air. Those who need to go outside in the smoky conditions should wear an N95 or P100 mask, health officials said.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents Boyle Heights, said residents want to know what materials and chemicals were in the warehouse, what burned and what is still burning. She said air quality results should include that information and be released in English and Spanish in terms that regular people can understand.
Jurado said families, workers and other residents are “seeing the smoke and smelling the odors and finding ash and debris near their homes and businesses.”
“We still do not have enough clear information about what burned and what may still be burning,” she said.
Copyright 2026 NPR
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