South Carolina Football again rank near the strength of the schedule metrics

South Carolina's football plan is a glove every season. Year after year, the Gamecocks play a full SEC slate and the rival Clemson Tigers. USC also plays against another quality opponent for many years, often from the ACC and/or from the state of North Carolina (this year this is a season start against Virginia Tech). Due to this planning model, it is not surprising that Shane Beamer's team is at the top of College football in the strength of the timetable numbers.

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This week, ESPN also published its strength of the schedule rankings in connection with its SP+ Power rankings. According to the ranking, South Carolina's schedule is in 7th place in the country. The Gamecocks' Slate has an evaluation of 0.795, only a touch of Vanderbilts .794 marks and fifth place. Due to the corresponding 15.4 SP+ (16th best in the country) of the team, ESPN USC projects to win around 7.2 games.

Per ESPN Analytics Guru Bill Connelly: “SOS rating is the projected victory%that an average top 5 team can expect against your schedule.”

Essentially, the strength of the ESPN schedule believes that a top 5 team would win around 9.5 games against South Carolina's schedule. Based on these metrics, the GameCocks would have to exceed expectations (which they have made three of four years of a projector) to have the chance to take the next step and make the college football playoff.

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For those who are not familiar with the Gamecocks 2025 schedule, ESPN's evaluation is not too far. As the team showed this year, the success against a difficult table is not impossible, but nothing is easy.

South Carolina begins the year with a neutral location competition against Virginia Tech in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium of Atlanta. Then the Gamecocks get against South Carolina State and Vanderbilt together with successive home games. A trip to the “other Columbia” to face Missouri is next, but USC will return home to a date with the Kentucky Wildcats.

Then, after a goodbye week, things will be really difficult.

South Carolina plays five of his toughest games in a row. First of all, the projector and company have to go to Death Valley to face the LSU tigers. Then consecutive home games against Oklahoma and Alabama come before another street game against Ole Miss. After a second good week, the Gamecocks will play in the Texas A&M College station.

In the penultimate showdown of the season, Carolina gets a slight exhaustion, but has to ward off a Coastal Carolina team that would like to refuse his big brother in the state. Then a much larger in-state competition awaits Columbia to Columbia in game 12.