South Carolina's Plan to Beat LSU: Three Musts for an Upset

It's go time for Shane Beamer and the Gamecocks. Tiger Stadium is one of the toughest environments in all of college football, your playoff hopes are on the line, and you enter possibly the toughest five game stretch of any team in the country. If South Carolina wants to start that stretch with a win, they'll have to focus on completing three key things.

Coming into the year, the expectation around South Carolina was a potential playoff appearance after having the best season of Shane Beamer's tenure in 2024. Now sitting at 3-2 and games against 11th ranked LSU, 6th ranked Oklahoma, 8th ranked Alabama, 4th ranked Ole Miss, and 5th ranked Texas A&M, each and every week from here on out is a playoff game. But to get there the Gamecocks will have to have all of their focus on each week as it comes, starting with the LSU Tigers.

This LSU Tigers team came into the year and looked like a potential national title threat after a top five road victory over Clemson. While still not an easy win, that doesn't look as impressive now and the Tigers already have a loss on their record. For South Carolina to win this game and keep their hopes in front of them, they will have to check off these three boxes on Saturday evening.

1) Win the trenches battle:

In a press conference on Sept 24, Coach Beamer talked about his plan to win, which featured two important keys: the ability to run the ball and stopping the run. This isn't a new concept to teams around the country, but it is important in this ball game. The Gamecocks have talented running backs in the room and a quarterback who is special as a runner, but just haven't been able to find a running game this season. This week the offense must find a way to run the football similarly to how it did against Kentucky when the team finished with 178 yards on the ground.

On the other side of the ball, LSU has also struggled running the ball this year. If you can stop the run, you can instantly turn LSU into one dimensional offense against a veteran laden secondary. The Gamecocks have shown they can be an opportunistic defense on the back end, which leads me to my next point.

2) Win the turnover battle:

Because LSU has not shown to be a lethal offense this year, South Carolina can certainly keep this game close in the 4th quarter if they haven't made costly turnovers. Florida came into Baton Rouge earlier in the year and lost the turnover battle 5-1, yet still only lost by 10. With the talent South Carolina has on offense, they can make things interesting if they can win the turnover battle.

3) Hit explosive plays in the passing game:

If Mike Shula's offense can find a way to be efficient in the run game, it should open up the wide receivers down field. LSU has been susceptible to the pass as shown by them giving up over 208 yards per game. If Shula is able to draw up an explosive play, LaNorris Sellers has to hit those shots. This offense won't be able to put together 10+ yard drives consistently this weekend for scores, so hitting shots to Vandrevius Jacobs, Nyck Harbor, and others is necessary to quiet the crowd and come away with a win on Saturday.

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