Scott Davis: Gamecocks reset the rivalry, can they reset the season?

Scott Davis has followed South Carolina athletics for over 40 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective. He writes a weekly newsletter year-round (sign up here) and a column during football season that’s published each Monday on GamecockCentral.com.

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Now this is a feeling I remember.

South Carolina beating Kentucky by more than three touchdowns – seems like old times.

Going back to at least the Lou Holtz Era in the early 2000s, you could usually count on South Carolina to defeat the Kentucky Wildcats in football – even in years when the Gamecocks were hovering close to mediocrity or worse.

Quite a few South Carolina teams that struggled to get over the .500 hump overall still managed to roll up UK in the annual battle between these foes in the old SEC East division. Even in years when Kentucky was good and South Carolina was merely OK, the rivalry seemed fixed: In 2007, the Wildcats strutted into Williams-Brice Stadium ranked in the Top 10 and got drilled by one of Steve Spurrier’s lesser squads, which limped home to a 6-6 record that year.

As a fan, you’d start each season unsure about whether you’d watch the Gamecocks make a bowl game, but at least you knew they’d beat Kentucky. There was solace in that.

Then, about a decade ago, things got weird.

After Mark Stoops arrived in Lexington to coach Big Blue, he flipped the script, at one point reeling off seven wins in eight years against South Carolina (including wins in 2014 and 2015 when the Wildcats finished just 5-7 for the season),

Stoops even won his first matchup with Shane Beamer in 2021, at which point it appeared that Kentucky had taken complete control of the series and might run away with it forever and always. Then fate and foolishness intervened.

Fortunately for all of us, Stoops made a grave error during the leadup to the 2022 season in deciding to take a shot at the hype video South Carolina’s creative team produced before SEC Media Days, which starred a dancing, sunglasses-wearing Beamer. The Football Gods didn’t approve of his smug, self-satisfied comments, and acted accordingly.

Since that fateful day, the Gamecocks have gone 4-0 against Kentucky.

They have, indeed, completely reset the rivalry, turning it back into one that is dominated by the men in garnet and black, regardless of what happens to either team the rest of the season.

On Saturday night, we watched the Gamecocks turn Kentucky turnovers into touchdowns, turn the fourth quarter into one long, sustained, clock-killing drive and turn Williams-Brice Stadium into one of those happy, relaxed scenes where everyone is smiling and feeling OK about getting out to the car a little early to beat the traffic. And all of it felt familiar. It felt right.

This is what South Carolina vs. Kentucky is supposed to feel like, I thought as the clock crept towards zero.

With the Kentucky series now officially reset in favor of the Gamecocks, the team must now turn its attention to resetting the remainder of the season, where five grueling games against ranked SEC opponents await us after a much-needed bye week.

That will be a much more difficult task.

LSU on the road, Oklahoma, Alabama, Ole Miss on the road, Texas A&M on the road.

Y’all ready for this?

For one night, it felt like we were watching the Gamecock team we hoped we’d be seeing throughout 2025. And it felt like this rivalry between South Carolina and Kentucky had been officially reset to its rightful place.

Resetting the rivalry was step one. But there’s a long, long way to go and much work to do if the season itself is going to be resurrected.

The Stupid Sunglasses and Dancing Game Balls of the Week

DISCUSSION: See what other Gamecock fans are saying about the Kentucky game

I keep thinking that at some point, it will get old to continue making fun of Stoops’ “stupid sunglasses and dancing” gaffe at the 2022 SEC Media Days. But every time the SEC Network flashed to a shot of his grimacing, wildly annoyed face on Saturday night, I found myself smiling anew. Nope, still not old! Some Game Balls to the following…

South Carolina’s Defense Providing All the Scoring the Team Would Need to Win on Saturday – The Gamecock D put two touchdowns on the board against Kentucky, with the first coming on a fumble recovery that JT Geer took to the house following a Dylan Stewart sack, and the second on an interception return by Gerald Kilgore. Those 14 points would have won the ballgame by themselves, as the Wildcats would score just 13 all night. The Gamecocks won in much the same fashion as they did when they defeated Virginia Tech to start the season, with some big plays on defense to go with a handful of nifty moments from LaNorris Sellers and the offense sprinkled in. Speaking of Sellers…

LaNorris Sellers’ First Down Runs in the Fourth Quarter Reminding Us All How Special He Can Be With the Ball in His Hands – Sellers delivered some electrifying runs in the season opener against the Hokies in Atlanta, but he’d been largely quiet on that front since, even seeming a little gun-shy in last week’s game against Missouri following his injury in the Vanderbilt matchup. But in the fourth quarter against Kentucky, he showed us again why he remains a nightmarish matchup for opposing defenses, with some weaving runs where he squirted through defenders to pick up first downs when it looked like nothing was there for the Gamecock offense. One of those first down runs even caused a meltdown on the sidelines by Stoops, who was caught by the SEC Network cameras spilling out a long stream of frustrated barks that would have required censoring had the microphones captured the sound. Speaking of Stoops…

Climate Change vs. Culture Change – Stoops’ bizarre 2022 rant – when he inexplicably targeted Beamer for “changing the climate” at his program rather than actually changing the culture, as he believed he’d done in Lexington – is the gift that keeps on giving for South Carolina. This series was completely going in the wrong direction for the Gamecocks until Stoops inserted himself into the conversation. But now, it’s hard for me to imagine South Carolina losing to UK any time soon.

Pressure – South Carolina’s defense turned up the heat on Kentucky’s freshman quarterback Cutter Boley, who was making his first SEC start on the road in Williams-Brice Stadium. It didn’t go well for the youngster, who was sacked six times and harassed most of the rest of the night. The effort reminded many of us, at least for a night, of the 2024 South Carolina defense’s timely ability to deliver pressure whenever the team seemed to need a big stop.

Connor Shaw Opening the Game by Leading the GAME…COCKS Cheer – Just days after a medical scare, Shaw emerged from a Cock-a-Boose to lead the crowd in the opening cheer before the teams came out of the tunnel. Chill bumps on top of chill bumps.

Shane Beamer’s Ongoing Ability to Find the Tiniest of Slights to Serve as Fuel – After the 35-13 rout, Beamer was amiably chatting with SEC Network field analyst Cole Cubelic when he began talking about the notion of Beamer Ball and how that was really his father’s legacy rather than his. The sidebar seemed like an odd digression, until Beamer suddenly revealed that a Kentucky coach had been quoted during the week, suggesting that Beamer Ball was “really a Virginia Tech thing, not a South Carolina thing.” Beamer could barely repress a smile as he glanced in the direction of the scoreboard and noted that his Gamecocks had two defensive scores on the night – something that his father’s teams often made famous – leading to the SEC Network announcers marveling at the coach’s ability to find a little extra fuel to deliver a big win. I enjoyed that almost as much as the shots of a furious Stoops on the sidelines during the fourth quarter.

Bye Weeks Arriving Just as I’m Starting to Think I’m Too Old to Withstand the Emotional Ups and Downs of a Football Season – I’m ready for a break, how about y’all?

The ”Five Straight Games Against Ranked SEC Opponents? Really???” Deflated Balls of the Week

DISCUSSION: See what other Gamecock fans are saying about the Kentucky game

Make no mistake about it – this was a solid win. It was a rout of a fellow SEC team, one that always plays a bruising, physical style of football (which Beamer repeatedly praised during his postgame press conference). It was a return to form after a couple of rough weeks when what we’d hoped would be a dream season had officially settled into crisis management mode. And it reset the rivalry against Kentucky, which now firmly belongs to South Carolina again.

But did it make you any more optimistic about what lies ahead? That’s the question, isn’t it? Meanwhile, let’s deflate the following…

The Running Game Still Looking Like What We Thought it Was – Beamer was quick to point out that his team rushed for 178 yards against a well-coached defense, and that doesn’t sound too bad until you glance at the stat sheet and notice that the running backs each still struggled to find consistent running room, with each averaging around three-plus yards or less per carry. LaNorris Sellers ran for 81 yards – with some of those seemingly pulled out of thin air – but beyond that, the Gamecocks plodded forward much of the evening, and don’t yet seem to have an answer for the departure of Rocket Sanders during the offseason. In fact…

The Offense in General Still Seeming Out of Sync – South Carolina’s offense gained more command of the proceedings as the game wore on, but this wasn’t the kind of exhilarating offensive performance that will quiet the ongoing concerns about the Gamecock O, particularly with a brutal stretch of games remaining. This unit is still looking for playmakers, a rhythm and some confidence.

In fact, this team in general still seems to be seeking playmakers, rhythm and confidence as the Bye Week looms. 

The good news is that Shane Beamer teams historically play their best football following byes. The bad news? They’re playing LSU, Oklahoma, Alabama, Ole Miss and Texas A&M in a row.

Will even their best football be enough?

We’ll start finding out in two weeks.

As for Kentucky, their vaunted “culture” is starting to resemble the old, pre-Stoops culture – the one that ensured they’d lose to South Carolina just about every year.

Maybe that climate change wasn’t so bad, after all.

Tell me how you’re feeling after a relaxing win against Kentucky by writing me at [email protected].

DISCUSSION: See what other Gamecock fans are saying about the Kentucky game