Georgia Football 2017 Preview: South Carolina Gamecocks

Related Story: 2017 preview: Florida Gators

With the season inching closer, I’m going to preview each of the 12 games Georgia Football will have in 2017.

Always a potential trap game, South Carolina have a history of ruining Georgia’s good seasons. Will Muschamp might have been fired by Florida a couple of years ago, but he’s not to be underestimated. He can flat out recruit and he showed real chops building a talented defense in Gainsville. The issue he had during his time with the Gators was that he never was able to find a QB. He might have done just that in his 1st year at SC however. Jake Bentley is a potential star in Columbia

Who were they in 2016?

Will Muschamp inherited a bit of a mess when he came into Columbia.Steve Spurrier took the Gamecocks to a new level between 2010 and 2014. However things fell off a cliff in 2016 and the SC went 3-9 with Spurrier retiring midway through the season. Muschamp came in to a pretty barren roster that had been badly neglected the past couple of season. He did a good job in his first two recruiting class but the 2016 season was pretty much as expected.

The Gamecocks lost to Mississippi State, Kentucky, UGA and Texas A&M early in the season. However after the loss to UGA, SC started freshman Jake Bentley at QB and saw an improvement in their performance. They won the next 3 games and beat then SEC East favorite Tennessee to ruin their division hopes.

They ended up losing 3 of their last 4 games however. Being beaten handily by Florida, blown out by instate rival Clemson and finally losing to South Florida in their bowl game. That South Florida loss in particularly should sting. That was a game SC had no business losing and that they did really made the entire SEC look pretty bad.