South Carolina football looking to buck historical trends, build off strong season

Following a strong 2024 campaign in which they won nine games and narrowly missed out on the College Football Playoff, Shane Beamer’s South Carolina Gamecocks hope to take another step forward. The talent is in place, but the Gamecocks will have to buck historical trends to make it happen.

South Carolina has won at least eight games 16 times in its 131-season history. Only six times (with 2025 still pending) have the Gamecocks followed an eight-win campaign with another. Just twice (2000 to 2001 and 2010 to 2011) has USC improved its win total after an eight-win year.

Let’s take a look at each of the program’s eight-win campaigns and the Gamecocks’ subsequent follow-up seasons.

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Carolina won eight times for the first time in 1903, though that year included victories over the Columbia YMCA and Welch Neck High School. The Gamecocks followed in 1904 with a 2-6 effort.

Nearly 75 years later, head coach Jim Carlen led South Carolina to its next eight-win campaign. The George Rogers-led 1979 Gamecocks spent part of the year ranked and replicated the feat in 1980 when Rogers won the Heisman Trophy and guided the team to another eight triumphs. After 1980, Carlen spent just one more year leading the garnet and black. USC fired him following a 6-6 campaign that ended with three losses in a row to Pacific, Clemson, and Hawaii.

Despite a Richard Bell-led setback in 1982, the Gamecocks were able to hire Joe Morrison from New Mexico, and Morrison led the team to a 10-2 record in his second season in 1984. The Black Magic Gamecocks were one of the best South Carolina teams ever. However, they couldn’t replicate that magic in 1985, finishing with a losing record despite the program’s third-ever preseason AP ranking.

The win total dipped again before Morrison righted the ship. In 1987, South Carolina rode a strong defense and elite offensive skill players to an eight-win season. The following year, the Gamecocks did it again, marking just the second time that USC had ever reached that number in back-to-back years. Tragically, Morrison passed away before the 1989 season, one in which his team went 6-4-1 under head coach Sparky Woods.

Following Morrison’s untimely death, the program scuffled, with neither Woods nor Brad Scott winning eight games in a single season. USC won its first bowl game, but other than that 1994 season, six wins was the high in the ’90s. After the decade-long doldrums, Lou Holtz helped the Gamecocks do their best impression of another bird, the phoenix. Rising from the ashes of a 1-21 record in 1998 and 1999, South Carolina went 8-4 and 9-3 in 2000 and 2001. The turnaround included consecutive Outback Bowl victories over Ohio State and the first two-game streak against Georgia in a decade. The rest of the Holtz era was underwhelming, including a 5-7 finish in 2002.

When Steve Spurrier appeared in Columbia, he won eight games in his second season wearing the headset. That 2006 year showed promise, and the start of 2007 saw the Gamecocks reach the top 10 in the rankings. However, a late-season collapse saw the team miss a bowl game. It was the first of three straight six-loss seasons (6-6 in 2007, 7-6 in 2008, and 7-6 in 2009).

The best run in school history followed. Spurrier helped guide South Carolina to its only SEC East title and a 9-5 overall record in 2010. Then, in 2011, the Gamecocks found themselves on the right side of the final score on 11 occasions. Still carried by a roster loaded with Palmetto State talent, 2012 and 2013 matched the ’11 season. Somehow, USC didn’t earn an SEC Championship Game berth or BCS Bowl Game appearance. When 2014 arrived–along with the first-ever College Football Playoff–some believed the ‘Cocks were poised to make a run. Things didn’t turn out that way, though, as Carolina went 7-6 after squandering three double-digit, fourth-quarter leads that year.

The next eight-win season witnessed by fans in Williams-Brice Stadium came in 2017 under head coach Will Muschamp. The Gamecocks went 9-4 overall with an Outback Bowl win over Michigan. 2018 started 5-3, and Carolina held a big lead on the road against Florida in what looked to be the team’s sixth win. Instead, the season’s momentum dissipated as the Gators stormed back for the win, the first of three late-season defeats at the hands of SEC and ACC foes. USC’s 7-6 effort felt even worse than it was and led to two ugly losing campaigns in 2019 and 2020.

Shane Beamer’s 2022 squad posted two of the most impressive wins in recent memory, knocking College Football Playoff hopefuls Tennessee and Clemson out of contention with back-to-back top 10 upsets. Despite a Gator Bowl loss to Notre Dame, South Carolina went 8-5 that year. 2023, a season marred by injuries and inconsistency, concluded with a 5-7 mark next to the Gamecocks’ name in the record books.

Then, 2024 happened. A 9-4 overall record included six consecutive wins to close the regular season. Redshirt freshman quarterback LaNorris Sellers and true freshman EDGE Dylan Stewart emerged as some of the very best talents in all of college football. Expectations are, understandably, high that the Gamecocks can use last year as a springboard to big things in 2025.

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As things stand, Beamer has reached the eight-win threshold in two of his four seasons at the helm in Columbia. That 50% hit rate is tied for the best ever at South Carolina with The Man in Black, Joe Morrison, who did so in three of his six seasons leading the Gamecocks. Steve Spurrier (5-out-of-11), Lou Holtz (2-out-of-6), and Jim Carlen (2-out-of-7) are the only other coaches to reach the eight-win mark more than once.

Building off the 2024 campaign won’t be easy. South Carolina must overcome losing 11 total defensive players to the NFL (five in the draft, seven more to UDFA and training camp deals), six more to the League on offense, and every starting specialist. Even so, thanks to recruiting (both from the high school ranks and from the transfer portal) and development of returning talent, some believe the Gamecocks could be even better this fall.

The road to the Gamecocks overcoming history (and making some of their own) begins on Sunday, August 31st. South Carolina will take on the Virginia Tech Hokies in the season opener in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. ESPN will broadcast the neutral-site contest at 3:00 p.m.

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