Football Opens 2026 Season with 57-0 Win over Kent State

COLUMBIA — LaNorris Sellers threw three touchdown passes among five TD drives as South Carolina defeated Kent State 57-0 on Saturday in the season-opener for each team.

Sellers, beginning his third season as starting quarterback under a third offensive coordinator, showed no hesitation in running the system installed by Kendal Briles. He looked smooth and sure as the first quarterback in an attack that piled up 645 yards and featured scores by six different players.

Sellers finished 19-of-23 passing for 270 yards.

Donovan Murph caught two touchdowns while Jabree Coleman rushed for two more for South Carolina. Mazeo Bennett, Mike Tyler, Matt Fuller and Isaiah Augustave also scored one TD each.

Dru DeShields passed for 63 yards and rushed for 27 to lead Kent State.

Fuller started the scoring in the first quarter with a 7-yard jaunt into the end zone, after receiver Nyck Harbor was ruled to have stepped out of bounds on a TD pass from Sellers. The Gamecocks scored three more touchdowns in the second, highlighted by a 60-yard sprint from Coleman, a transfer from Penn State.