Three bold predictions about South Carolina’s 2024 football season

We’ve got just about a week left of predictions. About a week until South Carolina finally begins the 2024 season.

So, until the Gamecocks kick off against Old Dominion on Aug. 31 inside Williams-Brice Stadium, prognostications are still valid. Our guesses have yet to be doomed, yet to look utterly ridiculous.

I have already projected the Gamecocks will go 7-5 this season . In crafting that exercise, though, a few more specific prophecies came to this oracle. Here are three bold predictions that will absolutely, 100% come true over the course of this season.

1. Rocket Sanders will rush for more yards than anyone not named George Rogers

I honestly thought this number would be higher.

Over the past 40 years, South Carolina has produced some brilliant running backs. Marcus Lattimore might be the best of the group, but right in the mix are Mike Davis, Rico Dowdle, Harold Green, Duce Staley, Kevin Harris, on and on.

Yet none has even sniffed Rogers’ single-season rushing record. In his 1980 Heisman campaign , the future No. 1 overall pick barreled and bruised his way to 1,894 rushing yards. It broke the school record he set just a year earlier (1,681 yards).

Since then, South Carolina has played football for 43 seasons using who knows how many running backs. And the closest anyone came to matching Rogers was Lattimore, who ran for 1,197 yards in his brilliant freshman season (2010).

So take Rogers’ stats out of the mix — his numbers are in a stratosphere unlikely to be touched — and the school record is gettable. And I think it’s going to be surpassed this season by South Carolina’s Raheim “Rocket” Sanders.

He’s going to rush for at least 1,200 yards. Book it.

The case for it is simple: He’s already done it. At Arkansas in 2022, Sanders ran for over 1,400 yards and scored 10 touchdowns — when he was just a sophomore.

This season, he’s the safety blanket for redshirt freshman quarterback LaNorris Sellers. He’s going to get the carries. Like at Arkansas with QB KJ Jefferson, he’s playing with a dual-threat QB, meaning defenses can’t key on him in the run game.

And he’s cut weight, down to a lean 225 pounds and has been touted by every person in that building.

By the end of the year, he’ll have the best season by a South Carolina running back ... not named George Rogers.

2. A tight end will lead the team in receiving touchdowns

This is built off three premises.

1. I’m skeptical how good South Carolina’s wide receivers are going to be.

2. The Gamecocks don’t have a top wideout right now . There’s no obvious Xavier Legette replacement. No clear alpha.

3. I love the USC tight ends. The trio of Joshua Simon, Ball State transfer Brady Hunt and true freshman Michael Smith could probably stack up against any tight end group in America.

Even better: There’s precedent.

In the past 20 years, a South Carolina tight end has led the team in receiving touchdowns. Kind of.

In 2016, Gamecocks tight end Kevin Crosby (4 TDs) was tied for the team lead with receiver Bryan Edwards (4 TDs). Then in 2021, TE Jaheim Bell and WR Josh Vann each finished the season with 5 TDs.

So, it’s possible. And without a go-to, clear-cut No. 1 wide receiver — and the rushing duo of Sellers and Sanders — it seems unlikely that someone is going to run away with receiving touchdowns. It might be one of those seasons (like ‘16 or ‘21) when the leader comes in at just four or five touchdowns.

All it takes is Simon exploiting some puny Akron or Wofford safety on some goal-line plays and he’s already got two or three scores. Or maybe Hunt — at 6-foot-5, 253 pounds — keeps getting free up the seam and has five touchdowns. Or Smith, who just arrived on campus this summer, becomes one of Sellers’ top targets.

What might cause this prediction to flop is that the production is spread out among the tight ends just like the wide receivers. But my forecast is one of the tight ends breaks out and becomes the best pass catcher on the team.

3. South Carolina will lose a game on a missed kick

I know, I know. This isn’t quite as fun as the first two.

But, as is, I feel more confident about Red 23 hitting at the roulette wheel than a college kicker nailing a pressure field goal.

After the kicking conundrum that unfolded this USC preseason camp, it might take a month before anyone has full trust in whoever the South Carolina kicker is.

Less than a week away from the first game, it’s unclear who USC”s starting placekicker is. The favorite is probably sixth-year senior Alex Herrera, but it didn’t inspire confidence that no one had separated themselves two weeks into camp.

Which brings us to the final seconds of some game this season. Perhaps it’s Week 2 at Kentucky. Or in October at Oklahoma. Or maybe in the Palmetto Bowl against Clemson. The game is gonna come down to a kick and the Gamecocks are going to bring on their placekicker.

Maybe it’s Herrera. Maybe it’s true freshman Mason Love or one of the walk-ons — Daniel Lester, William Joyce or Peyton Argent. Whoever it is, they’re gonna be nervous. Whoever it is, they’re gonna be inexperienced. And I have this feeling they’re gonna miss.

One other reason I think the Gamecocks will suffer a defeat because of a botched kick: They’re due.

Since 2001, I could only come up with four instances where South Carolina lost a game because of a missed field goal: ‘01 at Arkansas , ‘07 at Tennessee, ‘06 at Florida and ‘14 vs. the Volunteers.

It is a miracle South Carolina has gone a decade without being bitten by college kickers. Going much longer seems impossible.