South Carolina football fans now have clarity on the Gamecocks’ first SEC matchup of the 2025 season. During Saturday’s Week 2 contest against South Carolina State, the program announced that next week’s home game against Vanderbilt will kick off at 7:45 p.m. at Williams-Brice Stadium.
The primetime showdown will be broadcast nationally on SEC Network, with additional streaming available through the ESPN app. It marks the conference opener for both the Gamecocks and the Commodores, setting the stage for an early-season SEC clash under the lights in Columbia.
At the time of the announcement, both South Carolina and Vanderbilt were undefeated at 1-0. The Gamecocks are coming off a statement win over Virginia Tech in Week 1, while the Commodores opened their season with a victory of their own, making this matchup a chance for one team to gain an early edge in conference play.
This offseason, the Southeastern Conference provided schools with broadcast windows for most games, leaving exact start times to be finalized later. For the Vanderbilt game, the choices were 7:00 p.m. or 7:45 p.m. The league ultimately opted for the later slot, giving South Carolina another night game at Williams-Brice, a setting known for its high-energy atmosphere and fan-driven electricity.
With the Vanderbilt kickoff officially locked in, the Gamecocks now know the exact start times for only two of their remaining matchups: the 7:45 p.m. game against Vanderbilt and the end-of-season rivalry clash against Clemson, which is set for a Noon kickoff in Columbia. The SEC will release start times for the rest of South Carolina’s 2025 schedule on a rolling basis throughout the season.
