South Carolina will travel to Athens on Saturday to face the #3 Georgia Bulldogs.

South Carolina is coming off a bye week while Georgia is coming off of a dominant road win against Tennessee.

I think this will be South Carolina’s toughest game of the season because it’s on the road against a proven top team.

I wish I could say I was confident ahead of this game, but Muschamp has yet to win a big game and Ryan Hilinski will have to play in the most hostile environment he’s played in.

Here are my three bold predictions for this game:

Georgia will cover the spread easily

Georgia is currently favored by 24.5 points, which is the highest it’s ever been in the series.

I honestly think this is pretty low considering how the Gamecocks played against Georgia last year.

I think Hilinski will struggle on the road and Georgia will win the battle in the trenches on both sides.

Georgia has looked like one of the best teams this year, and their talented receivers will tear apart the Gamecock secondary like Alabama’s receivers did.

South Carolina will hold D’Andre Swift to under 100 yards rushing

South Carolina currently has the 51st ranked rush defense, and they allow 139 rushing yards per game.

I think they will hold Swift to under 100 rushing yards because South Carolina has only let one running back have 100 yards on the ground this year, and they held Najee Harris to only 36 rushing yards on seven carries.

The front seven has been the strong part of this South Carolina defense, and I think they can limit the stacked Georgia Backfield.

Javon Kinlaw will have three sacks

Kinlaw has been a force to be reckoned with this season.

The talented interior lineman needs one more sack to surpass his number from last year.

He’s been so good this year that a CBS Sports analyst decided that he should be the third overall pick in the NFL draft next year.

Kinlaw currently has four sacks and is easily one of the most disruptive linemen in the country.

Georgia’s offensive line will be really tough to penetrate, but Kinlaw is also a physical beast at 6’6” and 310 pounds.

Conclusion

South Carolina will return a healthier team for this game and will have a bye week advantage, but I don’t think it’ll be enough to win the game.

All I can hope for is that the secondary shows some improvement and McClendon continues to rely on the ground game.