South Carolina football's 2026 schedule complete. Full list of opponents, dates
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South Carolina football’s 2026 season is continuing to come together.
Hours after coach Shane Beamer’s three new coachinghires were approved by the board of trustees, the Gamecocks schedule for next season was set.
Before Dec. 11, South Carolina knew its annual SEC opponents, its home and away conference games, its three non conference games including recently announcing the season opener vs. Kent State but now it knows when it’ll face which SEC team.
The Gamecocks went 4-8, highlighted by a five-game stretch against top 15 opponents from Oct. 11 to Nov. 3. Will they face another gauntlet in 2026? Let’s take a look.
Here’s the full 2026 schedule and a couple of observations.
The SEC is going to a nine game conference schedule beginning in 2026 and instead of having two open dates like the last two years, it’s back to just one.
South Carolina football 2026 schedule
- Sept. 5: vs. Kent State
- Sept. 12: vs. Towson
- Sept. 19: vs. Mississippi State
- Sept. 26: at Alabama
- Oct. 3: vs. Kentucky
- Oct. 10: at Florida
- Oct. 17: Open date
- Oct. 24: vs. Tennessee
- Oct. 31: at Oklahoma
- Nov. 7: vs. Texas A&M
- Nov. 14: at Arkansas
- Nov. 21: vs Georgia
- Nov. 28: at Clemson
South Carolina hosts Kentucky for 2nd straight year
With the new schedule, each SEC team will have three annual opponents. The Gamecocks’ are Georgia, Kentucky and Florida.
Even though they hosted Kentucky in 2025, which turned out to be their only SEC win of 2025, the Gamecocks host the Wildcats again in 2026.
Beamer is 3-1 against Kentucky and now will face the Wildcats without Mark Stoops, who famously threw a subtle jab at Beamer at SEC Media Days in 2022. Stoops was fired Dec. 1.
South Carolina to close season with Georgia, Clemson
South Carolina had a easier non-conference game before the annual Palmetto Bowl the last two seasons, beating two different opponents each by 44 points before facing Clemson.
This year Beamer will host Georgia, a team that he’s never beat but Beamer is 5-0 in his second to last game of the regular season and historically strong in November.
If Beamer wants to continue his streak of pre-Palmetto Bowl good luck, he’ll have to get through Georgia who hasn’t lost its second to last regular season game since 2010.
South Carolina with six tough games after week off
The Gamecocks learned the hard way it doesn’t matter how you start, as they were ranked No. 13 in preseason polls then only won four games in 2025.
Without knowing exactly how each team is next season, the six games after its only open date appear to be South Carolina’s toughest stretch of games.
Tennessee might have star quarterback Joey Aguilar and will want revenge from the 2022 upset, before the Gamecocks have to travel to Oklahoma. Texas A&M embarrassed South Carolina on Nov. 15 and will have its quarterback Marcel Reed back.
Under a new coach, it’s hard to predict how a team will look but a late-season road game at Arkansas under Ryan Silverfield could be tricky before hosting Georgia and the annual Clemson matchup.
Lulu Kesin covers South Carolina athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email her at LKesin@usatodayco.com. Follow her on X@Lulukesin and Bluesky@bylulukesin.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: South Carolina football schedule 2026 released. Full list of opponents, dates
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