JD Bertrand says South Carolina is 'obviously' hot entering bowl game

South Carolina is riding a four-game winning streak into Friday’s Gator Bowl matchup against Notre Dame. Of course, the Gamecocks haven’t actually taken the field in nearly a month, but the last couple of times they did, Shane Beamer’s club knocked off back-to-back top 10 teams in Tennessee and Clemson. And in those wins, South Carolina put up 94 combined points while surpassing 60 against Tennessee. So yes, it’s safe to say their offense is clicking.

Notre Dame linebacker JD Bertrand is preparing for perhaps his toughest challenge of the season on Friday. With 20+ days to dig into South Carolina and research what they do on offense, Bertrand sees quite the scary offensive unit meeting the Irish.

“I mean, one of the biggest things is you can see they’re clicking towards the last two games,” Bertrand shared at a press conference this week. “Things were working really well, especially against two really good opponents. Obviously, they’re hot at this moment.”

Hot? JD, they’re scalding! 30+ points in each of their last four outings while punishing Tennessee for 63 and hanging 38 on Florida and Vandy. This offense, the last time we saw it, was playing like one of the best units in the nation. Bertrand expects that level of play when the two clubs take the field.

“You know they’re going to come in confident, they’re going to come in with that kind of swagger. At the same time we know that we can look at those kind of clips and those kind of games right there, but know that that kind of is something that they’re looking to enhance and kind of go off of. Also know that with the guys that they’re potentially having in the transfer portal and stuff, we can look back at ourselves and work on improving ourselves.”

Should be an exhilarating contest between two teams who were playing their best football right at the end of the year. JD Bertrand vs. Spencer Rattler will be some excellent entertainment.