Why South Carolina-Clemson is suddenly the rivalry’s most-anticipated game in years.
A South Carolina fan holds up a Beat Clemson sign during Saturday’s game against Wofford at Williams-Brice Stadium.
A South Carolina fan holds up a Beat Clemson sign during Saturday’s game against Wofford at Williams-Brice Stadium. DWAYNE MCLEMORE
For years, the best South Carolina could do was play spoiler. The Gamecocks went into the final week of the season with a goal that wasn’t necessarily to create greatness but to thwart it.
Clemson has gone into the Palmetto Bowl ranked every year since 2014. In five of those seasons, the Tigers were a Top 4 team that was vying for a spot in the College Football Playoff.
And they’d meet a South Carolina team hoping to upend Upstate happiness.
Only once in that span (2017) did the Gamecocks also go into the game ranked. USC was No. 24 that year and lost by 24.
After No. 18 South Carolina (8-3) beat Wofford 56-12 and No. 17 Clemson (9-2) blew out The Citadel, next Saturday’s Palmetto Bowl is believed to be the eighth Top 25 matchup in the rivalry’s 121-year history. In the previous seven games, the Gamecocks are 5-2 with their last such victory coming 11 years ago.
Since Connor Shaw and Jadeveon Clowney and those guys left Columbia in 2013, the Gamecocks have one win over Clemson (2022). How big was it? Shane Beamer’s profile photo on X is still a picture from that day. In that image, he’s got his right arm raised and a look of pure euphoria plastered on his face.
That moment was probably the apex of Beamer’s head coaching career, as it capped off a seven-day stretch that included upsets of No. 5 Tennessee and the 8th-ranked Tigers.
The win, though, was more about what it meant for Clemson. The Tigers were knocked out of the College Football Playoff discussion. Their 40-game home winning streak was snapped. And it was all because of their rival.
But what did it really do for South Carolina? Yes, it raised the profile of South Carolina a tad. It might have helped fundraising and hype heading into 2023. But it just gave the Gamecocks an eighth win and sent them to the Gator Bowl, where they lost to Notre Dame.
That is all to say this: Saturday’s matchup at Clemson is probably the most important South Carolina game in over a decade.
Saturday will be more about the Gamecocks than the Tigers. No. 18 South Carolina might even be favored over No. 17 Clemson. And, most notable, it’s South Carolina that heads into Saturday with its fate more tied to the first year of the expanded College Football Playoff.
The Gamecocks — with wins over No. 10 Texas A&M, No. 24 Vanderbilt and No. 24 Missouri — have three wins better than Clemson. It does not have a loss worse than Clemson’s home defeat against Louisville (7-4). And the Gamecocks’ strength of schedule (No. 8) is well above the Tigers’ (No. 47).
Even with a win over Clemson, South Carolina would still need plenty of help to make the inaugural 12-team playoff. But in a Gamecocks season full of what-ifs — most revolving around the LSU and Alabama games — none would be worse than a bunch of other ranked teams losing and South Carolina having to ask itself: “What if we just beat Clemson?”
“Nothing matters if you don’t win football games. So what do we have do to go 1-0?” Shane Beamer said in his postgame press conference after Wofford. “Then after that — we’ve done all we can at that point.”
South Carolina went into the weekend with a 12% chance of making the College Football Playoff, per an ESPN metric. If it won out, those odds jumped to 34%. It wasn’t immediately clear how much South Carolina’s chances improved after No. 5 Indiana, No. 6 Alabama, No. 9 Ole Miss, No. 14 BYU, No. 15 Texas A&M and No. 16 Colorado all lost.
Whatever the chances are, they drop to zero with a loss to Clemson.
You can quickly see how this Palmetto Bowl impacts South Carolina more than Clemson.
With a win over the Tigers, a week of playoff talk craziness around Beamer’s team will ensue. Heck, even if the Gamecocks don’t make the playoff, think about this: The early signing period begins Dec. 4. The playoff won’t be announced until Dec. 8. Hype and excitement go a long way in early December.
A loss would feel like running a marathon, but the entire last mile is barefoot over Legos. You won’t remember the smooth sailing of the first 25 miles. You’ll think back to the last one, the one that caused anguish and pain and misery.
South Carolina’s national ranking won’t matter. Its current five-game winning streak would become be a little footnote. The eight regular-season wins will be a heck of an accomplishment, but the Gamecocks did the same thing two years ago.
It wouldn’t be new ground. Beating Clemson on Saturday and pushing into the playoff conversation would be.
