South Carolina’s climb back into the national conversation gets another test Saturday, and this one comes with a little more weight after the first College Football Playoff poll dropped the Gamecocks at No. 21.
Shane Beamer’s team has gone from stumbling out of the gate in SEC play to looking like one of the league’s most dangerous groups. South Carolina is 5-3 overall and 3-3 in conference play, and it has ripped off three straight wins after losing its first three SEC games. The latest was the most convincing of the bunch: a 42-25 win at Oklahoma on Saturday.
LaNorris Sellers was at the center of it all. He threw for a season-high 301 yards and three touchdowns, then added 96 rushing yards and two more scores. South Carolina piled up 521 yards of offense and backed it up with a defense that smothered Oklahoma early, holding the Sooners to 71 yards in the first half and 359 for the game.
Beamer isn’t interested in treating the ranking like anything more than a snapshot.
“It’s not like if we’re ranked, not ranked -- it’s not going to change anything that I do,” South Carolina coach Shane Beamer said Tuesday afternoon. “It’s not.
It’s about us just continuing to get better. If our players don’t understand that every week is a new season, then they haven’t been paying attention to college football all year long.”
He knows the next step is tougher than the last one.
“We’ve got a big challenge on Saturday,” Beamer said. “We need to go into Saturday and be able to be better than what we were last week at Oklahoma.”
That challenge comes against Texas A&M, which arrives in Columbia, S.C., off a bye week and carrying the memory of a 31-20 loss at then-No. 13 Alabama on Oct.
- The Aggies are 4-4 overall and 1-4 in the SEC, and they’ve already matched their total number of league losses from the previous two seasons combined.
Marcel Reed went 14 of 21 for 163 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions against Alabama. Texas A&M also managed only 15 yards in the fourth quarter as the game slipped away, though Mike Elko saw enough in Tuscaloosa to believe his team is moving forward.
“I thought there were times in that Alabama game where we played football the way we would like to,” Elko said on Monday. “We didn’t finish the game, obviously, the way we wanted to.
But I think some of the growth is there and there are signs that progress is being made. We’ve got to make it faster, more, bigger in order to get the results that we want.”
South Carolina will also have to adjust without top running back Matt Fuller, who is out for the rest of the regular season after suffering a broken bone in his lower left leg against Oklahoma. Fuller leads the Gamecocks’ running backs in carries with 94, rushing yards with 530 and touchdowns with five.
Saturday’s matchup will be the 13th meeting between the programs. Texas A&M won the last one in dramatic fashion, rallying from 27 points down to beat South Carolina 31-30 at home last season.
In Other News...
South Carolina Fans Just Got A Clear CFP Message From The Committee
The College Football Playoff committees first in-season rankings sent a familiar message across the sport, and South Carolina fans had reason to notice it. The initial list leaned heavily toward the SEC, with the committee elevating several league teams above unbeaten squads from other conferences and signaling once again that rsum, schedule strength and quality wins will matter as much as raw record.
For the Gamecocks, it was a reminder of how narrow the margin can be in a crowded playoff race. The committees chairman pointed to the absence of signature wins for teams such as Notre Dame as a reason they landed lower, while SEC teams were given credit even with losses on the ledger. South Carolina now has a clearer sense of the standard it will be judged against, even if the road ahead still leaves plenty to be decided. [Read more 🡒]
South Carolinas New-Look Roster Already Showed Why Fans Should Believe
South Carolinas new-look mens basketball roster wasted little time giving fans a reason to buy in, rolling past Stetson 81-55 to open the 2026-27 season. Juan Fernandez led the way with 20 points, Cam Heide added 13, and the Gamecocks looked every bit like a team built to be harder to handle around the basket than they were a year ago.
The size and rebounding edge was obvious from the start, and it gave South Carolina a steady foundation even as the lineup featured plenty of new faces. For a team trying to establish an identity early, that kind of opening-night performance matters, especially when the pieces are still learning how to fit together. [Read more 🡒]
South Carolina Is Trying A New Fix For Williams-Brice Entry Chaos
Williams-Brice Stadium is getting an early-entry makeover for the upcoming game against Texas A&M, with South Carolina opening all gates two hours before kickoff in an effort to ease the long lines that have frustrated fans this season. The move comes as the program continues working through stadium renovations and the shift to all-digital tickets, two changes that have added extra pressure to the entry process on game day.
To help get people in sooner, the school is also offering discounted beer and concessions during that early window, a clear nudge for fans to show up before the rush. South Carolina has added more ticket scanners and magnetometers as well, hoping the combination of more equipment and an earlier arrival window will make the experience smoother for a crowd that has had to deal with more bottlenecks than usual. [Read more 🡒]