South Carolina vs. Georgia 2017 live stream: Time and how to watch online

The only real threat to the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs’ SEC East title hopes is a resurgent South Carolina Gamecocks team. Can Will Muschamp deliver his greatest win as a head coach by upsetting a top-ranked Bulldogs team on the road? The two meet in a pivotal conference showdown Saturday; kickoff is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET and will be broadcast live on CBS (live stream).

Georgia has emerged as the SEC’s last standing competitor to Alabama’s reign of dominance through an 8-0 start. The ‘Dawgs have scored 212 points through five conference blowouts leading up to this week’s test against the Gamecocks. South Carolina stands in second place in the East thanks to wins over Vanderbilt, Arkansas, and Tennessee — but the Bulldogs will be an entirely different class of competitor.

Out of the five undefeated teams, Georgia, has the two best wins: at Notre Dame and a blowout of No. 16 Mississippi State. Otherwise, it’s splattered teams with a ruthless defense and with the absolute basics on offense.

Unless you are Navy or another triple-option team, let me tell you what throwing seven times in a 42-7 win means. It means one team beat the other team’s ass so badly, they didn’t even have to get up off the couch to do it. It means Georgia saw Florida getting Georgia’s last beer out of the fridge, and without really waking up, winged the remote control all the way across the house and into Florida’s temple. The remote control came flying back like the hammer of Thor, of course.

Vanderbilt quarterback Kyle Shurmur, who has quietly been one of the better signal-callers in the SEC despite his team’s struggles, slung it all over the yard on the Gamecocks. Shurmur threw for a season-high 333 yards and four touchdowns and distributed the ball well to several receivers, led by Kalija Lipscomb’s 128 yards. The rock solid Rashad Fenton finally gave up the first touchdown of his career when he got roasted on a 47-yard strike, and along with the rest of the secondary, played a pretty poor game with untimely penalties and poor tackling.

Both teams look to be making a coaching change, which gives Smart an even bigger step ahead of the two programs. In his first two years in Athens, he signed top-10 recruiting classes, and is on the brink of leading Georgia to its first SEC East title since 2012. Wanna start imagining how well that Year Three’s gonna go?

However Saturday he topped that NC State performance by getting things done on the ground and through the air. On both zone-read scores the Vandy defense sold all in on the dive, leaving Bentley to show some nice open-field maneuvers to score two touchdowns.

Through the air Bentley showed great pocket presence and consistently delivered the ball with accuracy. It was refreshing to see Bentley will the team to victory after having some lackluster weeks prior.

Behind Sony Michel, Nick Chubb, and DeAndre Swift, the Bulldogs have run for 284 yards per game. Last week, against a talented Gators defense, they carved up Florida for 293 yards and 8.3 yard yards per carry. That’s a bad sign for South Carolina, who allowed a struggling Vanderbilt offense to average nearly five yards per touch. If the Gamecocks can’t find a way to bottle up the Bulldogs on the ground, they won’t stand a chance in Athens.

The Gamecocks may be the East’s second-best team, but the gap between them and the Bulldogs might as well be Lake Superior. South Carolina will fare better than UGA’s other SEC opponents thanks to its offensive chops, but ultimately won’t be able to hang with the nation’s No. 1 team.