5 things we’ve learned about South Carolina as Gamecocks head into bye week

South Carolina heads into the bye week with a 3-1 record (1-1 SEC) — exactly the way some of us projected it.

Here are five things we’ve learned about the Gamecocks through four games:

1. South Carolina might be in the top half of the SEC

So much of the doubt around South Carolina football coming into the season concerned the schedule. There were seven ranked teams and the October lineup of vs. Ole Miss, at Alabama and at Oklahoma seemed about as fun as swimming in pepper spray.

But look at South Carolina’s schedule now. It’s sort of manageable.

The Kentucky win was massive for the Gamecocks to set themselves up for bowl eligibility. The LSU loss stung for a million different reasons, but most of all because of this: South Carolina was the better football team for the majority of the game. LSU is currently a Top 15 team, so why would the Gamecocks be scared of any other Top 15 team?

Here’s the other big thing: The rest of the SEC is in shambles. No. 11 Missouri nearly lost to Vanderbilt, which just lost to Georgia State. Texas A&M, which nearly fell to Bowling Green, has some quarterback injury questions. Oklahoma simply has quarterback issues.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows everywhere else.

The Ole Miss and Alabama games are going to be South Carolina’s toughest tests, but at least the Rebels have to play inside Williams-Brice Stadium. All of a sudden, you can look at South Carolina’s schedule and thank the scheduling powers for keeping Texas, Georgia and Tennessee — all Top 5 squads — off the Gamecocks’ slate for the next two years.

Right now, nine SEC teams are ranked in the AP Top 25. South Carolina isn’t one of them, but there’s no reason to think that won’t change.

2. LaNorris Sellers will only grow with experience

It was so easy, amid all the hype around quarterback LaNorris Sellers, all the talk about his poise and the pictures of Pat McAfee wearing Sellers’ goggles, to forget that Sellers was just a redshirt freshman who had never made a collegiate start.

Though Sellers hasn’t played, really, in six quarters for the Gamecocks — hampered by an ankle sprain suffered in the first half against LSU — he has been solid this season. Not remarkable, but good.

He’s completed 29 of 53 passes (55%) for just under 400 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for 145 yards and a trio of touchdowns.

In other words: He’s still settling in to being an SEC starter. That part is clear. Very few can jump in and start throwing for 400 yards right away. But the good news is that Sellers is progressing — in every game this season, he’s looked better, sharper, more confident.

Heck, when he left the LSU game, the Gamecocks were up seven and he had already rushed for a pair of scores. For a half, it seemed like he had figured everything out.

Time will tell how much the injury hampers him. Perhaps it ends up being a blessing, a chance for him to step back and see the game from a new perspective. Or maybe the progression will be stunted because most progression drops off when you have to play Ole Miss, Alabama and Oklahoma.

But the more Sellers plays, the better he’ll look.

3. The defense is better than advertised

It was quite interesting to watch Akron’s offense on Saturday. The Zips seemed to have one goal: Avoid a sack.

The entire game plan revolved around getting the ball out in a second — either throw a quick screen or take a drop and just chuck it to the first read. Anything to make sure Kyle Kennard and Dylan Stewart didn’t flatten their quarterback.

That is the reputation South Carolina’s defense has made for itself so far this season. A group of freakishly tall, freakishly fast athletes with advanced pass-rushing moves who will disrupt things. That’s a helluva compliment.

There was a consensus coming into the season that the defense was going to be improved. The Gamecocks returned too many starters to backslide — especially at defensive tackle, where T.J. Sanders, Boogie Huntley and Tonka Hemingway all came back for another year.

The surprise has been those edge guys. Stewart — the five-star true freshman — has only recorded two total tackles in the past two weeks, but was drawing triple teams in his first SEC game. He’s that much of a force. And Kennard, the Georgia Tech transfer, is tied for third in America in tackles for loss (8.5) and aside from those penalties against LSU, has probably been South Carolina’s best overall player of 2024.

When you start thinking about the opponents South Carolina has to face, a blowout seems unlikely because one would think a defense this good should keep the Gamecocks in almost every game.

4. Beamer Ball is back

During his Welcome Home speaking tour this offseason, Gamecocks coach Shane Beamer got asked a lot about special teams. Often the questions were worded like this: “Coach, what happened to Beamer Ball?”

In 2023, the special-teams edge that every Beamer-coached team usually possesses dipped. The Gamecocks blocked fewer kicks than they did a year earlier. There were less-successful trick plays. Punter Kai Kroeger really struggled. It just didn’t seem like South Carolina had a major edge in special teams.

Fast forward a year and Beamer Ball is back.

Kroeger is back to being an All-American-caliber punter, currently fourth in the nation with an average punt of over 47 yards. Heck, his trickery is back. On a fake extra point against Akron, Kroeger bolted to the end zone for a two-point conversion. That came a few weeks after he hit Brady Hunt in the end zone on a fake field goal ... only for it to come back because of a penalty.

Then there’s the aggressiveness. Most memorable was Maurice Brown going flying as he blocked an LSU punt two weeks ago, setting up a South Carolina touchdown. But a year after blocking just four kicks, South Carolina has already blocked two in September.

5. Still searching for a pass catcher to step up

The massive question mark coming into this season was the wide receivers. As we head into the bye week, the receivers are still a bit of a conundrum.

A lot of that might just come down to a passing offense that started off very poorly as Sellers was getting adjusted to college football. But still, there’s only one Gamecock with over 100 receiving yards — and it’s true freshman Mazeo Bennett, who has a team-high 11 catches for 159 yards and two scores.

Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe Bennett is just the top pass catcher and we’ll all officially figure that out in a couple weeks.

But even if that’s the case, that won’t be enough. There have to be more trustworthy options for Sellers — especially on third down. Perhaps Jared Brown, who missed the Akron game, is that player. Maybe tight end Joshua Simon will get more targets after the bye week.

Right now, it’s still a guessing game.