South Carolina’s 2025 football schedule is set: first look, rapid reaction

We’ve long known who and where South Carolina football was going to play in 2025. Finally, we know when.

The entire 2025 Southeastern Conference football schedule was released on Wednesday, which is strikingly similar to the 2024 slate. That’s because when the league brought in Texas and Oklahoma — expanding to 16 teams — the conference announced every football team would play the same SEC opponents in 2024 and 2025, just with the locations flipped.

So all the conference foes that South Carolina traveled to play in 2024 will have to come to Williams-Brice Stadium next season. And vice versa.

USC opens up coach Shane Beamer’s fifth season with a neutral-site game against Virginia Tech. In SEC play, the Gamecocks have home games against Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt, and plays on the road at LSU, Ole Miss, Missouri and Texas A&M.

“Challenging. That’s what life is in the SEC,” Beamer told the SEC Network. “It’s challenging for us every year just because we play Clemson at the end of the season. You’ve got Virginia Tech, another Power 4 team, at the beginning of the season.”

Reaction

Arguably the three-most anticipated contests of next season are the three revenge games for the Gamecocks. If South Carolina (9-3, 5-3) did not fall to LSU, Ole Miss and/or Alabama, the Gamecocks might have earned a spot in the College Football Playoff — setting up at least a trio of marquee matchups for USC in 2025.

And in those, the Gamecocks will be looking for their first win at LSU since 1994, its first win at Ole Miss since 2018 and its first victory over Alabama since knocking off the top-ranked Crimson Tide in 2010.

Of note: South Carolina’s schedule is not too daunting out of the gate. The Gamecocks’ first three SEC contests are against Vanderbilt, Missouri and Kentucky — all of which USC beat last year.

There’s a chance the Gamecocks could be 5-0 heading into its Week 6 open date (Oct. 4), which would set up an undefeated South Carolina at LSU on Oct. 11. Paging “ESPN College GameDay”!

Though the front half of the schedule doesn’t seem too tough, the backstretch gets more intense with games at LSU, then vs. Oklahoma (Oct. 18), vs. Alabama (Oct. 25), at Ole Miss (Nov. 1) and at Texas A&M (Nov. 15).

“It’s a former SEC West-heavy schedule,” Beamer told SEC Network. “That’s basically what the month of October is.”

Also of note:

• Three of USC’s first five games are at Williams-Brice Stadium, as are the final two contests.

• The Gamecocks don’t travel on consecutive calendar weekends. All of their road matchups come before or after a home game or a bye week.

• All four of the Gamecocks’ nonconference games bookend the schedule, with all eight SEC games in between.

Here’s the full slate. Game times and TV networks will be announced at a later date.

South Carolina’s 2025 football schedule

• Aug. 31: vs. Virginia Tech, in Atlanta

• Sept. 6: vs. S.C. State

• Sept. 13: vs. Vanderbilt

• Sept. 20: at Missouri

• Sept. 27: vs. Kentucky

• Oct. 4: BYE WEEK

• Oct. 11: at LSU

• Oct. 18: vs. Oklahoma

• Oct. 25: vs. Alabama

• Nov. 1: at Ole Miss

• Nov. 8: BYE WEEK

• Nov. 15: at Texas A&M

• Nov. 22: vs. Coastal Carolina

• Nov. 29: vs. Clemson