Something that has hurt Will Muschamp’s recruiting so far is the inability of his teams to beat Clemson or Georgia. Every Gamecock fan knows the importance of beating UGA and those dreadful Tigers. Muschamp has only been South Carolina’s coach for two years, but he is 0-4 against those teams and has been outscored 142-48.

Of course, the majority of those points have come from back to back blowout losses to Clemson. Still, I wish those games against Clemson could’ve at least been respectable.

When it comes to the Bulldogs, South Carolina lost in Will Muschamp’s first year at USC with Perry Orth as his starting quarterback. You can only put some blame on Muschamp with Orth as a starter and the rest of that “SEC” roster. Still, a 14-point loss to the Bulldogs isn’t that bad. Last season, with Jake Bentley at the helm of the team, South Carolina went down to Athens and put up a damn good fight against the Bulldogs but had another 14-point loss. Deebo Samuel wasn’t on the team, and this, along with other injuries, could be blamed for the loss, but a loss is a loss.

For this year, this matchup has all the makings of a brawl. South Carolina will most likely be at full force with a nice warm-up game against the Chanticleers, unless any huge mishaps happen in training camp.

Now, as far as affecting recruiting, the Gamecocks haven’t exactly done a stellar job against their prime competition in recruiting. Against the likes of Georgia, Clemson and Florida, USC is 1-5 in Will Muschamp’s short career in Columbia. For almost every blue-chip recruit in the South, Coach Boom and the staff will be in a dogfight with UGA, Florida and Clemson. You can’t expect recruits to want to come to your program if you can’t show a winning record against your biggest rivals.

When it comes to the Bulldogs, South Carolina and UGA are almost always in numerous recruiting battles every cycle. For this current cycle, the two main battles are for Travon Walker and Warren McClendon. Georgia already has a 1-0 lead with McClendon recently committing. Travon Walker is to commit soon, and he’s considered a heavy lean towards Kirby Smart and Georgia.

During the 2018 recruiting cycle, South Carolina did get some recruits over Georgia such as Dylan Wonnum, Rick Sandidge, and Josh Vann. Four out of the top six ranked recruits came out of the state of Georgia. This shows the importance that recruiting in Georgia, especially the Atlanta area, is for Will Muschamp. South Carolina’s best defensive player, DJ Wonnum, comes from Georgia and the ATL.

Obviously, the loss of the 2018 recruits mentioned in the article above didn’t hurt the Bulldogs much considering they finished with the #1 ranked recruiting class that contained seven 5-star recruits and 13 top-100 players.

For South Carolina to win these recruiting battles for top prospects in Georgia as well as recruiting battles against Georgia for prospects across the Country, South Carolina has to win on the football field. This obviously goes for schools like Clemson and Florida. A win this year could propel them into multiple wins on the recruiting trail.

However, if a recruit is putting all of his cards into who wins the South Carolina-Georgia game then they really aren’t taking their recruiting process seriously, but a win against Georgia makes it so much easier for Will Muschamp to pitch the Gamecocks. It would just go to show that South Carolina can beat UGA with lesser talent. Just imagine what Will Muschamp could do with the kind of players he had at Florida. Just imagine what this program would transform into if we would beat and/or be competitive against UGA, Florida and Clemson every year.