Staff Picks: South Carolina at Missouri, other Week 8 matchups

Another Saturday of college football is upon us. For South Carolina, it will travel to play No. 20 Missouri in a must-win game.

The Gamecocks need to win to avoid a three-game losing streak. Here’s how the GamecockCentral staff sees this game going plus a few predictions on other key games this weekend.

Chris Clark: For a Gamecocks defense that has struggled and given up a bunch of yards through the air as of late, Missouri’s receiver corps and a quarterback who’s playing well does not seem to be something that will bring relief. Missouri 34, South Carolina 17

Terry Ford: Mizzou has too much offense for a struggling Gamecocks defense that hasn’t shown it can put enough pressure on the opposing QB to help out the coverage. Look for the Missouri WR’s to have a big day. Missouri 37, South Carolina 31

Griffin Goodwyn: Missouri is a squad that has served as South Carolina’s kryptonite over the past few seasons. The Gamecocks have lost four straight matchups against the Tigers, with their last victory in the series coming in 2018, and have a 2-3 overall record at Memorial Stadium. South Carolina heads into this game with an advantage at quarterback, but I haven’t seen enough from the defense to make me think it can stop the SEC’s fourth-best offense this season (446.6 yards per game). Missouri 31, South Carolina 21

Tyler Head: South Carolina’s offense is just about as good as it can be, however the defense has struggled mightily to stop just about everyone this season. Mizzou brings a load of talented wide receivers that will test the Gamecock secondary all day long. I’m not sure Carolina can stay step for step with Mizzou on the scoreboard. Missouri 45, South Carolina 38 

Joe Macheca: South Carolina needs to answer a lot of questions this week to keep the season on track. Missouri is such a tough matchup schematically on both sides of the ball. However, the morale and culture is still in tact and this team is feeding off the doubt. I think the Gamecocks find a way to get pressure on Brady Cook when they need to and just simply outscore the Tigers. South Carolina 42, Missouri 38 

Wes Mitchell: Football is all about matchups and it’s just hard to look at this matchup on paper and like the Gamecocks’ chances. Brady Cook has had a great year and has a loaded receiving corps around him as well as one of the conference’s most underrated running backs. The South Carolina offense, to this point this year, has also played much better at home than on the road which seems to lessen the chances of the Gamecocks winning a shootout. Crazy and/or unexpected things happen when these two teams play but Carolina will need to turn Mizzou over a couple of times and win the special teams battle to win it. Missouri 38, South Carolina 30

Jay Philips: After a gut punch of a loss at home to Florida, the Gamecocks will need to rebound quickly if postseason play is in their future. The good news is there are winnable games ahead of them, but only if the little things that added up against UF are eliminated. The offense against the Gators was tremendous, that will need to continue. The defense was not, and opponents are seizing on the obvious mismatches in the secondary. Missouri is very well coached, and that helps them overcome a talent level that ranks near the bottom of the SEC. Eli Drinkwitz has yet to lose to SC as a head coach, and I believe that will continue this week. In another close game I’ll say Mizzou 34, South Carolina 27

Kendall Smith: It seems like Missouri is always the Achilles heel for the Gamecocks, and with this game being on the road, I just can’t say my confidence in South Carolina’s defense is strong enough. I’ll take Missouri over South Carolina. Missouri 31, South Carolina 24

Mike Uva: Even if South Carolina’s offense is able to carry over the momentum that they created last week, it’s hard to have any confidence in this defense until they’re able to prove it consistently. Missouri 34, South Carolina 30

Jack Veltri: This team is so unpredictable. I feel like this is a game South Carolina can pull off. Nobody gave this team a chance after Florida annihilated them last year before pulling off back-to-back top 10 upsets. But I don’t feel the same magic with this year’s group. Let’s be real, the defense is pretty bad. The offense can only do so much. Unless some major changes were made this week, I think Missouri is going to be too much for the Gamecocks. Missouri 28, South Carolina 20

Chris Wellbaum: Mizzou is trending up and South Carolina is trending down, plus South Carolina rarely plays well in the other Columbia. Part of me thinks this is a classic Beamer upset win, but the rest of me thinks the other part is stupid and I should just pick the better team. Missouri 26, South Carolina 22

	Air Force at Navy	Penn State at Ohio State	Tennessee at Alabama	Texas Tech at BYU	Ole Miss at Auburn	Duke at Florida State	Clemson at Miami	Utah at Southern Cal
Chris Clark (39-24)	Navy	Ohio State	Alabama	BYU	Ole Miss	FSU	Miami	Southern Cal
Terry Ford (39-24)	Air Force	Ohio State	Alabama	BYU	Ole Miss	FSU	Clemson	Southern Cal
Griffin Goodwyn (44-19)	Air Force	Ohio State	Alabama	Texas Tech	Ole Miss	FSU	Miami	Southern Cal
Tyler Head (37-26)	Air Force	Ohio State	Alabama	Texas Tech	Ole Miss	FSU	Clemson	Utah
Joe Macheca (38-25)	Air Force	Penn State	Alabama	Texas Tech	Ole Miss	FSU	Miami	Utah
Wes Mitchell (45-18)	Air Force	Penn State	Alabama	Texas Tech	Ole Miss	FSU	Miami	Southern Cal
Jay Philips (44-19)	Air Force	Ohio State	Alabama	Texas Tech	Ole Miss	FSU	Clemson	Utah
Kendall Smith (39-24)	Air Force	Penn State	Alabama	BYU	Ole Miss	FSU	Miami	Southern Cal
Mike Uva (44-19)	Air Force	Ohio State	Alabama	BYU	Ole Miss	FSU	Miami	Southern Cal
Jack Veltri (36-27)	Air Force	Penn State	Alabama	Texas Tech	Ole Miss	FSU	Miami	Southern Cal
Chris Wellbaum (37-26)	Air Force	Ohio State	Alabama	BYU	Ole Miss	Duke	Clemson	Utah

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