South Carolina and Clemson are in two very different places as programs right now.

The Gamecocks are currently in year three of a rebuild that bottomed out at 3-9 with a loss to The Citadel in 2015. Clemson is in the midst of a four-year run that's seen three straight playoff appearances, including one national title.

So, while the Gamecocks continue to build the program and, like head coach Will Muschamp said, make progress he doesn't want to see the South Carolina fan base be patient during the process.

“Patience is something I don’t have and I don’t want our fan base to have it either. I want them to be demanding and expect excellence," Muschamp said. "The investment we’ve made with our operations facility, the things we’re doing in our program and the progress we’ve made in three years has been good but it’s not where we want to be. I have a higher expectation than they do...I’m not a patient person and I don’t want our fan base to be patient either.”

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With Saturday's 49-9 win over Chattanooga, Muschamp tied Steve Spurrier for the most wins by a Gamecock head coach in his first three seasons with 21 and still has three games to play this season.

This weekend will be a tougher test facing off against the No. 2 Tigers and freshman quarterback Trevor Lawrence, who took over the starting job about halfway through the season and is 7-0 as a starter.

He's played in every game this season, completing 65 percent of his passes for 2,095 yards and 21 touchdowns to four interceptions. After watching film, Muschamp said there wasn't any drop off really when Lawrence took the reigns the offense over Kelly Bryant.

“I think they do what they do and that’s what makes them pretty efficient offensively. They have pretty good numbers with a good tempo and they execute," he said. "It’s not like they have a vast playbook of things they do but generally they're really good at what they do; they execute and they put the ball in space with really good players that are hard to tackle and they do a very good job of that. I don’t know if there’s been a huge shift as far as who they are and what they do. They have a lot of confidence in Trevor, and they should. He’s a good player.”

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This will be the freshman's first start in the rivalry and, like every week the Gamecocks are going to try and do different things to try and confused Lawrence and the rest of the Tiger offense.

South Carolina is incredibly limited in the secondary with five safeties expected out this weekend for various injuries, so it could stifle what they're able to do differently defensively.

"The question you get into with yourself is we have youth at the safety position with guys that haven’t played a lot of snaps," Muschamp said. "So don’t trick yourself and ask them to do too many things and not execute and cut a guy loose. Let’s come up with some different things to keep them off rhythm a little bit. Certainly we try to do that every week, but don’t trick yourself."

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The Gamecocks (6-4, 4-4 SEC) have lost the last four games to Clemson, including the last two under Muschamp.

This season he installed the "every week is a season" mantra, but this week always comes with a little more emotion this weekend with a lot of players growing up in South Carolina and being immersed in the rivalry.

The same slogan is in effect this week but Muschamp and the players know how important this weekend is.

"At the end of the day, when you're a South Carolina Gamecock and people find out you played football at South Carolina, probably one of the first questions they ask you is what was your record against Clemson," Muschamp said. "They understand it's a big ball game. They understand what it means to this state, this university and to your lineage as a South Carolina football player. It’s a really important game."