Gamecocks at pivotal point of season
With three defeats in league play, including two to likely division leaders Georgia and Kentucky, South Carolina is out of the race for Southeastern Conference East title, but that doesn’t lessen the importance of Saturday night’s home date with Tennessee.
The Gamecocks (3-3, 2-3 SEC) are at a pivotal point as they look to gain bowl eligibility and enhance their resumes for the postseason, and the Volunteers (3-4, 1-3 SEC) are pretty much in the same situation.
The Gamecocks need to win three of their final five games to get to the six-win level, and three of those five outings are on the road.
After the Vols, the Gamecocks go to Ole Miss and Florida, are home against Chattanooga, and finish the regular season — at least for now — at Clemson.
A loss to the Vols would leave the Gamecocks needing to win three of their last four unless athletics director Ray Tanner is able to find an opponent for Dec. 1 to make up for the game with Marshall that was cancelled back in September because of storm warnings.
“I’m very confident we will be playing here on Dec. 1,” coach Will Muschamp said. “I don’t know against who. That’s for coach Tanner. I’ll let him handle that.”
As to the business at hand, the Gamecocks will be going up against a Tennessee team that seemed to get things headed in the right direction with a mid-October win at Auburn but was no match for No. 1 Alabama at home last week. The Crimson Tide jumped out to a 28-0 lead in the first 12 minutes of the game on its way to a 58-21 victory.
It was the third loss for the Vols in their last four games.
The Gamecocks had an open date last week after losing their previous outing 26-23 to Texas A&M, but the time off should help quarterback Jake Bentley get back to health. He played against the Aggies after missing the 37-35 win over Missouri the week before because of a knee injury, but he was only 17-of-35 passing for 223 yards with an interception.
The junior’s career completion percentage is better than 62 percent, so it was far from a vintage performance against the Aggies even with his three touchdown passes.
“I wouldn’t say he was 100 percent in our last ball game,” Muschamp said. “I would say he was a pretty high percentage. We wouldn’t have put him out there if he couldn’t protect himself. But I’ve certainly seen him more mobile in the off week, and today and Sunday night, as opposed to before.”