NASHVILLE — It’s not a question about who’ll win the East.

That title belongs to Georgia. If anyone suggests another option, politely roll your eyes and talk to someone else about American football.

The question, however, is who will be the No. 2 team?

Tennessee? The Vols did just go to a New Year’s 6 bowl and post their best season in 2 decades.

Kentucky? The Cats did just land arguably the best transfer portal quarterback and rebuilt an offensive line that needed a major facelift.

Florida? The Gators? Nah … that’s a little too bold for a team coming off consecutive losing seasons.

What’s not so bold is saying that in a race for second full of teams with flaws, South Carolina will emerge as the division’s No. 2 team.

Yes, the Gamecocks are flawed. Through the first 10 weeks of the 2022 season, you probably could make a case that they had the vibe of a middling 6-6 team with a failed Spencer Rattler experiment. And a team with 37 new players on the roster with major questions in the running game — on both sides of the ball — doesn’t scream “just behind Georgia.”

Nobody is saying that South Carolina is going to be nipping at the Dawgs’ heels to overtake them and reach Atlanta. But outside of that, there’s a strong argument to be made for why the Gamecocks can overcome their perceived flaws in ways that others can’t.

The oddsmakers can’t even figure out Shane Beamer. Forget just hitting the “over” on his team’s win total each of his first 2 years. In that small stretch, South Carolina won as a double-digit underdog a whopping 4 times. He’s won outright as an underdog 7 times. Nearly half of his wins as a head coach came as an underdog.

Of course, Beamer would prefer to end the losing streak to Mizzou. And as Beamer referenced a ton during his time in Nashville, leading the SEC in turnovers lost in each of his first 2 years is a trend he’d prefer to end.

But it helps when you’re also No. 1 in the SEC in turnovers gained in each of the last 2 seasons. It also helps when you’ve got an All-American punter in Kai Kroger, who was at SEC Media Days, and a place-kicker who was perfect last year. South Carolina also had 5 non-offensive touchdowns in 2022.

Yep. Beamer Ball.

To be clear, Beamer Ball isn’t just special teams scores. Beamer Ball is the belief that no matter who is on the field — offense, defense or special teams — you can find a way to score a touchdown. Conventional wisdom suggests one can’t rely on that as a legitimate source of offense to cover up some potential struggles, but if there’s ever someone who should get that benefit of the doubt, it’s Beamer.

In baseball, it would be manufacturing runs. In football, it’s considered random. It’s not random if it’s a proven form of offense coming from a former special teams coordinator.

Something else that might’ve been considered random was the Tennessee game last year. Did South Carolina just catch lightning in a bottle in that 63-38 drubbing of the 10-1, Playoff-hopeful Vols? Or did beating Clemson a week later in Death Valley — where the Tigers hadn’t lost in 6 years — squash that notion?

I’d argue it’s the latter.

Beamer can talk about “momentum” of the program gained off of that until he’s blue in the face, but he’s well aware that offseason momentum doesn’t net wins for the following season. It helps on the recruiting trail, sure, and Beamer can go to alumni functions and get a whole lot more love knowing that he slayed not 1, but 2 top-10 dragons to close the regular season. All of that will be a bit of an afterthought in the event that South Carolina starts off 0-2 in SEC play like it did last year.

Speaking of slow starts, that’s another reason why South Carolina finishing No. 2 isn’t so crazy. Both of his first 2 teams had 2 SEC losses by the end of September, yet what happened after that? All of those 4 aforementioned victories as a double-digit underdog.

Beamer has shown that he can keep a team together. Don’t underestimate the value of that in this era of the transfer portal and NIL. It’s like the coach who excels at making halftime adjustments. You’d rather bet on the coaches who excel in that area than not, no?

South Carolina is worth betting on. It’s not that Tennessee and Kentucky are about to fall off the face of the earth. All 3 of those teams could have 8-4 marks in the regular season, and it wouldn’t be particularly surprising.

But besides the fact that Tennessee and Kentucky both have dates with Alabama and Georgia, there are bigger question marks. Even if you’re a Joe Milton believer, let’s not forget that Tennessee is replacing its best quarterback since Peyton Manning, and it’s doing so with a guy who lost his job twice. Picking up where Hendon Hooker left off is by no means a given, and neither is a defense that was frustratingly inconsistent … which we saw against South Carolina.

And Kentucky, which lost at home to the Gamecocks last year (Will Levis was injured), has an absolutely brutal latter half of the SEC slate including games:

  • vs. Tennessee
  • at Mississippi State
  • vs. Alabama
  • at South Carolina

Those teams went a combined 39-13 last year. That doesn’t include an early-October trip to Georgia, either. And if that Kentucky offensive line lacks depth or simply isn’t as improved as it hopes, that stretch can wipe out any hope that the Cats have of recording their third winning season in SEC play since the Jimmy Carter administration.

That brings us back to South Carolina. You know, the team with the immensely talented quarterback who flipped a late-season switch to record its second consecutive winning season. They’re led by the coach who beat 3 of the 5 active national championship-winning coaches in his first 2 years (H/T Brad Crawford).

Flawed? Sure. So is every non-Georgia team in the East. But if Beamer has shown us anything these first 2 seasons in Columbia, it’s clear.

Maybe don’t bet against the guy.