Coastal Carolina at South Carolina: Game Preview & Prediction

Location: Williams Brice Stadium, Columbia SC

Game Time: Noon, Saturday September 1st 2018

Coverage: SEC Network

Betting Line: -29 South Carolina, O/U 57

Previous Meeting: South Carolina won 70-10 in 2013

Outlook

First off, lets welcome Joe Moglia back to the sidelines in Conway as the CCU faithful is more than happy to see him back healthy. The down side is the Chants open up 2018 against a heavily favored Gamecock team. The Gamecoks offense is going to be what to watch because one knock on Will Muschamp has been the lack of getting a productive offense to click.

South Carolina will also be breaking in its forth offensive coordinator in seven seasons in Bryan McClendon. South Carolina has made it known that the system is going to change and the Gamecocks are going to impose a new up-tempo style on offense to run up and down the field. Quarterback Jake Bentley returns to lead the unit that ranked 12th in the SEC a season ago. Deebo Samuel heads up the wide receivers unit as he co led the team in touchdown catches from a season ago and only played in three games.

SC is thin at DT and middle linebacker so the middle of the defense could be an area the Chants exploit. The secondary has a lot of talent but appears to be young and lack game experience. Texas A&M graduate transfer Nick Harvey has joined the team and many believe he could land the starting job at corner.

Prediction

Coastal Carolina still has some big unanswered questions heading into 2018. The revival of Moglia back is big for this squad but it takes much more than that especially in a matchup of this caliber. Kilton Anderson could be just one or two bad games away from being replaced by a true Freshman at QB and the defense which is undersized has many questions compared to answer's.

Coastal is going to play a good number of young guys and the only way to get young guys better is big game experience and this is just that for the Chanticleers. I like the 29 and South Carolina to hit the over by themselves.

South Carolina 58-13