South Carolina hosts Eastern Illinois Saturday to open season

The South Carolina Gamecocks return to action Saturday evening at Williams-Brice Stadium as they play host to the Eastern Illinois

Time: 7 p.m. ET

Streaming: This game is only available via ESPN+, which you can sign up for HERE. It is not available on traditional television.

This is going to be a weird game, huh?

South Carolina quarterback Luke Doty’s foot injury has forced graduate assistant Zeb Noland, a former Iowa State and North Dakota State quarterback, into the starting quarterback role due to Noland still retaining some eligibility. It’s not a situation you see very often in college football, to say the least.

The other big story heading into Saturday’s game obviously has to do with new South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer. Beamer seems to have done and said all the right things in the offseason and has won the fanbase over, and now its time to see what he’s all about from an in-game perspective, as much as you can establish that with a graduate assistant playing quarterback against a low-level Ohio Valley Conference team that already has a loss on the season.

South Carolina will likely rely heavily on running back Kevin Harris both this week and most of this year. Harris had over 1,000 rushing yards last season and is good to go after undergoing a procedure on his back over the offseason.

For Eastern Illinois, they come into this game with a loss on their schedule after falling 26-21 to Indiana State last week. Quarterback Otto Kuhns went 14-29 for 253 yards and two interceptions. Tyler Ringwood had five receptions for 116 yards.