Clemson Tigers @ South Carolina Gamecocks Football Preview

It’s rivalry week across the college football, where the rather trite “throw out the record books” saying will get more use than any time all year.

But when No. 12 South Carolina (9-2) hosts No. 17 Clemson (9-2) in the annual Palmetto State brawl Saturday night (7:45 p.m. Eastern), the record books, in this case, will be rewritten.

The Tigers-Gamecocks series is the third-longest, uninterrupted, in college football, at 102 games, and the matchup of dueling 9-2 teams will be the best combined records of any in the long history of the series, dating back to 1896. It’s only the fifth time that the teams are both ranked coming in, the winner Saturday breaks a 2-2 tie in those games.

The paths to 9-2 for each have had highs and lows.

South Carolina came into the season as the preseason SEC East favorite, but from the start, had issues – suspending quarterback Stephen Garcia in the first game, and eventually dismissing the troubled senior on a failed alcohol test by midseason.

Then, sophomore Heisman-candidate running back Marcus Lattimore went down with a season-ending knee injury a week after Garcia’s dismissal.

But the Gamecocks finished with a perfect 5-0 divisional record, but dropped a crucial home contest to Auburn, 16-13, along the way and couldn’t upset No. 7 Arkansas on the road (44-28 defeat). The two SEC West losses were the downfall of their back-to-back division title chances, as Georgia finished with a 7-1 conference record to secure a trip to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game.

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In the Upstate of South Carolina, it was smooth sailing for the Tigers to an 8-0 start, rising as high as No. 5 in the BCS rankings with ranked wins over Auburn, Florida State and at Virginia Tech in a row, matching a school record for ranked wins in a season.

The last three games, however, has been a scenario where whatever could go wrong, has.

Turnovers hampered Dabo Swinney’s Tigers in a stretch where they’ve lost two of three, surrendering six interceptions and five fumbles.

Nobody has struggled more than sophomore Clemson quarterback Tajh Boyd, who’s thrown two picks for every touchdown pass in his last three games – after an 8-to-1 touchdown to interception ratio in the first eight.

The Tigers get a boost this week with Boyd's top target, freshman wide receiver Sammy Watkins, a “full-go” according to Swinney, after sitting out the 37-13 loss at NC State with a sore shoulder. He leads the ACC in touchdown catches (10) and receptions per game (6.8).

South Carolina will match up its 29th-ranked, zone-read-heavy rushing offense, averaging nearly 200 yards per game led by sophomore quarterback Connor Shaw, against an 86th-ranked Clemson rushing defense (184.36 yards per game given up).

History says that this week’s trip to Columbia, South Carolina works in the Tigers’ favor, while more recent results point the opposite direction.

Clemson has won five night games in a row at South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium, dating back to 1989, and are 40-16-3 against the Gamecocks with an equal or better record.

But in South Carolina’s twin triumphs in 2009 and 2010, the Tigers only scored one offensive touchdown in each – outscored by a 31.5 to 12 average final (34-17 in Columbia in 2010 and 29-7 in Clemson last season).

By: Brandon Rink
DFN Sports Staff Writer