Let’s be honest: South Carolina’s program isn’t full of confidence.
Will Muschamp continues to prove that he can’t win the games that he should win, and Ray Tanner continues to show his confidence for a coach who will never win anything important.
South Carolina is currently an abysmal 1-3 while Kentucky is 2-2.
Neither of these teams has won a conference game this year, and the game is in Columbia so this should be a win for South Carolina.
The Gamecocks have also lost five straight games against Kentucky and the offense has yet to show balance.
Here are my three bold predictions for Saturday night:
South Carolina will run the ball less than 20 times
South Carolina ran the ball 20 times against Missouri, which is a huge reason why the offense struggled.
The staff is putting too much pressure on Ryan Hilinski while the run game continues to impress when they can get carries.
I don’t think Muschamp or McClendon will make any changes to the offense because they don’t seem to learn from their mistakes.
It will help that the game is at home, but without any offensive balance, this team will continue to struggle.
The secondary will struggle once again
Muschamp was brought in because he was seen as a defensive guru. He’s had one good year of defense, but now it’s falling apart.
The secondary has struggled all year. They let Sam Howell throw all over them in his first career game, and Tua Tagovailoa had a record performance on the road against this defense.
Just this week, Jamyest Williams announced he’s sitting out the season and transferring.
The front seven looks good, but the secondary will have a tough time against Lynn Bowden Jr., who is one of the best receivers in the SEC
This will be the last straw for South Carolina fans
Nothing has shown me that the coaching staff can win this game.
Muschamp has been outcoached by every team this year except Charleston Southern for obvious reasons.
It has gotten so bad that Muschamp said this team has to beat the open team. One more loss to Kentucky and I think serious action will be taken against this staff.
There are still a few fans who believe in Muschamp, but he’s somehow looking worse in year four than in year one.
The student base came together to protest the hiring of President Caslen, but they should be putting that effort into protesting Ray Tanner if South Carolina loses again to Kentucky.
Conclusion
Simply put, my patience has worn thin with this coaching staff.
Muschamp was a bad hire to begin with, and it’s terrible to see that the other coaching options like Tom Herman and Lincoln Riley are leading Top 15 teams while South Carolina can’t even beat Kentucky.
I can’t even blame the players because they’re putting everything they can into this program.
If nothing changes, I see South Carolina losing 23-20.