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Source: 2011 South Carolina Gamecocks football team

The 2011 South Carolina Gamecocks football team represented the University of South Carolina in the 2011 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Gamecocks were led by seventh-year head coach Steve Spurrier and played their home games at Williams–Brice Stadium. They were a member of the East Division of the Southeastern Conference and finished 11–2 for the season and 6–2 in SEC play.
The defending SEC East champions, South Carolina started the season 4–0 and ranked No. 10 in the country. However, in the fifth game of the season, they lost at home to unranked defending national champion Auburn, resulting in long-time starting quarterback Stephen Garcia being replaced by Connor Shaw. Shaw would subsequently start almost every game until the end of the 2013 season, becoming the winningest quarterback in school history along the way, and never losing at home. South Carolina would only lose one more game the rest of the season, a blowout on the road at No. 8 Arkansas. While the Gamecocks finished undefeated against the East Division, the losses to Auburn and Arkansas left them second in the division standings behind Georgia. In the Capital One Bowl, they defeated No. 21 Nebraska 30–13, the program's first bowl victory since 2006. The eleven wins were a school record; it was only the second time in the school's 119-year football history that it won as many as ten games. They also finished eighth in the final Coaches' Poll and ninth in the final AP Poll—their first-ever top-10 finishes in any major poll.
The 2011 Gamecocks were arguably the most talented team in school history. They are the only team in South Carolina's history with two future retired jerseys (Alshon Jeffery and Jadeveon Clowney). Melvin Ingram was a consensus All-American, only the third in program history. Jadeveon Clowney, the top-ranked recruit in his class, was named the SEC Freshman of the Year. The team had three future first-round NFL draft picks and sixteen total future NFL draft picks, the most in program history.