COLOMBIA – Shane Beamer knows what the challenge is like after the SEC released its football schedule for the 2021 conference on Wednesday.
The SEC is maintaining the same conference rotation as always and not changing much, despite the 2020 season defined by the pandemic. South Carolina will host Auburn again, although the Gamecocks did so last season, and will travel to Missouri, Texas A&M, Tennessee and Georgia.
USC will host Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Florida and Auburn. As for non-conference opponents, Gamecocks will begin the season on September 4 by hosting Eastern Illinois, traveling to East Carolina on September 11, hosting Troy on October 2 and hosting Clemson on November 27.
The USC-Clemson game was overlooked last year, when the SEC declared that only conference games would be played (the ACC allowed an out-of-conference game) and raised some questions about the location of this year’s rivalry game. USC athletics director Ray Tanner said he did not anticipate any changes and that the game will be in Columbia this year.
The USC will open its SEC season in Georgia on September 18, returning the game to early September. The Gamecocks and Bulldogs played on November 7 last year, the last date on which it was played in a rivalry that started in 1894 and covered 73 games.
The Tennessee game, which was almost always a Halloween weekend game, is scheduled for October 9 in Knoxville. The teams opened the season against each other last year.
USC’s farewell week is October 30, after eight games.
Beamer loses another assistant
Beamer introduced the last member of his team on the field, offensive line coach Greg Adkins, to the media on Wednesday morning.
In two hours, he was back on the hunt.
Running back coach Des Kitchings accepted a spot at the Atlanta Falcons, sources confirmed. Kitchings was a remnant of Will Muschamp’s team and received a raise of $ 120,000.
He follows Mike Bobo and Tracy Rocker as coaches who remained under Beamer and then left. Will Friend, whom Beamer hired from Tennessee, also left.
Follow David Cloninger on Twitter @DCPandC.