Georgia Football: Three Toughest games of the 2018 season
By Mike Stowe
3. South Carolina.
Some think this may be our toughest game all year. I’m not going that far. I believe the Gamecocks will be a solid team in Will Muschamp’s third year as head coach. I was impressed with the job Muschamp did last year. He wasn’t dealing with a very deep roster but he managed to take them to a respectable 9-4 record, a second place finish in the SEC East and a New Year’s Day Outback Bowl victory over the Michigan Wolverines. They have a really good young quarterback returning in Jake Bentley. He’s a kid that took over the position in 2016 after the Gamecocks got off to a 2-4 start, and he started every game last year. He passed for 2794 yards last year and the majority of that was done without wide receiver standout Deebo Samuel.
Samuel is the best player on this team. He went down with an injury in the Week 3 game against Kentucky that unfortunately ended his season. He led the team in receiving yards in 2016 and was on pace to do it again in 2017 before he broke his fibula. He is back for 2018 and if he stays healthy he will be one of the best in the nation.
Their defense will be solid. Even though they lost 3 of the starters in their secondary and the great linebacker Skai Moore, there is still plenty of talent on that side of the ball. D.J. Wonnum should step up and has the potential to be “that guy” at the defensive end position. While there aren’t a lot of proven guys on this defense, Muschamp has a knack for fielding good defenses. 2018 will be no exception.
Combine all this with the facts that this is an early conference game, should be hot, and it’s at their place and the first trip of the year to a Columbia could be tough. While this may not be our overall toughest game, it could very well be the most important. A loss here would put Georgia in an SEC East hole where they couldn’t afford to take another conference loss and would need S.C. to take 2 SEC losses to take the division title.