Last year’s game between Clemson and South Carolina featured major national implications, as a potential College Football Playoff play-in game for both teams.

Heading into the game at Clemson’s Memorial Stadium on Nov. 30, 2024, the Tigers were 9-2 and ranked No. 12 in the College Football Playoff rankings, and they were a virtual lock to make the expanded 12-team playoff with a victory.

Meanwhile, South Carolina was 8-3 going into the game, riding a five-game winning streak, and ranked No. 15 in the CFP rankings. The Gamecocks were very much a part of the playoff conversation, as well, though they were ultimately left out of the playoff field despite beating Clemson, 17-14.

Fast forward to this year’s Clemson-Carolina game, and things are much different. With Clemson sitting at 6-5 and South Carolina at 4-7, the playoff aspirations that both teams came into this season with are long gone.

However, South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer is “100% convinced” that this year is an aberration, as far as what the Clemson-Carolina game will mean in the playoff picture going forward.

“It’s not lost on me that neither team is where they want to be right now,” Beamer said during his weekly news conference on Tuesday. “At the beginning of the season, I think both teams and most people on the outside expected this game to be played this weekend with playoff implications, just like it was last year. I’m 100% convinced that this year is a little bit of an outlier and a bump in the road, but that next season and then every year from here on out, this game will be played in November, on Thanksgiving weekend, with playoff implications.

“It didn’t happen this year, and I know both teams feel like they’re extremely close to where they want to get back to, and where we were last year at this time – where this game, we were going into it and we thought the winner was going to be in the College Football Playoff. This season, that’s not what the implications of this game are.”

Though this year’s game doesn’t carry the national stakes that last year’s game did, Beamer says it’s “still really, really meaningful, and still really, really special.”

“It didn’t happen this year, but we’re not going anywhere. We’re only going to continue to get better as a program, and I know Dabo [Swinney] feels the same way,” Beamer said. “They’re not going anywhere. They’ve recruited well, I’m sure, and got good young players in their program, and they’re not going anywhere.

“So, this rivalry is going to be back here pretty quickly to being played Thanksgiving weekend with national implications like it was last year. And there may not be national implications this year, but there’s a whole lot of South Carolina implications for both teams, and we’re excited to go compete.”

As for Swinney’s team, Beamer believes the Tigers could easily be in the hunt for the ACC title yet again this year, had things gone a little bit differently in a few games here and there.

“As you look at their schedule, there’s three or four games on that schedule that you look at, that easily could have gone the other way,” he said. “It’s a play here, a play there, in three or four different games, and they’re a nine-, 10-win team in the mix for the ACC Championship again. They’ve had injuries certainly in some key spots throughout the year, like we have. Every game they’ve played in, though, they have always competed. They’ve been in every game.”

Saturday’s game at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia is set to kick off at noon and will be televised on SEC Network.

Beamer expects a raucous environment as the Gamecocks host the Tigers.

“I told our players that we’ve had some great environments this year for home games, but none of them will compare to what we’re gonna see on Saturday, so counting on our fans creating that environment for us,” Beamer said. “I guess it’ll be the biggest crowd that Clemson’s played in front of all season, so we need that place rocking. I don’t give a crap if it’s at 12 noon or 12 midnight or 8 p.m. or 3:30. It doesn’t matter. The standard that we want to play with and the standard we need our fans to show up with doesn’t change.”