South Carolina debuts in top 12 in PFF power rankings
This week, Pro Football Focus’ college division released its preseason power rankings ahead of the 2025 season. Ranging all the way from National Championship-winning Ohio State at No. 1 to Middle Tennessee State at No. 131 (sorry, Blue Raiders), PFF ranked every team in America based on a weighted average of the teams’ point spread rating and strength of schedule. The outlet also projected win totals and ran 10000 simulations to give each group a percentage-point chance of making a bowl, winning their conference, making the College Football Playoff, and winning the CFP National Championship. South Carolina debuted with a prominent spot in the power rankings.
According to PFF’s power ranking, the Gamecocks are the No. 11 team in college football. Overall, the publication ranks Carolina’s strength of schedule No. 17 nationally. It also projects Shane Beamer’s team to win 7.49 games this fall. With that, PFF’s simulations gave USC 80.82% odds of making a bowl game, a 7.18% chance of winning the Southeastern Conference, a 23.65% likelihood of making the College Football Playoff, and a 2.34% potential of becoming the CFP National Champions.
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The 7.49-win total might seem low. However, no team has one above 10, meaning that PFF’s simulations likely were conservative.
South Carolina’s 12.0 PFF rating is just behind Tennessee’s 12.2 and slightly ahead of Michigan’s 11.7 and Clemson’s 11.6. The Gamecocks are sixth in the SEC. Only two teams on the 2025 schedule (Alabama at 16.7/7th and Ole Miss at 13.8/8th) rank ahead of Carolina. Clemson (11.6/13th), LSU (11.4/14th), Missouri (10.9/T-16th), Texas A&M (9.5/21st), Oklahoma (6.6/31st), Virginia Tech (4.6/T-40th), Vanderbilt (0.9/63rd), Kentucky (0.6/65th), and Coastal Carolina (-4.8/100th) round out the FBS schedule. South Carolina State is an FCS team and, therefore, is not part of the power rankings.
