South Carolina completed its 2013 football schedule today by announcing that Coastal Carolina would replace South Carolina State as its Championship Subdivision opponent. Coastal and USC will meet for the first time ever on Nov. 23, the week before USC’s regular season finale against Clemson. The teams will also play in 2016.

Before USC’s Southeastern Conference schedule was announced earlier this month, the South Carolina State game was slotted for Sept. 7. But that had to be changed because USC’s game against Georgia was placed on that date, back in its traditional Week 2 spot.

Today, as USC announced the Coastal game and the completion of the 2013 schedule, one other non-conference game date also changed. The Gamecocks will not play North Carolina on a Thursday night, Aug. 29, to open the season. Instead, they will meet Aug. 31. USC’s two other non-conference game dates remained the same – Central Florida and, of course, Clemson.

Before filling the South Carolina State spot, USC had three open dates on the schedule, two of which would be occupied by off weeks – Sept. 21, Nov. 9 and Nov. 23.

The most likely date for USC’s Championship Subdivision game seemed to be Nov. 23, because in recent years, the Gamecocks have played a lower-division or lower-caliber opponent the week before the Clemson game.

This year, the Gamecocks play Wofford in that slot. Last year, it was The Citadel. The year before, it was Troy. From 2007-09, the Gamecocks had an off week before playing Clemson. In 2006, they played Middle Tennessee State.

But from 1992-2005, USC played Florida the week before the Clemson game, so having a week off or playing a lower-caliber opponent before Clemson is a relatively new development. 

Here now, a look at USC’s full 2013 schedule, which is almost same as when the SEC schedule was released on Oct. 18, with the exception of the Coastal game being slotted for Nov. 23 and North Carolina game being moved from a Thursday to a Saturday to open the season. The Central Florida and Clemson games were officially given the dates they were scheduled to have in the first place. On to the schedule ...

Aug. 31 vs. North Carolina

Sept. 7 at Georgia

Sept. 14 vs. Vanderbilt

Sept. 21 OPEN

Sept. 28 at Central Florida

Oct. 5 vs. Kentucky

Oct. 12 at Arkansas

Oct. 19: at Tennessee

Oct. 26: at Missouri

Nov. 2 vs. Mississippi State

Nov. 9 OPEN

Nov. 16 vs. Florida

Nov. 23 vs. Coastal Carolina   

Nov. 30 vs. Clemson

As you can see, USC has a tough stretch of three straight SEC road games in October (Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri) that is similar to this year’s back-to-back trips to LSU and Florida.

The Gamecocks’ schedule is back loaded with home games, as they finish the season with four straight games at Williams-Brice Stadium and don’t leave Columbia after Oct. 26. But four of their five games from Sept. 28 to Oct. 26 are on the road, including the trip to Central Florida.

Finally, based on USC’s web site, here are the future non-league opponents, as of right now ...

2014 – Aug. 30 East Carolina (in Charlotte), Oct. 18 Furman, Nov. 22 Troy, Nov. 29 at Clemson

2015 – Sept. 5 at East Carolina, Sept. 26 Central Florida, Nov. 21 The Citadel, Nov. 28 Clemson

2015 – East Carolina (date TBA), Nov. 26 at Clemson

Georgia State’s head coaching position is open, as Bill Curry, 70, will retire after the season. Curry, the former coach at Georgia Tech, Alabama and Kentucky, is in his third year at Georgia State, a Championship Subdivision program that is also in its third season.

Georgia State, which plays in the Colonial Athletic Association, is 1-8 this season, after going 3-8 and 6-5 the previous two seasons as an independent. On the surface, this isn’t a particularly attractive job, though Georgia State is located in Atlanta and plays its game in the Georgia Dome – both beneficial for recruiting purposes.

Moreover, Georgia State will join the Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) next season, as a member of the Sun Belt Conference. And in 2014, Georgia State will be a full FBS member, eligible for postseason play.

Nobody on South Carolina’s staff has more recruiting connections in the state of Georgia than defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward.

He landed nine commitments from the state in the last recruiting class, including three four-star prospects, led by defensive back Chaz Elder and running back Mike Davis, the highest-rated recruit in USC’s current freshman class. Both players are from the metro Atlanta area, which is prime territory for Georgia State, and many other schools, of course.

Ward also knows Curry, because Curry’s three seasons at Alabama (1987-89) were Ward’s final three playing for the Crimson Tide.  

So would Ward be interested in the Georgia State job?

“You can’t ever say no in this business, but I have a great job,” Ward said Wednesday morning.

Curry earns an average base salary of $350,000, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Ward earned about $285,000 last season as USC’s defensive backs coach. His promotion before the bowl game to defensive coordinator bumped his salary to $550,000 for 2012 and $575,000 for 2013.

Ward eventually wants to become a head coach, but FCS coaches do not make the kind of money he is making now. Of course, Georgia State will be in the FBS next year and will presumably pay its new coach accordingly.

Former Liberty University coach Danny Rocco had a salary and bonus compensation package “believed to be” worth more than $400,000 a year, according to The News & Advance of Lynchburg, Va. At the time of Rocco’s departure from Liberty last season for another job, he was “one of the highest paid coaches in the FCS,” according to the newspaper.  

Though South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore is finished for this season, and probably next, with a serious right knee injury, the Gamecocks still have one of college football’s best players in defensive end Jadeveon Clowney. Barring injury, they will have him for the rest of this season, and then next, and then he will be off to the NFL, perhaps as the No. 1 overall pick.

But before then, he probably will make more plays like the win-clinching strip-sack of Tennessee’s Tyler Bray on Saturday. That is one of those iconic moments for which Clowney will be remembered forever in Columbia. Just 22 games into his college career, it is clear that he will go down as one of the best players in school history, if he keeps playing like this.

And defensive line coach Brad Lawing has no reason to believe that Clowney won’t. He wanted Clowney to push himself harder in practice this season than he did last season. And Clowney has done that. Lawing wanted Clowney to brush up on the Gamecocks’ scheme, so teammates didn’t have to tell him what to do before most snaps. Clowney sharpened his mental approach as well.

Moreover, Clowney made that strip-sack of Bray while playing his third straight game in pain caused by a deeply bruised right foot that again had him in a walking boot after Tuesday’s practice – the first of three for the Gamecocks in their off week, as they prepare for the Nov. 10 home game against Arkansas. With a little rest, Lawing expects him to be ready for that game.

“It’s a pain thing that he’s got to work through,” Lawing said. “He played the first series the other day and he came over and he didn’t think he could go full speed. (Former USC defensive end) Jordin Lindsey was there on the sideline. I’ve got a lot of respect for (Lindsey’s) toughness.

“I said (to Clowney), ‘You see that guy right there?’ He didn’t know who (Lindsey) was. I said, ‘JD, that guy right there, he played with a broken wrist for several weeks. If he can play with a broken wrist, you’ve got to work through this foot thing.’

“And he did. I’m proud of him. He fought through it and fought through it and heck, he made a play that kind of won the ball game. That was an NFL play, in my opinion. That’s one of those that you turn on the TV and you see somebody like DeMarcus Ware making that.”

Lawing said this defensive line is probably the fastest he’s ever had, and Clowney is a big reason for that. But for a defensive end like Clowney, speed doesn’t mean just using your feet to get around an offensive tackle. It also means using your hands to get separation – something Clowney said he has significantly improved since last season.

Lawing thinks Clowney can continue to improve with “just keeping learning how to use his hands. That’s something that you probably never really just get great at, except for time, because he’ll stick his shoulder in there every now and then (to get separation). We were watching tape (Tuesday) and I said, ‘There’s your shoulder in there again. They were holding you. And they’re not going to call holding.’

“I had an SEC official tell him last year, as a favor to me, that, ‘When you put your shoulder in there, we’re not going to call holding.’ So don’t put it in there. If you get separation, use your hands. There’s a chance holding may get called (if you used your hands). Plus, you’re more efficient as a pass rusher and as a football player overall when you use your hands.”

As he planned to do this season, Lawing has moved Clowney inside to defensive tackle at times in order to get him better pass rush lanes to the quarterback.

“If people start loading up on the outside and they’re going to chip you (with a running back) and turn an extra guard out on you, then you’ve got to do something to adjust,” Lawing said. “That’s the adjustment we make.”

Before the season, Lawing and defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward used the NFL as a carrot to motivate Clowney. “You can be a first-round pick you can be the first pick,” they told him.

Clowney clearly got the message, and while Lawing is far from content with Clowney’s performance, this is the type of production he expected from the former No. 1 overall recruit.

“We work under the premise that there is no finish line,” Lawing said. “In athletics, when you give somebody a finish line, that’s not a good thing, because they get to a point where they get satisfied. So with him, there’s no finish line. He’s gotten better and now he’s got to get better on game days because he’s not practicing a lot (due to the foot). Either you’ve got to practice or you’ve got to play to get better, so he’s missing some developmental time right now because of lack of practice time. He’s getting there. I’m glad he came to South Carolina.”

Some other notes from Lawing in this week of healing for his defensive line ...

** Lawing indicated there is a chance Clowney might need to have surgery on his injured right foot after the season. But that isn’t a guarantee.

“That’s something they can fix in the offseason,” he said of the foot.

Does that mean surgery?

“I guess,” Lawing said. “I’m not a doctor. I know it’s something they talked about fixing. I don’t know what all they do.”

** Lawing expects not only Clowney, but also starting tackles Byron Jerideau (sprained ankle) and Kelcy Quarles (sprained shoulder), and top reserve tackle J.T. Surratt (sprained ankle), to be OK for the Arkansas game. Quarles has missed the past two games.

“Kelcy, hopefully he’ll be ready (to practice) in the next couple days,” Lawing said. “He’s got an AC sprain. I’m not going to push him because I know how those AC sprains are. They’re very, very painful. And it’s a sprain, but I don’t know if you’ve ever hurt your shoulder before, but when you hurt your shoulder, sometimes it hurts to cough and it hurts to roll over in bed a little bit wrong. We’ve got to get him healthy.

“I think they’re all going to be healthy by (Arkansas), from what I’ve been told. I tell all of them, ‘Do what you can do (in practice).’ And I trust them. If I didn’t trust them, it would be a different factor. So I believe that if they can’t go, they’re hurt and they can’t push through it right now. I want to get them healthy for the stretch run. The most important day is Saturday (i.e. game day), and I understand that. I’ve got to get them to Saturday.”

** Lawing knows his front four must do a better job of “affecting” (not necessarily sacking, but pressuring) Arkansas quarterback Tyler Wilson, who is a pocket passer like Bray. On Saturday, Bray had time to throw for much of the day.

“When they’re throwing the ball on us, as a defensive front, we accept responsibility, too,” Lawing said. “We’ve got to do a better job with that. We’ve got to affect the quarterback better and we know that.”

** The off week comes at a good time for Lawing’s front four.

“I wish it had come several weeks ago, but unfortunately our bye comes at the tail end of our season,” Lawing said. “But at least we’ve got one. I’ve been through seasons where you played 11 or 12 straight weeks without a bye. That is tough. In a perfect world, you’d probably like to have about four or five games then have a bye, then play about four or five more and have a bye.”

** The injuries to Quarles, Surratt and Jerideau have meant more playing time for Phillip Dukes and Gerald Dixon Jr., Lawing’s redshirt freshman tackles. Dukes has been playing with a cast on his hand to protect a fractured thumb. Lawing said that cast will probably come off this week.

“J.T. and Junior have made tremendous strides and Phillip has made a lot of strides, too,” Lawing said. “That cast kind of limits what he can do. As a defensive lineman, you’ve got to play with your hands and with that cast on, it’s tough. I’m very pleased with all those guys and the direction they’re headed.”

South Carolina tailback Marcus Lattimore’s devastating right knee injury in Saturday’s win over Tennessee hit especially close to home in Blacksburg, Va.

That’s because Virginia Tech running backs coach Shane Beamer was the Gamecocks’ recruiting coordinator when they landed Lattimore for the Class of 2010. Lattimore was a huge recruit – the No. 10 overall prospect in his class, according to Rivals.com, and the No. 1 running back.

In a strange twist, Lattimore’s lead recruiter, Jay Graham, was on Tennessee’s sideline on Saturday afternoon. Graham is now the Volunteers’ running backs coach, after spending three years in that role at USC.

On Saturday, Beamer offered some comments to Norm Wood of the Daily Press in Newport News, Va., about Lattimore’s injury. Wood was kind enough to pass them along.

"It's awful,” Beamer said. “I just talked to his stepdad about two weeks ago. He called me about something. He's as team-oriented as you can get, tough, it's never about him. Awful deal. Great kid, though. He's a team guy. I still remember we went up to Vanderbilt my last year (at USC). (Lattimore) wasn't going to play. He was hurt.

“The backup tailback (Kenny Miles) was going to start the game. (Miles) was also on our kickoff return team. So Marcus is out with an injury. He comes up to me in pregame warm-ups and says, 'If you need me to go on kickoff return for Kenny, I can go.' I'm like, 'What's wrong with Kenny? Kenny's our kickoff returner.' He was like, 'Well, nothing's wrong, but I'm not starting and he is. So if you need me to go in his place.' Just stuff like that. I hate it for him. It's a tough deal."

This morning, South Carolina’s football players and coaches woke up to start a new week as they embark on the month of November – a critical time in the college football season. The Gamecocks are off this week, before closing with Arkansas and Wofford at home, and Clemson on the road, as they try to equal last season’s 11-2 record.

They can do it if they win out, including their bowl game. They still have a chance of winning the Southeastern Conference’s Eastern Division, but they need significant help. Florida has to lose its SEC finale at home to Missouri and Georgia has to lose at home to Mississippi or on the road against Auburn, but cannot drop both games.

The first step in USC winning the East happened on Saturday, when Georgia beat Florida. But considering Missouri is 4-4 and 1-4 in the SEC, Ole Miss is 5-3 (2-2) and Auburn is 1-7 (0-6), it is still a long shot for the Gamecocks to make the conference title game.  

Yet this team remains in a position that November still matters very much. And as the Gamecocks navigate the final month of their regular season, they will have to do it without tailback Marcus Lattimore, who injured multiple ligaments in his right knee during Saturday’s win over Tennessee.

That very well could have been Lattimore’s final college game, if he decides to turn pro. Regardless of whether he stays or goes, he might not be able to play again until 2014, because of how late in the season he suffered this injury, and how serious it is. Lattimore, a junior, does have a redshirt year available that he can use next season if he wants to play at USC in 2014.

That is a decision he doesn’t have to make any time soon. The more immediate issue for USC is how it will replace Lattimore. The Gamecocks went through this last season, when Lattimore was injured in the seventh game, at Mississippi State.

True freshman Brandon Wilds was his primary replacement for the first four games after the injury, as he ran for 28 carries and 137 yards against Tennessee, 10 for 21 against Arkansas, 29 for 120 against Florida and 20 for 109 against The Citadel. But in the regular season finale against Clemson, he had just seven carries for 24 yards. And in the bowl win over Nebraska, he did not carry the ball.

USC turned to Kenny Miles as its tailback for those games. He had 21 carries for 71 yards against Clemson and 15 for 67 against Nebraska. Other than those two games, Miles had just 18 carries all season. He considered transferring in the offseason in order to spend his fifth-year senior season as the primary tailback at another school. But in the end, he decided to stay.

It’s a good thing for USC that he did, especially considering Wilds and Shon Carson (wrist) haven’t played yet this season, and Carson definitely won’t. Miles had just 32 carries this season before replacing Lattimore against Tennessee. Miles finished that game with 10 carries for 34 yards. True freshman Mike Davis is now USC’s No. 2 back. He had 19 carries before the Tennessee game, and five for 20 yards against the Volunteers.

If Miles and Davis can share the load, then USC will continue with its plan to redshirt Wilds. That would mark an interesting bookending of Miles’ career. In 2009, the year before Lattimore arrived, he had 117 carries for 626 yards, most on the team in both categories, with the exception of quarterback Stephen Garcia’s 120 carries. Miles’ carries dipped to 40 in 2010, 54 last season (when he missed four games with a wrist injury) and 42 this season.

Replacing Lattimore isn’t the only storyline for USC, of course, as the Gamecocks sort through the fallout of his injury during the off week and prepare for the final three games. Here now, some items wrapping up the Tennessee game and looking ahead to Arkansas …

** Defensive end Jadeveon Clowney continues to have an outstanding sophomore season. Tennessee had allowed three sacks all season, and none to a defensive lineman, before Clowney’s strip-sack clinched USC’s win.

He had eight sacks last season and now has 8.5 this season, which ranks No. 5 nationally. He has 15 tackles for loss this season, to go with 12 last season. Clowney is sixth on USC’s all-time sacks list, just behind teammate Devin Taylor’s 18. Eric Norwood is the record holder with 29. In tackles for loss, Taylor is fifth (33) and Clowney is tied for 10th. Norwood also leads that category, with 54.5.  

Clowney continues to be effective while rushing from the inside or outside, and while he was far from dominant against Tennessee left tackle Antonio Richardson, he beat him when it mattered most, on that strip sack.

USC coach Steve Spurrier said he and defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward “had the same idea about the middle of the fourth quarter (against Tennessee). I said, ‘Let him rush from the inside, please.’ Sure enough, we put him inside, where that back did not double on him. I thought maybe Tennessee would tell that back to just wait on the inside, but he stayed on the outside, and JD got two good pressures there at the end. Without that, I don’t think we could have slowed them down much. That was the key to the ball game.”

Of course, Clowney was rushing from the outside, not the inside, on his strip sack.

“The series before the last one, we moved him inside because they were chipping him with the back,” Ward said. “We knew they had a great offensive line. So we moved him into three technique (at defensive tackle). I don’t know if they changed their protection (for the last series) because we had him inside the series before that, but the back never chipped him on that (strip-sack) play.

“JD is playing with a hurt (right) foot. We know that. He didn’t practice all week. For him to give us the effort that he gave us, it goes to show the mental toughness of the young man. Nobody got pressure on (Tennessee quarterback Tyler Bray) early. We felt like in certain situations, we had to bring some pressure to try to get him to throw the ball quickly. But he did a good job of when we even brought pressure of getting rid of the football.”

As Ward alluded to, Tennessee has an excellent offensive line. Arkansas’ isn’t too bad either, as the Razorbacks rank No. 29 nationally with 11 sacks allowed this season.

Said Clowney, of his strip sack: “Really, I looked into the backfield and saw that they didn’t have a back to chip, and I was like, ‘Well, I’ll rush him on a knockdown and get to the quarterback, hopefully.’ In the heat of the moment I was like, ‘You got to make a play right here.’

“They’ve got to be the best line we’ve faced this year so far. They kept us out of the quarterback’s face a lot. We usually get more pressure on quarterbacks than what we did. We’ve just got to help the DBs out, get back there quicker, get the ball out of his hands. He had a lot of time back there this game. We’ve got to work on that.”

USC has been able to get pressure on the quarterback using just its front four for most of the season. But not against Tennessee. Will the Gamecocks be able to rattle Arkansas quarterback Tyler Wilson – who, like Bray, is a legit pro-style prospect – more than they got to Bray?

“I believe in our defensive line,” Ward said. “Watching film, you knew that (Tennessee) front was good, but I thought we could put four-man pressure on them, but obviously, we couldn’t.”

If you’re scoring at home, USC currently ranks No. 5 nationally with 30 sacks, with 24 coming from defensive linemen.

** The off week comes at a good time for the Gamecocks, whose front four is also dealing with tackle Byron Jerideau’s sprained ankle. Offensive right tackle Brandon Shell has an ankle sprain, too.

“It’s been a long stretch, man,” Clowney said.

Said cornerback Victor Hampton: “We needed a bye week really bad. The last few weeks have been really tough. We get to give our bodies some rest.”

Ward simply exhaled when asked about the off week.

“It’s been a quick season,” he said. “We needed a break, and hopefully we can get all the injuries healed up and get ready for another passing team. We know Arkansas is going to come in here they’re going to throw the football. Hopefully, we can get (backup cornerback) Akeem (Auguste) back (from a groin injury) and we can get the defensive front well. It’s coming at the right time.”

** Arkansas ranks No. 17 nationally with 309.6 passing yards per game. Tennessee is now No. 21 (297.3). And Clemson is No. 12 (317.6). So USC is closing with three strong passing offenses. Arkansas throws the ball 38 times a game, which ranks No. 31 nationally and first among all the teams USC plays this year except Alabama-Birmingham (39.8). Tennessee is right there, at 37.5, and Clemson is at 36.6.

Tennessee hit USC for 381 passing yards, the most USC has allowed this season. USC quarterback Connor Shaw countered with a career-best 356 yards on 22-of-32 passing.

“It was good to win one like that,” Spurrier said. “It was a game we had to throw the ball, and Connor (Shaw) threw the ball beautifully. It was good to see Connor step in there and make the throws and not run all the time. Overall, it was maybe a way to win a game that we hadn’t won many like that around here. It was good for us.”

Said Shaw: “I just felt like we took what the defense gave. They were playing in a zone so we were able to hit some spots. First and foremost, I think our line protected well. I was able to have good passing lanes to see. Coach (Steve Spurrier) harped on all week just to get it out of my hands, make quick decisions, be decisive. That’s what I worked on all week, and I think it showed.”

Shaw will get a chance to accumulate some more passing yards against Arkansas, which ranks No. 120 of 124 teams nationally with 301.3 passing yards allowed per game. (Clemson is No. 69, with 237.9.) Arkansas’ offense hasn’t been the problem. The Razorbacks are No. 45 nationally in total offense, and No. 88 in total defense, largely because of their pass defense. They rank No. 30 against the run.

That’s how you get to 3-5 and 2-3 in the SEC, as the Razorbacks are, in his disastrous one and only season under interim coach John L. Smith. They host Tulsa this week as they try to rebound from last week’s 30-27 loss to Ole Miss in which they gave up 278 passing yards and 355 total yards.

One of Shaw’s best targets, receiver Ace Sanders, knows how important the Tennessee win was in helping the Gamecocks regroup after back-to-back road losses to LSU and Florida. But now, can they finish strong without their best offensive player?

“For me, it was like a check to see where our heads were, where our hearts were, coming off two losses,” Sanders said of the Tennessee win. “Were we just going to just lie down and let the season go or were we going to bounce back and try to play this thing out?”