Top 25 in 25: South Carolina Football Season Preview

(AP Photo/Jacob Kupferman) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

We’re counting down the final 25 days before the college football season by previewing every one of our preseason top 25 teams! With 9 days left until week zero, we continue our previews with my No. 9 team in the country – the South Carolina Gamecocks.

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Projected Record: 8-4 (5-3)

Ceiling/Floor: 11-1/6-6

Projected Wins: Virginia Tech, SC State, Vanderbilt, Missouri, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Alabama, Coastal Carolina

Projected Losses: LSU, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Clemson

Most Intriguing Game: Alabama (Week 9)

South Carolina finished the 2024 regular season as one of the hottest teams in the nation, and return a good amount of production for 2025. I have the Gamecocks finishing 8-4, but that isn’t to say they won’t be a top 10-15 caliber team this season. If head coach Shane Beamer’s squad can find a way to win 9+ games with their schedule, they’ll likely be in the playoff.

If they have a successful season, a big reason for that will be quarterback LaNorris Sellers, who struggled early last fall but found his footing in the back half of the season. Sellers is widely regarded as a top 10 quarterback in the country this fall, and could be good enough to lead the offense to great things in 2025. Wide receiver Nyck Harbor is set to have a breakout season to help Sellers on the outside, and Jared Brown and Mazeo Bennett should provide more solid options there as well. The offensive line will have to replace three starters from a year ago, and the running back room loses Rocket Sanders, so new offensive coordinator Mike Shula may have to lean on his pass game early in the season.

The Gamecocks finished top 10 in the SNAP Model’s adjusted defensive efficiency a year ago, but it’ll be tough to remain there this season. Maybe the best defensive end in the country, Dylan Stewart, is back to disrupt opposing backfields, but the rest of the defense has a lot of questions that will need to be answered if South Carolina is going to be a playoff team this year. However, Beamer brought in a top 15 transfer class to try and address the missing pieces from a year ago.

I think the biggest question with this team heading into the season is if the team will remain as good as it was in the back-half of last year, or if that was more of a fluke and they’ll come back down to earth in 2025. I think it’s the former and the team really found something to close the season, but I’m not ruling out the ladder. The Gamecocks will have a huge test early as they face a very underrated Virginia Tech team in Atlanta to open the season.

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