Five final thoughts and a score prediction ahead of South Carolina vs. Ole Miss game

Coming off a bye week, South Carolina welcomes No. 12 Mississippi to Williams-Brice Stadium on Saturday. The game is set to kick off at 3:30 p.m. and will air on ESPN.

Those are some facts. Here are some thoughts:

1. The Juice is loose

Every year we say college football is becoming more professionalized than ever, which is just people saying that players are now getting paid and have more of a say in where they play.

What it was missing was betrayal. Not anymore.

When I think of Juice Wells — the former South Carolina WR who transferred to Ole Miss – returning to Williams-Brice Stadium on Saturday, I think about LeBron James having to go back to Cleveland for the first time. Or Russell Wilson, fresh off of going to the Broncos, playing in Seattle again.

There’s something fun about this. Not the hate or vitriol, but the passion. There are plenty of South Carolina fans who gave $50 or so to the NIL collective wanting to support Wells, wanting to make sure he was taken care of and stayed a Gamecock. And then Wells hardly played and bolted for the portal about a week after telling fans, “I’ll be back next year.”

On Saturday, Wells has to face the music in front of 80,000 fans who do not like him — 80,000 people who feel as though he personally spurned them. Now they get the chance to speak their mind.

We normally only see this with head coaches — and even that’s pretty rare in college football. What’s interesting is Wells isn’t a quarterback. Like, is it possible to heckle a wide receiver? Will he even notice? Will Ole Miss throw him a screen to ease the nerves? Will people chirp at him when he gets off the bus?

We’ll see.

2. South Carolina still has hope in October

Dylan Stewart was in second grade the last time South Carolina flipped the calendar to October and had just one loss. It’s been since 2013 that the Gamecocks have been this far in the calendar and had a chance at 11 wins.

Now, in a lot of those years, South Carolina had already played five games by October — but who cares about that? If you want a real stat, though: In Beamer’s three seasons at USC, the Gamecocks have entered October with a 7-7 (.500) record, cumulatively.

“It’s something that we looked at,” Beamer said of the slow starts. “We knew that we needed to get off to a better start in 2024, against Power-4 teams especially.”

So how exactly does Beamer go about being better out of the gate?

“We got into our weekly game schedule — we basically did that the whole month of August,” he said. “In years past, I’d move practice times around. I’d move days off around.”

3. Is Shane Beamer good off a bye?

There’s a thinking with basketball coaches that you can separate the good from the great coaches based upon their out-of-bounds plays. It’s those situations, a set play determined by X’s and O’s, where a stellar coach makes an impact.

The same is true for a football coach coming off a bye week. For one Sunday a year, a few folks simply live on the philosophy “Don’t bet against Andy Reid coming off a bye week.” His 27-4 post-open-week record in the NFL is the stuff of legend.

This is very important in college football this season, with every school getting two bye weeks, and well, it’s still hard to say what to make of Beamer-led teams coming off a bye.

So far at South Carolina, he is 2-1 with wins over Florida (2021) and Texas A&M (2022), but also a cataclysmic loss to Florida last season .

A victory over Mississippi on Saturday and a win over Texas A&M after a late-October bye week would move Beamer very high on the Andy Reid scale.

4. South Carolina has to slow Ole Miss’ offense

We’ve seen South Carolina face one good quarterback this season: LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier threw for nearly 300 yards in a LSU victory.

How will South Carolina defend Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart , who has the second-most passing yards in America? And wide receiver Tre Harris, who has over 150 more receiving yards than anyone else in the country?

The answer, likely, is it can’t. If South Carolina allowed deep touchdowns to Old Dominion and Akron, it seems like a good bet that Harris will get behind the defense at some point and haul in a home run.

The goal has to be manageable: Stop the run and make tackles. Do those two things and you give your offense a chance.

Or edge Kyle Kennard could just sack Dart a half-dozen times and make it so the ball never has a chance to be caught.

“The quicker we get the quarterback, the less (our DBs) have to cover,” said defensive coordinator Clayton White.

5. Musings from Pro Football Focus

Earlier this week, I got access to Pro Football Focus , a website where analysts watch every position on every snap in every game and grade them. Here were some of the interesting stats/grades I saw.

▪ In pass rush grades, Stewart was No. 7 in the nation. Kennard was No. 16.

▪ South Carolina has missed 39 tackles this season, and both defensive backs DQ Smith and Judge Collier are missing over 40% of their tackle attempts.

▪ Cornerback O’Donnell Fortune has been targeted 22 times — four more than anyone else — and has allowed a reception 59% of the time.

▪ The highest-graded starting pass blocker is transfer guard Torricelli Simpkins. He’s also the best offensive lineman in run blocking.

▪ True freshman Mazeo Bennett (126 snaps) has taken more snaps than any other USC wide receiver.

▪ Though I thought the number was higher, South Carolina has dropped seven passes. Only Jared Brown has dropped two.

▪ Running backs Rocket Sanders and Jawarn Howell were graded as the worst pass-blockers on the team … by a lot.

▪ Sellers has been pressured 27 times, and nine of those turned into sacks.

PREDICTION

Ole Miss 34, South Carolina 27