Rebuild is ahead of schedule, from where I sit. USCe and Mizzou are not very good but they are not the pushovers we thought they were: both got to 6 wins today and beat Florida this season. Scar beat Auburn today, and while this Auburn iteration isn’t very good, that’s still punching above their weight for South Carolina as a program.
We dismantled both those teams. They were never in the game against us. We played Ole Miss, likely the second or third best team in the West, pretty much dead even. We are already clearly well above the bottom tier of SEC teams. Taking the next step into the upper echelon will be more difficult. Depending on how well we do in the portal, I believe we could take that step in 2023 if not next year.
Getting to “Elite” status a la ‘Bama for the last decade, 2019 LSU, or present day Georgia is harder to put a finger on. Who knows.
What I do know is that we have won or very nearly won in every game that we weren’t completely outmatched in terms of overall player skill. Against the two SEC east teams we were supposed to be on par with this year, we completely dominated. The tide is going to turn if and when we get more quality in Knoxville. And it may turn more quickly than some of y’all think.