Which first-time opponent or renewed matchup would you welcome to the South Carolina football schedule?

Yesterday, we came across this post at our Syracuse sister site, Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician, that looked into football opponents that the Orange have never faced. As it turns out - which they noted in the article - South Carolina and Syracuse have never played each other in football! That’s a little surprising despite the two programs being headed in separate directions during the Orange’s heyday in the late 80s/early-to-mid-90s.

That got us thinking: Which football programs have the Gamecocks never faced or haven’t faced in a while? With many major teams scheduling so far ahead in this day and age, it’s hard to lock one of them up. For example, take Louisville, who has never faced the Gamecocks in football. Michigan State? Nada. Oklahoma? Not once. As with Cuse, though, most of the teams that have never matched up with Carolina on the gridiron are over on the West Coast (i.e. Cal, Arizona, Washington), mainly because the logistics behind it wouldn’t make much sense unless it was in a bowl/CFP scenario.

Then again, even though that’s mostly the rule, there are a couple of exceptions on the left coast. Southern Cal and South Carolina have played each other twice (in 1980 and 1983, with the two teams splitting the games). The Gamecocks swept a two-game series from New Mexico State in 2000 and 2002, both at Williams-Brice. They even played at Hawaii in 1977 and 1981! (losing both, though)

That brings us to the second part of our question: opponents the Gamecocks haven’t faced in a while. Georgia Tech and Carolina haven’t played since 1991, the same year as their last game against Duke. Their last game against Texas was their only game against the Longhorns, a 27-21 victory in Austin in 1957. Notre Dame was on the schedule in 1976, 1979, 1983, and 1984, but haven’t appeared on it since then. Oklahoma State’s played the Gamecocks twice - 1979 at Williams-Brice and in the Gator Bowl in 1984.

Let’s turn it over to you. Who would you like to see on the schedule in the future? Let us know in the comment section.