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

There is something so beautiful about this week.

Two SEC programs that are often overshadowed by the Alabama, LSU and Georgia hype get to see the limelight. And one of those programs will be the first school with an SEC victory in 2024. What could be more intriguing than that?

South Carolina and Kentucky will play this week — the earliest these two teams have ever met — at Kroger Field in Lexington. The game will be aired on ABC and kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m.

Here are some thoughts.

1. This game likely has season-long implications

On Wednesday, Lexington Herald-Leader columnist John Clay wrote two sentences that I couldn’t agree with more. He said of South Carolina coach Shane Beamer and Kentucky coach Mark Stoops:

“The prevailing opinion is that to have a chance at a breakthrough season at Kentucky, Stoops has to beat Beamer. To have a chance at a breakthrough season at South Carolina, Beamer has to beat Stoops.”

It makes a lot of sense — and it seems to go past even a “breakthrough season.”

For both teams, a loss on Saturday makes the climb to bowl eligibility much-more daunting. Imagine if the Gamecocks lose on Saturday and their next five games are: vs. LSU, vs. Akron, vs. Ole Miss, at Alabama and at Oklahoma. Without a win against the Wildcats on Saturday, a 2-5 start would seem to be a better bet than not.

Oddly enough, though, history doesn’t necessarily support the claim that beating Kentucky is a must for bowl eligibility.

In the past 10 seasons (starting in 2014), South Carolina has beaten the Wildcats just three times yet made a half-dozen bowl appearances. Another thing: Only six out of the past 10 years has the winner of South Carolina-Kentucky gone on to have a better record than the loser.

Maybe it really doesn’t mean as much as we think. Or, perhaps, with the newly structured SEC, it means even more.

2. A battle of dueling QB philosophies

At the end of the 2023 season, both South Carolina and Kentucky lost their veteran quarterback to the NFL. Spencer Rattler departed the Gamecocks and Devin Leary left the Wildcats. Both programs couldn’t have handled the next steps any different.

Kentucky did not wait to grab its guy. Two days after the transfer portal window opened in early-December, Georgia backup quarterback Brock Vandergriff committed to Kentucky. Perhaps there’s more to the story, but on the outside it looks like a program that knew what it wanted, didn’t wait to weigh its options and struck quickly.

South Carolina, meanwhile, waited and waited and waited. The Gamecocks nearly got Vanderbilt transfer AJ Swann but instead talked with a number of options and didn’t pick a guy for over a month, when Auburn transfer Robby Ashford committed to the program.

Part of the delay, Beamer said, was that he refused to promise the starting quarterback job to anyone — and that, the coach said, caused a number of good quarterbacks to look elsewhere. Also, the Gamecocks felt solid about redshirt freshman LaNorris Sellers, so they were not as desperate.

Still, it’s interesting to think about. Is Kentucky better off because it has a junior who played in 11 games prior to this year? Is South Carolina better off because it has a 6-foot-3, 240-pound dual-threat quarterback with four years of eligibility remaining?

Time will tell. For now, both programs seem happy with how things turned out. We’ll see if they’re feeling that way in December.

3. Dylan Stewart taking the heat off of Nyck Harbor

I was listening to a college football podcast this week (shout out “Split Zone Duo”) and it again made me aware that a lot of college football fans know two things about South Carolina: Beamer is the head coach and the Gamecocks have this ridiculously fast kid named Nyck Harbor.

The problem is: Harbor is not yet a great receiver. That shouldn’t be a big deal, but to so many it is. Because they know Harbor. They know he has a 99 speed rating on the “NCAA College Football” video game and qualified for the Olympic Trials and was formerly a five-star prospect.

Harbor had zero catches on Saturday. And people know about that because they know of Harbor.

Luckily for South Carolina, outsiders (like “Split Zone Duo”) are turning their attention from one former five-star South Carolina signee to another.

True freshman edge Dylan Stewart was garnering national attention this week after just dominating Old Dominion’s offensive line in his first college game. He recorded 4 tackles, 2.5 TFLs, 1.5 sacks and 2 forced fumbles, including one on the fourth quarter that set up the game-winning touchdown.

He is the five-star that no one is questioning South Carolina about. That is very good for South Carolina and, perhaps, Harbor.

4. Don’t bother with time of possession

It was very interesting to me that since South Carolina’s narrow win over Old Dominion, Beamer has brought up on numerous occasions that South Carolina dominated the time-of-possession battle.

“You don’t have 35 minutes time of possession and a 16-play drive, a 13-play drive, a 10-play drive, and stink,” Beamer said Tuesday.

And, yet, somehow South Carolina’s offense had 35 minutes of possession and stunk. It’s such a silly thing to tout. Yep, we barely beat a Sun Belt team and our offense couldn’t complete a pass, but at least our defense was fresh. If South Carolina was 2023 Michigan, there would be an argument.

It seems likely Beamer wanted to strike a positive tone about the offense and that’s about as positive as it got. Even if that’s not the case, offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains certainly doesn’t seem to care if the Gamecocks have the ball for five minutes or 50 minutes, so long as it rips off explosive plays and limits turnovers.

“I don’t think there’s a correlation between offensive success and time of possession. I don’t,” Loggains said. “Defensive coaches will tell you the exact opposite.”

5. Time to watch blocking

I will say, among the things I’m looking at when watching a live football game, perimeter blocking is low on the list.

Then Beamer called South Carolina’s perimeter blocking effort on Saturday “atrocious.”

All of a sudden, I rewatched the game only looking at the perimeter blocking and, whoo boy, there are too many examples to cite of a wide receiver or tight end just getting manhandled. Half of the time, it looks like their running the wrong play. Other times, they’re just getting thrown around.

It was bad. It also put me on high alert for this Saturday. Forget following the ball, I’m watching the blocking.

Prediction: Kentucky 24, South Carolina 20.