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South Carolina is one of those nervous football programs that’s playing a different kind of game right now.
The waiting game.
The Gamecocks finished off a pretty remarkable 9-3 regular season with a 6-game winning streak, capped by last Saturday’s thrilling 17-14 comeback victory over rival Clemson. South Carolina did everything it could down the stretch of the 2024 season to squeeze into the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff.
Now? Well, now the Gamecocks will see where they’re placed in Tuesday night’s Playoff rankings. And then this weekend, they’ll see how the championship games unfold before Selection Sunday’s final reckoning.
South Carolina has its Playoff detractors and then it has its boosters, like longtime athletic director Ray Tanner, who took to social media on Tuesday to make a Playoff sales pitch for his football program.
“Our team deserves an opportunity to continue its winning streak into the College Football Playoff. No one is playing better than us right now. Spurs Up!” tweeted Tanner.
Our team deserves an opportunity to continue its winning streak into the College Football Playoff. No one is playing better than us right now.
Spurs Up ! https://t.co/07H9u5xoL8— Ray Tanner (@RayTannerSC) December 3, 2024
While Tanner has a point that nobody, or hardly anybody, is hotter than the Gamecocks going into the postseason, there are other Playoff bubble teams like SEC rivals Alabama and Ole Miss, as well as Miami, who are in a similar anxious state right now as they await their Playoff fate.
On Sunday, it will all shake out, and Tanner will find out if his sales pitch turned into a Playoff berth.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
