Fifth Quarter South Carolina and Gamecocks Today are two dominant Gamecock Twitter pages that are quickly growing in followers each day as they continue to bring all things Gamecock athletics to South Carolina fans, students and alumni.
Dalton Freeman, the face behind Fifth Quarter South Carolina, started the account in October 2019 when he merged his original fan page, Carolina Sports Network, with the larger organization Fifth Quarter Inc., a notable account in the sports world with over 12,000 followers.
Freeman said the main focus of Fifth Quarter South Carolina is on football recruits coming to the University of South Carolina. Recruiting was the original premise of the account when it started, but now Fifth Quarter South Carolina deals with even more areas, including insider information and news regarding Gamecock Athletics.
Within the first 24 hours of Freeman making his account, he gained about 1,000 followers, and today he has nearly 6,000 Gamecock fans following him.
“It turned into something I wasn’t expecting,” Freeman said. “I just started out as a dang fan page, and next thing I know I’m hitting 5K and getting close to 10K.”
Not only has Freeman experienced rapid growth on his account, but he has also made connections with notable Gamecock alumni such as Perry Orth, George Rogers and Steve Taneyhill, who have all helped to contribute to Freeman's account.
As Fifth Quarter South Carolina continues to grow, Freeman said his main goal is for the account to become an official media and recruiting outlet for Gamecock Athletics. In addition to this, he said he hopes to eventually acquire media credentials so that he and his staff can have sideline and press box access at Gamecock sporting events.
Freeman is not the sole operator behind Fifth Quarter South Carolina, as he has a diverse team made up of Gamecock fans, students and alumni who all work with him to help run the account. A prominent member of Freeman’s team is Davies Roberts, who is more commonly known as Gamecocks Today.
Roberts provides Fifth Quarter South Carolina with edits and infographics of Gamecock athletes for Freeman and the rest of his staff to use as they please on their account. Roberts is only a freshman in high school, yet he is already becoming a popular Gamecock personality.
Roberts said his Gamecocks Today account mostly focuses on edits for Gamecock football because, he said, there are endless possibilities within the sport. Roberts' account also includes him posting jersey concepts, breaking news regarding Gamecock sports and discussion-related posts. He said he believes these aspects, along with his graphic designs, are all reasons why Gamecock fans give his account a follow.
"Probably my favorite would be Gamecocks Today," third-year mass communications student Gracie Lake said in a Twitter direct message. "They do some cool graphics and edits and have some pretty cool merchandise."
Roberts started the Gamecocks Today account last August, prior to the 2019 football season, and since then the account has grown to have over 2,000 followers.
“I think I gained 2,000 followers in a month probably, which is insane,” Roberts said.
Throughout his journey, Roberts has made numerous partnerships and connections. Aside from Fifth Quarter South Carolina, Roberts has worked with Footballism and Gamecock Central, two major social media accounts, and has already gotten attention from the official Gamecock Athletics media team.
“Eventually the main goal became to gain attention from the media staff, because that’s eventually what I wanted to do, and I’ve already done that,” Roberts said.