Only once in the 112-year history of the Clemson-Carolina game has a South Carolina team with a losing record defeated a Clemson team with a winning record. The last time that happened was 119 years ago.

In the very first meeting between the two long-time rivals, W.H. Whaley’s South Carolina team defeated Walter Riggs’ Tigers, 12-6. Of course that was in 1896, and the Gamecocks were not even called the Gamecocks back then. They were knows as the Jaguars.

Since then Clemson has posted a 27-0-3 mark in the series when it has had a winning record and the Gamecocks ended the year with a losing record.

The year, Clemson comes into the Palmetto State’s biggest game with an 11-0 record and has the nation’s top-ranked team in all three major rankings. South Carolina on the other hand has lost four straight and is having its worse season since 1999, when it went 0-11.

The Gamecocks come into the state’s biggest game with a 3-8 record.

In fact, Clemson’s 11 wins and South Carolina’s three represent the largest disparity in total victories between the two programs entering the game in the history of the series.

What does all this mean?

History says Clemson should win at Williams-Brice Stadium on Saturday. And so do the odds makers in Las Vegas. They have the Tigers as a 17.5 favorite.

But Vegas and history are not playing the Tigers on Saturday.

“We have nothing to lose,” South Carolina interim head coach Shawn Elliott said to The State Newspaper in Columbia earlier this week. “We could easily go into our locker room for our team meeting (Monday) and talk about the losses and reflect on those things but we’re going to move forward, we’re going to stay positive and we’re going to try to make this the best week of our season.”

It has been a long and turbulent season for the Gamecocks. At the midway point, Steve Spurrier stepped down as head coach and Elliott took over as the interim. He won his first game, but since then USC has struggled to get another win.

It all came to a head last week, when The Citadel stunned the Gamecocks with a 23-22 victory at Williams-Brice Stadium.

Elliott, who grew up a Gamecock fan not too far down the road from Columbia in Camden, knows better than anyone that everything that happened in the loss to The Citadel, and in the other seven defeats, can be forgiven with a win over Clemson.

Beating the Tigers on any year is a treat for South Carolina, but beating them on a year when they are ranked No. 1 in the country would make it that much sweeter for the Gamecocks.

“This can make the rest of the year feel so much better than what it has been for us,” Elliott said. “I think our guys will have good emotion, good intensity and good confidence as they roll up in there.”

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney is counting on it. He understands South Carolina isn’t going to go quietly into the night.

“This game isn’t any more important to them than it is to us,” Swinney said. “We’re going to get everybody’s best effort each and every week. But that’s really not our focus. It’s really just about how we play. All I know is South Carolina is going to play their tails off, but so are we.”

And according to history, Clemson should win.