Midseason South Carolina Analytics Report

Though we’re really just one-third of the way through the South Carolina season, the bye week gives us a chance to pause, reflect, and project. Here, I’m mainly interested in checking in on some of our favorite analytics metrics, comparing to what we thought we knew at the beginning of the year, and look forward to where the Gamecocks go from here.

Buckle up, because it’s a lot of data, supplemented by a few of my own thoughts. We’ve been tracking a few analytics metrics this season and here I’ll check in on the two main metrics I like to use.

Analytics Metric #1: ESPN’s SP+

As a reminder, Bill Connelly’s SP+ is a predictive metric that utilizes college football’s most stable statistics to predict future behavior. It’s both opponent and pace-adjusted and is result independent. That means that a team isn’t punished for an unlucky loss and isn’t rewarded for an ugly win. It’s based on performance over result.

Some of the metrics key statistics are success rate, explosion, and points per scoring opportunity (basically, how well a team performs once in the red zone).

Weeks 4 and 5 are a huge inflection point for the metric, as the weighting of recruiting numbers and preseason expectations drop significantly once a team has played its fourth game. Essentially, the metric believes it has enough current data after four games to lessen the impact of offseason data.

Each rating is a reflection of a team’s expected points scored (offense + special teams) or surrendered (defense) against an average college football team on a neutral site.

Bigger numbers are good for the offensive rating and bad for the defensive rating. Rating matters more than rank. These ratings change not only with each performance, but the performances of other teams a team has faced on the schedule. Let’s check the current SP+ numbers for South Carolina.

Overall: 12.1 (27th Nationally)
Offense: 30.8 (47)
Defense: 18.9 (26)
Special Teams: 0.2 (40)

Breaking Down South Carolina’s SP+ Ratings

South Carolina’s SP+ analytics rating is up about 2.5 points from the beginning of the season, which is pretty significant. In fact, if the Gamecocks gained another 2.5 points in the metric over the next four games, they’d be in the 15-20 range in SP+.

If it helps, you can think of these ratings as implied point spreads. Give the home team 2-3 points for home-field advantage, then subtract the lower rating from the higher rating. For example, Ole Miss is fourth nationally with 30.7 SP+ rating. Since the Gamecocks play at home, we’ll give them three points. 30.7 – 15.1 is about 15.6, so the metric expects Ole Miss to be around a 15.5-point favorite, give or take a few points for adjustments after this weekend’s games.

South Carolina’s offensive rating is up about 0.8 points since the beginning of the year. This is the highest rating South Carolina has had in the analytics metics since back-to-back wins over Tennessee and Clemson in 2022.

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The defensive rating, perhaps unsurprisingly, is down about 1.6 points since the beginning of the year to its lowest point since early in the Muschamp-era. You don’t need analytics to know this is a strong unit.

Unfortunately for the Gamecocks, six of their final eight opponents are above them in SP+. However, there’s a logjam in spots 15-30, as those teams are separated by just 5.2 points.

So, while the Gamecocks are behind a bunch of teams on their schedule, they’re only double-digit implied underdogs to Alabama and Ole Miss. Here’s the breakdown of implied point spreads for the remainder of the schedule, per SP+:

+15.5 vs. Ole Miss
+21.5 @ Alabama
+6.5 @ Oklahoma
-0.5 vs. Texas A&M
-10 @ Vanderbilt
+7 vs. Missouri
-32 vs. Wofford
+6 @ Clemson

Considering teams are expected to win about 33% of their games as touchdown-underdogs, SP+ sees a strong path to 7-5. Considering South Carolina is trending up while five of the teams after Alabama are trending down, the numbers sneakily like the Gamecocks.

College Football Network’s Football Playoff Metric and Strength of Schedule

While SP+ focuses on performance, CFN’s analytics metrics focus on results. Every result changes a team’s win probability, expected wins, and playoff percentage. The metric corrects against itself by predicting the spread and win probability of every team’s games and then adjusting the ratings based on the actual results.

For example, if the metric thinks South Carolina has a 67% chance to win as a six-point favorite and the Gamecocks win, the initial expected wins will increase by 0.33, because after the game is over, there’s no chance it turns back into a loss. Essentially, the 0.67 expected wins from that game turns into one actual win, whether that’s by one point or 31 points.

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The margin of victory will change the outlook for the season, though. A huge win will boost South Carolina’s rating, while a win of less than six points would hurt the Gamecocks’ rating after a worse-than-expected result.

Here are the current win expectancies for the rest of the schedule as well as the implied lines that go along with them.

+12 vs. Ole Miss (18.4%)
+17.5 @ Alabama (8.7%)
+6 @ Oklahoma (33%)
-0.5 vs. Texas A&M (50.1%)
-4.5 @ Vanderbilt (63.1%)
+9.5 vs. Missouri (24.5%)
-27.5 vs. Wofford (96.7%)
+9.5 @ Clemson (24.5%)

While CFN’s metric likes the Gamecocks less, South Carolina has significantly outperformed the analytics metric’s expectations over the last three weeks, beating the expected margin by an average of about 19 points per game.

These numbers look small, and yet South Carolina is projected at 6.2 wins for the season. Any upset would cause that number to skyrocket, given the low expected win expectancies.

Using Analytics to Formulate Some Opinions

I’m not a robot and analytics metrics are used to project forward, not blindly play football on a spreadsheet. I use analytics to help form my opinions and look at the game a bit differently. I still trust my eyes as much as I trust the numbers. Here are a few thoughts:

1. It’s More Likely That LSU Cost South Carolina A Shot at The Playoff Than A Shot At A Bowl

The CFN metric would disagree with me here, but SP+ doesn’t disagree. This take would be significantly stronger had South Carolina won against LSU. It’s a game of “what ifs,” but if LaNorris Sellers had stayed healthy, or any one of five questionable officiating decisions gone South Carolina’s way, the Gamecocks would be 4-0.

Shane Beamer keeps bringing up the LSU game not because he’s afraid of missing a bowl, but because he knows South Carolina would be within striking distance of the CFP with a win. The Gamecocks still aren’t out, either.

Especially given the volatility of the Big 12 and ACC, the SEC and Big Ten could get a combined eight teams in the playoff. In all likelihood, a nine-win SEC team is making the playoff. Is it out of the question that South Carolina could go 6-2 down the stretch? It’s highly unlikely, but if the Gamecocks had beaten LSU? 5-3 down the stretch doesn’t sound crazy. Even 4-3 heading into Clemson would have made things very interesting.

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On the flip side of this I still think 7-5 is much more likely than 5-7, even with the schedule.

Even if we use College Football Network’s more pessimistic analytics metric, a bowl is very likely. The odds South Carolina beats both Vanderbilt and Wofford is about 62%, per CFN (That’s assuming Deigo Pavia can last until November). The odds South Carolina loses all three of Oklahoma, Missouri, and Clemson are only around 38%. That doesn’t even mention the two less likely games or the true toss-up in Texas A&M.

If South Carolina beats Vanderbilt and Wofford, the Gamecocks need only one more win. The numbers say there’s an 86% chance that happens. Can they find two or even three more?

2. Texas A&M is the Hardest Game On the Schedule to Predict

Both analytics metrics have slowly dropped the Aggies every week and both metrics are aligned in having this as a true toss-up. They each like the Aggies slightly more than the Gamecocks, but South Carolina has the home-field advantage. A win here would really put South Carolina in position to accomplish its goals.

The issue is where it falls on the schedule. Back-to-back road games against Alabama and Oklahoma lead into a bye week. The Aggies have LSU at home the week before and it’s likely they’ll still roll with redshirt freshman Marcel Reed. Will he be up to speed in the SEC?

On the South Carolina side, how will fans feel at the second bye week and will that Texas A&M game feel as important as it actually is? There’s a big difference between 4-3 and 3-4, especially if the latter means three-straight losses for the second time in Beamer’s tenure. The vibes heading into Texas A&M will probably hinge on the game before.

3. Oklahoma is the Most Winnable Upset Spot And Feels Incredibly Important to the Trajectory of the Program

Both analytics metrics give the Gamecocks about a 33% chance to win in Norman. Here’s what we know about Oklahoma: the defense is impressive (13th in SP+), the offense is both struggling (49th in SP+ and dropping) and banged up, and Brent Venables is wildly unpredictable.

This year, the Sooners have a defense and no offense, last year they had an offense and no defense, and the year before not even Oklahoma knew what it had week to week.

The Gamecocks match up really well here. As much as people want to scrutinize Jackson Arnold (In the offseason, I repeatedly brought up odd pairing of the national media’s overly positive coverage of the unproven Arnold and overly negative coverage of the unproven Sellers) there are other issues here. The receiver group is decimated by injury and Oklahoma portaled its offensive line. No team in the portal era has ever successfully portaled the majority of its line.

South Carolina’s defensive front might live in the backfield. Can Sellers and the offense find enough to put the pressure on whichever inexperienced quarterback the Sooners roll out?

South Carolina has two bad matchups against two great teams directly out of the bye week. Any success against Ole Miss or Alabama is just a bonus. The rest of the season really starts in Norman. If the Gamecocks can pull off a win there, the narrative begins to shift, the momentum really ramps up on the recruiting trail and South Carolina has all of its goals in sight.

Lose and the pressure mounts. This team is too talented to struggle just to make a bowl. But hey, that’s the SEC schedule for you.

We’ll continue to track the analytics metrics throughout the year. We should know soon if it’s in anticipation of a special year or in fear of disappointment.

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