Is This The Year For South Carolina Football?

A couple weeks ago the 14 sports information directors in the SEC threw out their picks for the upcoming season and the results were not surprising. In the West Alabama narrowly edged out LSU for the top spot, and in the East Georgia and South Carolina ended up in a dead heat for first.

So while there will be some fresh blood/meat in the conference this year as Missouri and Texas A&M join the ranks of the most powerful football conference in the land, the landscape atop the standings should be less than surprising.

In the West the two teams that battled for the National Championship will once again duke it out with a possible challenge (yet again) from Arkansas. Alabama lost eight players to the NFL and LSU returns a swarm of talent, so expect this season to look much like the last.

(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Georgia came on strong in the second half of last season and has stockpiled an exceptionally talented roster and strong armed quarterback Aaron Murray looks to build on a strong 2011 campaign to take the Bulldogs from also-ran on the national scene to a legitimate contender.

As for Steve Spurrier's Gamecocks, things haven't looked this bright at any point in his tenure at South Carolina. Jadeveon Downey and Devin Taylor are a one-two punch at defensive end that can wreak havoc like the Indianapolis Colts' defensive ends of the past few seasons in the NFL. Obviously, the offense will be built around stud running back Marcus Lattimore and the passing game should open up as teams focus on stopping him. Coming off a school record 11-2 season, expectations will be high for this team, and should they be able to navigate through an incredibly tough conference schedule, Spurrier may again be playing for a National Championship next January.

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SEC's most winning football teams

Thought this was interesting as a South Carolina fan so I thought I'd share. The folks over at My Team Planet put this together and I thought it was pretty interesting. While it's nice to see that the Gamecocks are managing to stay out of that bottom tear of dreary "we've never won anything" crowd, they're a long way from the LSUs, Auburns and Alabamas of the world, too.

The addition of Texas A&M and Missouri may also have an impact on how the power structure of the expanding super conference plays out. While no one's going to debate that the SEC is anything less than the best conference in college football, these teams have been competitive in the Big 12 for the most part of the last decade and certainly won't drag the conference down. Plus, the recruiting bump they should receive from their new conference affiliation likely won't hurt either.

However, this year it looks like Spurrier's going to have another solid team, it would just be nice if the offense can turn the corner and get us climbing up this list!


Created by: Aggie Planet