One of those, for obvious reasons, is South Carolina’s home opener against Coastal Carolina.  With the heavy emphasis on intangibles for Georgia’s SEC opener in Columbia, it will be interesting to compare the mindset of both the ‘Cocks and the Dawgs today.  Who’s better prepared not to get caught looking forward to bigger fish to fry Saturday week?

As Bud Elliott puts it,

Coastal Carolina +29.5 (-105) at South Carolina: The Gamecocks were extremely lucky last season (6-1 in single-score games). This is an opportunity to bet against an inflated reputation from 2017. And South Carolina has a lookahead situation, with Georgia coming to town next week.

Believe it or not, this has been an issue for South Carolina over the years.  Here’s a sample of that.

Matt Melton goes into greater detail.

1. South Carolina’s largest margin of victory under Will Muschamp is 26 points (and that took three defensive touchdowns).
2. South Carolina has played three Group of Five teams at home under Will Muschamp. They have beaten those teams by five, six, and one point respectively.
3. South Carolina has a pretty big home game coming up on the Saturday after this one. I don’t know that the Chanticleers will have the Gamecocks full attention. I have a little bit of data to back that claim up. Since 2005, South Carolina has opened against a mid-major program with Georgia on-deck four times (2005, 2007, 2010, 2011). They won all four of those openers, but only covered once.

None of this is to say we’re about to see an outright upset for the ages.  (Boom’s probably used up his quota in that department.)  But if this really is supposed to be a South Carolina team ready to step up to divisional contender status, then history shouldn’t be repeating in a game against a decided underdog.

Who does a better job of taking care of business today?