What Phil Steele said about South Carolina on 107.5 The Game: 'I've put them on my most improved list'

In perhaps one of the surest signs that South Carolina football is right around the corner, Phil Steele’s College Football Preview mag has officially hit store shelves.

Steele made his first appearance of the summer Tuesday to preview the season and discuss this year’s mag when he joined Elijah Campbell and Preston Thorne on 107.5 The Game.

Check out a full transcript of the appearance below.

On if there are reasons for optimism for South Carolina fans…

Yeah, and this year I am bullish on South Carolina. I’ve put them on my most improved list.

Two years ago, South Carolina was coming off a 5-7 season. I put them on my most improved list. They got to 9-4.

Now last year, South Carolina fans weren’t too happy with me. I picked them low, they were considered a national title playoff contender and I had them 10th in the SEC. But a lot of that was due to the defense and you know, I thought they lost too much from the defensive front 7 last year.

And even with that, you know, you’ll go back to the Alabama game. They led that thing 22 to 14, 10 minutes to go. They had a shot to win at A&M up 30 to 3 at the half.

Sorry to open up some wounds there guys, but I think they’re going to be improved, especially at that linebacker position. That’s probably one of the more experienced units, probably the strength of the team this year. And then offensively, you got LaNorris Sellers back.

Remember, he got injured against Vanderbilt, took a few games to get back. I think he’s going to have the type of year more towards what he was playing at the end of 2024. And then let’s look at the offensive line as well.

Back in 24. They didn’t have any injuries on the offensive line. They had one start missed all year. Last year, the injuries cropped up. They fired their OL coach mid-year. They dropped to 111 yards per game rush, allowed 43 sacks. I think if you look at the offensive line this year, they added seven offensive linemen that were full-time starters. And really, when you add transfers, you want to add guys with experience.

So I’m looking for a stock market bounce from that offensive line, a more improved run game, LaNorris Sellers back to form, and a defense, which was decent last year, but I think they’re going to be better this year, especially at the linebacker corps, the strength of the team. So add it all up. I’m much more bullish on South Carolina this year than I was last year.

What are your expectations for South Carolina this season? Wes Mitchell and fellow subscribers are discussing it now on The Insiders Forum.

On whether you can build an o-line through the portal…

Well, you have to factor in different things when you’re looking for a bounce-back year.

And as mentioned, you go back to last year. There was plenty of injuries on the offensive line and then firing the offensive line coach mid-year. So generally, you’re going to see improvement. Now, I could tell you being on the Joe Moore Award, the Joe Moore guys feel that the offensive line play overall in college football is down because of the transfer portal.

There’s not as much cohesion on the offensive line. It’s tough to build. But when you look at South Carolina, the things I like is the fact that they brought in experienced guys who have started and then you have those extended practices now where you can practice a little more over the fall to get together, cohesion, and then of course you’ve got all of August to get together.

So I think we’re going to see enough players come in where there’s definitely going to be improvement on the offensive line, especially after what happened last year.

On close games…

Yeah, and you know, the metric articles I started in the magazine back in 1995, the first one was turnovers equals turnaround, which was double-digit turnovers… if you benefit from them one year, you’re going to go weaker record the next year and vice versa. If you had negative double-digit turnovers. And so after that a few years later, I started the close wins close losses one and it really is true to form.

And if you take a look at those games, if you lose a game by a point or three points or anything less than a touchdown, you’re looking at the fact that you’re basically one play away from actually winning the game as opposed to losing the game. So you’re much better than your record and it generally shows. So I did all the metrics and have been doing it for years.

And once again, it comes up about 75%. If you lose a lot of close games one year, the next year you get that improvement. Of course, keeping LaNorris Sellers healthy is a big plus keeping the offensive line healthy.

And I think if the offensive line is healthy at the end of the year that helps you win those games. It helps you run the football at the end of the game, control the clock if you’re ahead late in the game, also, you know in the red zone, it helps you out.

So I think the improvement for South Carolina and the offensive line, linebacking core, and quarterback are probably the three main areas that will help you win those close games.

On intriguing positions…

Well, really when you look at the team, but to me the offensive line is going to be the key to whether or not they show the improvement I expect. That to me is going to be the key to this season. But another one to look at is probably a little bit of the defensive line.

I like the talent there. Dylan Stewart, you know, you lose three starters, but I like the overall talent that they brought in to replace them. (Gabe) Brownlow-Dindy at the defensive tackle spot, I think he is powerful. He is 311 pounds in the middle. That’s going to be a nice force to have.

A Coach Beamer told me this group reminds him a lot of 2024’s group, with six defensive tackles that can play and good depth at defensive end. So I think if the defensive line can be anywhere near as dominant as it was in 2024 and the offensive line pulls together, those are probably going to be the keys.

On a surprise team in the SEC…

My number one surprise team this year is Alabama. That’s because they’re sort of being discounted coming into the season. So it didn’t sound like your question was looking for a team like that though.

I’m going to say how about Tennessee? I think when you look at Tennessee this year, the big question for me might be on the defensive side of the ball. They did bring in a new defensive coordinator in Jim Knowles. So one thing I’ve noticed about Jim Knowles usually takes two years for his defense to come together. But if he can get that defense to come together and be improved, they got more talent this year than they did last year.

And if they get good quarterback play, and I know you look at last year and you say, well, you have to have a returning veteran starter, right? Well, guess what? You know, Ohio State did pretty well with the first-year starter. Notre Dame did pretty well with a first-year young starter. So if Tennessee can get that production, Josh Heupel usually does, they’ve got a schedule that could possibly get there.

You look at they face just one upper half team on the road, Texas A&M. They’ve got five SEC home games this year, good surrounding talent for that young quarterback. And you know, the young quarterback may surprise this year.

On Clemson…

Yeah, I think when you when you look at, I can say the name, you guys can’t, but it’s when you look at Clemson this year, I think first of all, they’ve got to play better at home last year. They were 3-4 at home, that’s just unacceptable. It was their first losing season at home in forever.

I think they’re going to actually get quarterback play up to last year’s standards because last year, a lot was expected out of Cade Klubnik — didn’t really happen. But I think (Christopher) Vizzina or Tait Reynolds could step in and do a good job.

I like what they’ve got at receiver with T.J. Moore and (Bryant) Wesco. They were banged up a receiver again last year.

The defense looks solid. I like Sammy Brown and really when you look at their schedule this year, the games, I’ve got them an underdog in you look at at LSU. They’re a slight underdog there and then home against Miami, but the rest of schedule’s actually very very set up well, their road games are Syracuse, Florida State’s a winnable one, Cal’s a winnable one, Duke’s a winnable one.

If they can get that home edge back and they play one of the better schedules in the ACC this year, then I think Clemson’s actually going to be a contender in the ACC. I know you guys didn’t want to hear that.

On a disappointing team this season…

The one that I’m probably looking at might be LSU, and I think LSU probably comes into the season possibly in the top 10, but they have a rugged schedule.

They are a practically a new team. And I did a new thing in the magazine this year, it’s called the homegrown factor which talks about teams that recruit freshmen and then they stay through all the way through Alabama, Georgia, two of the teams at the top of the SEC. This LSU team is almost completely rebuilt.

They have very little coming back from last year. They’ve got two offensive linemen. They’ve got Whit Weeks coming back at linebacker and a couple of good cornerbacks and PJ Woodland, Tamarcus Cooley, but I don’t think they’re going to be top 10 level.

I think when you look at the schedule this year to play at Ole Miss where I’ve got him a dog, the Texas A&M game to me as a toss-up. The Clemson game could be a toss-up early. They have to play at Auburn.

They host Alabama and Alabama handled them last year again. They host Texas. That’s going to be a rough one Texas, I think with Arch Manning, is much improved at the end of the year. That Tennessee team that we talked about.

So there’s the potential for this LSU team to lose four or five games this year. I don’t think they’ll be a top 10 team coming in at the end of the year, but I do think they might be a top 10 team at the start of the year in the AP Poll.

On if a coach had ever told him their team would be bad in his preseason convos…

Here’s the best one that I had, it would be Bowling Green. Their head coach Scott Loeffler.

He said the first time I talked to him, he goes, ‘Okay, here’s the story, Phil. It’s a five-year plan. This first year, we’re going to suck. The second year, we’re going to suck less. The third year, we’re going to be okay. The fourth year, we’ll start to be competitive and the fifth year we’ll get ourselves to a bowl game.’ And he just laid it right out.

And that’s exactly what happened at Bowling Green.

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