12 May 2022
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The University of South Carolina football team will host the Jacksonville State Gamecocks on Saturday, November 4, 2023, it was announced today. Jacksonville State will replace the Liberty Flames on South Carolina’s 2023 schedule.
The contest will be the first ever played on the gridiron between the two schools that share the nickname “Gamecocks.”
Currently a member of the ASUN Conference, Jacksonville State will transition all sports into Conference USA in the summer of 2023. With the new conference home, JSU will make the jump to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). It will end a run in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) that started in 1995 and has seen the Gamecocks win nine conference championships and advance to the playoffs 10 times, including a national runner-up finish in 2015.
Jacksonville State will join Liberty, New Mexico State and Sam Houston as the newest members of C-USA in 2023. Due to its new conference affiliation, Jacksonville State needed to add FBS non-conference games to its 2023 schedule, while Liberty, which is currently competing as an independent, needed to free up some games from their 2023 slate to allow for their new conference schedule.
South Carolina will open the 2023 season with a neutral site game, playing the North Carolina Tar Heels in Charlotte on Saturday, September 2. The Gamecocks also have Furman (Sept. 9) and Clemson (Nov. 25) on their non-conference schedule in 2023. The SEC rotation has Carolina hosting the Mississippi State Bulldogs, in addition to its regular slate of six games against SEC Eastern Division opponents and a road matchup at Texas A&M, their permanent rival from the West.