South Carolina Gamecocks Football - LSU v. South Carolina set for a noon kickoff October 10

The October 10 SEC television line-up has been announced and the Gamecocks might have received the best news possible under the circumstances: a noon kick-off in our tilt against the # 9 LSU Tigers (3-0 [2-0 SEC]).

The Purple and Gold will be favored heavily by the pundits and oddsmakers, led by their Heisman candidate Leonard Fournette. Having had their cupcake opener against McNeese State cancelled due to inclement weather, LSU earned an impressive win over Mississippi State at Starkville, then dominated the Auburn Tigers at Death Valley.  Last week was a road trip to woeful Syracuse, where the Tigers under-performed in a 34-24 win over the 'Cuse with a lot of self-inflicted mistakes on LSU's part.  The Bayou Bengals will return to Baton Rouge this Saturday to take on Eastern Michigan, where they will no doubt work out a lot of kinks and light up the scoreboard.

How does this all bode for USC?  Anytime you can get a Central Timezone team to have a noon kickoff in Columbia, that has got to be a positive. We should hopefully have a good crowd on hand with a lot of enthusiasm. Perhaps there is a small chance of creating a trap game for LSU at Wiliams-Brice as Les Miles & Crew Krewe will return to Tiger Stadium the following week to face Florida - currenty ranked # 25 (though whether than ranking will hold up after the Gators host Ole Miss and travel to Mizzou remains to be seen).  When its Les Miles v. Spurrier, though, I don't think we will catch the LSU staff napping. We will have to play beautifully to have a puncher's chance - which many mean focusing on stopping LSU signal-caller Brandon Harris even if we surrender yards to Fournette.

Our all time record against LSU is a measly 2-17-1 - with our sole victory in SEC play coming all the way back in 1994 where Steve Taneyhill, Brandon Bennett and David Turnipseed led us to a 18-17 victory in monsoon conditions at Tiger Stadium (skip to the end to see the celebration and the boos from the LSU partisans).  It was one of Brad Scott's signature victories in his first year (7-5); it would be Curley Hallman's last season when the Tigers would finish 4-7. We would tie Gerry DiNardo's Tigers the following year, but LSU has won the last five - including the 21-23 contest in 2012.