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South Carolina’s first job is stopping No. 21 North Carolina QB Drake Maye

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South Carolina’s first job is stopping No. 21 North Carolina QB Drake Maye


COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina’s defensive team room has a large poster that shows a group of celebrating Gamecocks with the words, “Get off the field.”

South Carolina will need to get that done in the opener instead of being driven off the field by No. 21 North Carolina and its Heisman Trophy hopeful, quarterback Drake Maye.

“We’re just going to have to do our jobs,” Gamecocks middle linebacker Stone Blanton said. “Keep him contained and play good football.”

Easier said than done against Maye, who was the ACC player of the year as a freshman. Maye threw for 4,321 yards with 38 touchdowns and ran for 698 yards and seven scores. His passing yards, 342 completions and 517 attempts were all single-season records at South Carolina.

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“It’s just playing sound defense,” nose tackle Alex Huntley said. “Trust that everybody on the team is doing their job and know we can do this and we will do it.”

That’s tough enough to do with a veteran team, yet South Carolina enters the opener with many questions and new faces from the defense that ended last season with wins over No. 5 Tennessee and No. 8 Tennessee before a close bowl loss to No. 21 Notre Dame.

Cornerback Cam Smith was a second-round pick in the NFL draft while defensive tackle Zaach Pickens was a third-round selection. Former five-star recruit defensive end Jordan Burch transferred to Oregon.

South Carolina wide receivers Nyckoles Harbor (8) runs drills during the first day of NCAA college football practice in Columbia, S.C., Friday, Aug. 4, 2023. Gamecocks coach Shane Beamer won a recruiting battle with Oregon to get Harbor, who will play wide receiver. Credit: AP/Sam Wolfe

In all, only five defensive starters from the 45-38 loss to the Fighting Irish in the Gator Bowl return to open against the Tar Heels.

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South Carolina had plenty of areas to fix even if everyone had returned. The team was 10th in the Southeastern Conference in total defense (404 yards allowed per game) and scoring defense (28 points per game).

The Gamecocks were 11th in sacks in the SEC. The strongest area from last year was against the pass, where they led the league with 15 interceptions.

That back end has the most returning talent in safeties Nick Emmanwori and DQ Smith and cornerback Marcellus Dial.

UNC Quarterback Drake Maye throws the ball at North Carolina's...

UNC Quarterback Drake Maye throws the ball at North Carolina’s NFL Pro Day in Chapel Hill, N.C., March 27, 2023. North Carolina opens the season against South Carolina on Sept. 2. Credit: AP/Karl B DeBlaker

The group played a big role in frustrating the Vols and quarterback Hendon Hooker in South Carolina’s stunning 63-38 victory. A week later, the defense tightened up in the second half to overcome Clemson’s double-digit lead and win 31-30.

Smith, the sophomore safety, respects Maye’s talent, but the team believes it’s capable of matching up well with anyone in the country.

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“He does a lot of things well,” Smith said of Maye. “He’s a person who can stay in the pocket, make every throw. He’s a great quarterback. Obviously, we’ve got to be on our A game.”

Behind Maye, North Carolina averaged just less than 35 points a game. It only twice scored fewer than 20 points a game, in losses to Georgia Tech (21-17) and Clemson (39-10) in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game.

Gamecocks coach Shane Beamer sees the complete package when he watches film of Maye. He says the key is limiting North Carolina’s run game. “We’ve got to tackle well in space and stop the run,” the coach said. “Certainly, when he does throw, we’ve got to get pressure on him.”

A boost to South Carolina’s cause would be help from its own offense. The Gamecocks and second-year quarterback Spencer Rattler got hot at the end, with Rattler throwing for 1,044 yards and 10 touchdowns over the final three games of 2022.

“They had a lot of momentum at the end of the season,” Tar Heels coach Mack Brown said of South Carolina’s attack.

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Rattler’s not putting one second of thought into a quarterback competition. He said his focus is on doing what he must to help the team’s offense move, no matter who’s on the opposite sideline.

“It’ll be fun,” Rattler said. “But I’m trying to make plays for my team and lead us to victory.”



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South Carolina high school football scores: Live updates, live streams (11/8/2024)

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South Carolina high school football scores: Live updates, live streams (11/8/2024)


The 2024 South Carolina high school football season is in high gear and SBLive Sports is the place to follow of the live scoring updates and finals.

Follow the action get the most to date scores by tracking the SBLive South Carolina High School Football Scoreboard. We will have in-game score updates and all of the final scores from every corner of the state. You can also search for full schedules and complete scores from all of your very favorite teams.

Here’s a guide to following all of the South Carolina high school football this week.

STATEWIDE SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL SCOREBOARD

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CLASS 5A SCORES | CLASS 4A SCORES

CLASS 3A SCORES | CLASS 2A SCORES

CLASS 1A SCORES

SCISA CLASS AAAA | SCISA CLASS AAA

SCISA CLASS AA | SCISA A

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2024 SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL SCHEDULES: FIND YOUR TEAM

Can’t make it to your favorite team’s game but still want to watch them live? You can watch dozens of South Carolina high school football games live on the NFHS Network:

WATCH LIVE ON NFHS NETWORK

We also invite you to visit the brand new South Carolina homepage on High School on SI, powered by SBLive Sports, for the latest news, highlights, analysis, scores, photos and information on South Carolina high school sports. Follow our live game coverage and read our feature stories, breaking news, the latest recruiting news, rankings and much more.

Follow SBLive South Carolina throughout the 2024 high school football season for Live Updates, the most up to date Schedules & Scores and complete coverage from the preseason through the state championships!

Be sure to Bookmark High School on SI for all of the latest high school football news.

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To get live updates on your phone – as well as follow your favorite teams and top games – you can download the SBLive Sports app: Download iPhone App | Download Android App

— Mitch Stephens | mitch@scorebooklive.com | @highschoolonsi



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ESPN's College Football Playoff Predictor has updated again. Here's where South Carolina stands

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ESPN's College Football Playoff Predictor has updated again. Here's where South Carolina stands


ESPN.com’s College Football Playoff predictor isn’t perfect because it applies analytics to a situation that ultimately will be decided by a committee of humans. But it does provide a nice guide and discussion piece about which teams have the best chance to make this year’s College Football Playoff.

Because of that human element, the predictor has been updating twice each week, once on Sunday to account for Saturday’s games and again after the latest CFP rankings are released.

[More for subscribers: What latest rankings mean for South Carolina’s College Football Playoff chances]

While the Gamecocks won their game on Saturday and got a lot of help from the teams around them last week, the logjam of SEC teams ahead of them in Tuesday’s rankings is still limiting their upside at this time.

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With the committee putting South Carolina behind fellow three-loss SEC teams Alabama and Ole Miss, the predictor currently gives South Carolina a 20 percent chance of making the 12-team field, which is three percentage points lower than its chances in Sunday’s update.

The Gamecocks do, of course, have one more huge opportunity to pad their resume when they travel to Clemson this weekend to renew the annual rivalry in what may be the biggest game in the matchup’s history.

Beat the Tigers, who are currently No. 12 in the CFP Top 25, and South Carolina’s chances of making the playoff jump to 46 percent, according to the predictor.

While that’s just under a coin flip, it’s also 12 percentage points lower than it was in Sunday’s update.

South Carolina is still very much in the hunt but is going to need to win and play very well against Clemson and get more help around it.

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As a reminder, the CFP committee’s top 12 teams won’t correlate exactly with the 12-team field.

The CFP will consist of the top five highest-ranked conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked at-large schools. The top four conference champions will receive the top four seeds and a first-round bye. The fifth conference champion will be seeded by its CFP ranking. If that ranking is outside of the top 12 it will be seeded 12th as the final team in the field.

The teams seeded 5 through 12 will fight it out in the first round with the winners advancing to the quarterfinal round to face the top four seeds.

The Gamecocks and Tigers are set for a noon showdown Saturday in Clemson.

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ESPN Analytics uses FPI to simulate the entire college football season 200,000 times. A committee model is applied to mimic College Football Playoff selections and seeding in order to generate a 12-team bracket for each simulation. The most likely CFP teams are provided for user selections. After user inputs, a likely bracket is generated and randomly simulated using FPI.



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The Verdict: South Carolina was built for this moment

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The Verdict: South Carolina was built for this moment


South Carolina football superfan Chris Paschal writes a weekly column during the season for GamecockCentral called “The Verdict.” Chris is a lawyer at Goings Law Firm in Columbia.

It will have been 44,592 days since Clemson students marched onto our campus with guns drawn when the Gamecocks take the field this Saturday in Death Valley.  Back in 1902, Clemson students were mad because of a cartoon that depicted a Gamecock whipping a Tiger.

They marched on our campus, ready to cause bodily harm, over a cartoon. For 44,592 days, Clemson students, fans, coaches, players, and administrators have done everything but declare war on South Carolina to ensure they remain the superior football program in the state. 

In 1902 there was more than just the cartoon. In 1902, Carolina beat Clemson.

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution put it best following the game: the Clemson Tiger “was so successfully tamed this morning by Carolina. Its tail was twisted and twisted by the sturdy ‘pig skin pushers’ of Carolina, and after two hours and more of hard battle it gave up further fight, for time was called and it became as tame as the proverbial lamb.”

Carolina upset Clemson who at the time was led by John Heisman and was considered one of the great southern football powers. I think that too probably had a little something to do with the hostilities and hurt feelings coming from the Clemson students. 

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For the 121st time this Saturday, it will be Carolina and Clemson playing a football game against each other. And while we are past the days of armed invasions, you can’t help but think this Saturday’s showdown may be the most consequential in the series’ history.

There have certainly been big matchups in years past. I am not discounting 1987. I am not overlooking 1979. I understand 2011-2013 featured some great teams. But this coming Saturday, both Clemson and Carolina will still be alive and in contention to bring home a national title.

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The chances for both are not significant, but they are legitimate. For the first time in the entirety of the rivalry’s history, both Carolina and Clemson fans can hope that with a win over their hated rival they are one step closer to a playoff berth, which means one more step closer in the quest for a national championship. 

Hopefully, the players donning the garnet and black won’t think similar thoughts as they run out onto the field for what should be a cold but sunny day. This game to the players needs to be about one thing: beating a team they are better than.

In continuing the list of firsts, for the first time in roughly a decade, South Carolina will have what I consider to be the better football team when they kick the ball off against Clemson. I think we have a better defense, I think we have a better offensive line, I think we have skill position players that are just as good as Clemson’s (if not better), and I think we have the better quarterback.

But that is what I think. I am an attorney. I am a fan.  Clemson players won’t just roll over because I declared we have the better team. In fact, I expect this Dabo Swinney-led Clemson football team to fight like hell in an effort to keep their thumb still firmly on top of us. 

Like Clemson fans, I think Clemson football players and coaches also think it is their birthright to beat the Gamecocks. And why shouldn’t they?

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Clemson has won eight out of the last nine against Carolina. They have danced on our sidelines in the fourth quarter to Sandstorm, they have talked about how they think they will dominate us; they have talked about how we aren’t the real USC nor are we the real Carolina.

Underneath this façade of respect and admiration for this year’s Carolina team, Clemson fans (and I assume players) quietly assume 2024 will be just like most other recent years. They assume the moment will be too big, they assume the ghosts of years past will be too much, and they assume that by about 3:30 in the afternoon, Carolina will have once again not been physically or mentally strong enough to defeat Clemson. 

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But I also think these assumptions, which often manifest themself in a holier-than-thou arrogance, stem from a small shred of doubt and fear that has crept into their minds. Carolina fans had no idea Clemson was passing the Gamecocks as a football program until it was too late. From 2009-2013, Carolina won five straight over Clemson. They assumed Clemson and their bumpkin coach were finally second fiddle to the Gamecocks. They ignored Clemson’s recruiting successes, they explained away Clemson’s double-digit win seasons as illegitimate due to being in the ACC, and they watched Clemson build a juggernaut that had passed Carolina in a very real and lasting way by 2014. 

All it took was one whipping in 2014 for Carolina fans to realize that Clemson was now on a path that would destroy Gamecock hopes and dreams for many years to come. That feeling of “oh, crap” that Carolina fans felt in the few weeks leading up to the 2014 Clemson games, I wonder if Clemson fans are feeling that very same thing leading up to this Saturday’s game.

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Maybe the thought of Carolina passing Clemson as a program hasn’t even crossed their minds. Maybe it is absurd that I would mention that in this column. Maybe by the final snap on Saturday, Clemson will have soundly defeated Carolina and made me and so many hopeful Gamecock fans look foolish. 

Or maybe Harbor, Kennard, Stewart, Hemingway, Sanders, Knight, Emmanwori, Sellers, and so many other Gamecock stalwarts are capable of handling business and showing we do have the better team.

A win this weekend could be program defining. It at the very least could be season defining.

Is Shane Beamer and this Gamecock program always a bridesmaid but never the bride?  Or is this team going to let this state and this nation understand that this is a new type of Gamecock football program?

We won’t know until Saturday, but I will be in Clemson cheering Carolina on, with the hope – the belief – that we will see that latter. Let’s tame the tiger once again into the proverbial lamb.

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Forever to thee. 



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