Projecting South Carolina’s remaining football schedule: Where are the wins?

By opening the season with higher-tier opponents and not pulling out the wins, South Carolina’s football team put itself in a tight spot.

The Gamecocks are 1-2 overall, falling to ranked teams North Carolina (now No. 17) and Georgia (No. 1). The start of conference play isn’t the most forgiving. A loss to Mississippi State this Saturday could have the program staring down the barrel of a 1-4 start, as a road trip to No. 23 Tennessee looms.

The rest of the 2023 schedule doesn’t look as tough as expected at the start of the year, but in the SEC that doesn’t make it easy. It’s worth breaking down exactly the challenges awaiting the Gamecocks.

Lines projected using ESPN’s SP+ ratings (which are still heavy on preseason data).

The probable wins

▪ Vanderbilt (projected line: USC by 14.5): Vanderbilt has some interesting offensive pieces, but also some massive holes on both sides of the ball. They just lost to a historically moribund UNLV team and struggled with Hawaii.

▪ Jacksonville State (projected line: USC by 24.5): The other Gamecocks were relatively spry as a first-year FBS program before getting knocked around by Coastal Carolina last weekend. South Carolina should be good enough to run through a team that was in FCS last season, but Jacksonville State is known for collecting good athletes and Rich Rodriguez is no joke as a coach.

The toss-ups

▪ Mississippi State (official line: USC by 4.5): It’s hard to get a read on MSU at the moment, as the Bulldogs looked decent early and then got throttled by LSU. That said, it’s the lowest line in this set of tossups and a loss here will put the Gamecocks in a bad space.

▪ Florida (projected line: Gators by 2): Florida has been odd thus far. They got ruined by Utah, handled business against an FCS opponent and then rather comfortably dealt with Tennessee. Billy Napier’s team seems to be turning toward an old school power arrangement on offense, which has been an issue for the Gamecocks at times. (The Gators also hammered South Carolina last year, right ahead of USC’s stunners against Tennessee and Clemson).

▪ Missouri (projected line: Tigers by 4): This one is odd because South Carolina has entered the past two meetings in a good place and still suffered surprisingly lifeless losses. Missouri delivered a win against K-State this weekend, but it was coming off a poor performance against Middle Tennessee. Eli Drinkwitz’s teams have tended to be hard to track, and this version feels like it’s in a similar vein.

▪ Kentucky (projected line: Wildcats by 4): The Wildcats’ first few games have featured slower starts against bad teams, but that’s often the case with the UK program. They have a talented transfer QB, a good transfer tailback and a nice set of receivers, plus the defense is always stout. So this could be a tough one, especially if UK displays some of the toughness it’s shown in the series across the past decade.

The longer shots

▪ Tennessee (projected line: Vols by 12.5): This betting line might well go down if the UF outcome and some early struggles prove to be the norm. For now, this is still a program with a good offensive scheme, a lot of athletes and some nice defensive pieces. With Joe Milton at the helm at QB, it hasn’t been the dangerous outfit of the past few years, but there’s always some possibility there.

▪ Texas A&M (projected line: Aggies by 13.5): It’s hard to read exactly what’s going on with the Aggies, especially with a loss to Miami. They still have a lot of talent and a lot of success in the series. Considering it’s in College Station, South Carolina will likely have to deliver a pretty good performance or hope things really start sliding with Jimbo Fisher’s squad (not out of the realm of possibility).

▪ Clemson (projected line: Tigers by 10): Dabo Swinney’s squad looked rickety early on, but it has time to get its talent in order. It still had good backs, a 5-star QB, good players in the defensive front seven and a very nice receiver in Antonio Williams. Plus, there are a lot of blue-chip guys who could play up to their talent at some point. This one is never easy, but to this point it doesn’t look super out of reach.

In summary

All told, being a projected underdog in six of games isn’t perfectly ideal. But four tossups aren’t bad, and none of the longer shots are the kind of runaway spreads you’ve seen against the likes of Georgia and Clemson in past years and Alabama a few seasons ago.

This leaves a lot of the Gamecocks’ fate in their own hands.

This story was originally published September 18, 2023 at 9:35 AM with the headline "Projecting South Carolina’s remaining football schedule: Where are the wins?."