Know Your Foe: Can Kentucky football flip the script on South Carolina?
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Preview: Kentucky football at South Carolina
Click below to read more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s preview coverage ahead of Saturday’s Kentucky-South Carolina game in Columbia, S.C.
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Scouting Kentucky football’s next opponent, the South Carolina Gamecocks:
Game details
Kentucky (2-1, 0-1 SEC) will face South Carolina (2-2, 0-2 SEC) on Saturday, Sept. 27, at Williams-Brice Stadium (seating capacity of 77,559) on the campus of the University of South Carolina in Columbia.
The game will kick off at 7:45 p.m. EDT and be telecast by the SEC Network.
Coach Shane Beamer’s Gamecocks lost 29-20 at Missouri on Saturday night.
Kentucky-South Carolina history and trends
• South Carolina leads the all-time series with Kentucky 21-14-1.
• The Gamecocks have won the past three meetings head-to-head against the Wildcats, including two victories in Lexington.
• Since South Carolina joined the SEC in 1992, the football history between UK and USC has epitomized “streaky.”
In the 1990s, Kentucky went 5-3 against South Carolina.
During the 2000s, South Carolina went 10-0 against UK, although seven of those 10 games were decided by seven points or fewer.
From 2010 through 2019, the Wildcats went 6-4 against the Gamecocks.
So far in the 2020s, South Carolina has a 3-2 advantage over Kentucky.
• Since going 5-3 in Southeastern Conference games in 2021, UK has subsequently gone 7-18 against SEC opponents.
• Under Shane Beamer, South Carolina is 10-7 in SEC home games.
Most recent Kentucky-South Carolina meeting
The South Carolina defense humiliated a listless Kentucky offense as the Gamecocks throttled the Wildcats 31-6 on Sept. 7, 2024, at Kroger Field.
South Carolina limited UK to 183 total yards of offense and held the Cats to 44 passing yards. The Gamecocks recorded 11 tackles for loss, sacked the quarterback five times and intercepted two passes, including one that Nick Emmanwori returned for a touchdown.
Quarterback LaNorris Sellers completed 10 of 14 passes for 166 yards and two touchdowns for South Carolina.
Kentucky-South Carolina: Three things to know
1. In a recent poll of NFL scouts and executives by ESPN, South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers was chosen as the current college quarterback most likely to be the first QB taken in the 2026 NFL draft.
Two games back, Sellers was knocked out of the contest in the first half of what became a 31-7 South Carolina home loss to Vanderbilt after he was hit in the head by Vanderbilt linebacker Langston Patterson on a play that was subsequently ruled to be targeting.
A 6-foot-3, 240-pound sophomore, Sellers did not return to the game against Vandy.
After some early week uncertainty over whether Sellers would be able to play at Missouri, the quarterback was, in fact, able to go — and played well.
Sellers completed 18 of 28 passes for 302 yards and two touchdowns at Mizzou. He was especially effective creating explosive plays in the passing game against the Tigers, completing six passes of 20 yards or more, four of which went for more than 30 yards and two for more than 40 yards.
2. LaNorris Sellers did not get a lot of help in the loss to Missouri.
South Carolina had no running game, finishing with minus-9 rushing yards as a team.
Sellers was sacked five times by the Mizzou defense for a loss of 46 total yards and the Tigers were credited with six other quarterback hurries.
Meanwhile, the Gamecocks committed a whopping 14 penalties for 98 yards.
3. For the third time in four games, Kentucky will face a player who played last season for the Wildcats.
This week, UK will go against its former starting tight end, Jordan Dingle.
A 6-4, 242-pound redshirt senior, Dingle caught 43 passes for 615 yards and four touchdowns during the four seasons (2021-2024) he played for UK.
Through four games playing for South Carolina, Dingle has caught four passes for 63 yards. In the loss at Missouri, Dingle was targeted twice and hauled in a 20-yard reception.
This story was originally published September 22, 2025 at 6:45 AM.
