Why ESPN projects the Gamecocks to win fewer than eight games in 2018
The hype already has started building for South Carolina to have a big season, and the schedule is a big part of that.
Outside of powerful Clemson and Georgia teams, the top squads on the slate —Florida, Texas A&M, Ole Miss and Tennessee — all have big questions with new head coaches. Several prognosticators have predicted the Gamecocks will match last year’s nine wins or even get to 10 in the regular season.
But ESPN’s power ranking system doesn’t have the Gamecocks getting much past seven victories.
The network’s FPI projections are out, showing USC making a jump from 34th to 28th in the rankings. But the projected win-loss has USC at 7.2 wins.
Why is this?
The preseason rankings are built on recent performance (the past four years with last year weighted heavily), returning starters, recruiting rankings and a slight bump for longer coaching tenure. The projected wins takes the percentage chance to win each game and adds them up (a game USC has a 50-percent chance in is half a win, 30 percent is 0.3 wins, et al.)
What knocks down USC’s win numbers are opponents the projections see as strong, especially in road games.
The games that might surprise (percent chance of a USC win per FPI):
Hosting Missouri (56.1): The FPI calls this basically a toss-up. The Tigers were a stat system darling late last year for the way the offense blew folks away, but it still seems a little tight given USC ranking one spot higher and being at home.
Hosting Texas A&M (51.5): The Aggies weren’t good enough to want to keep their coach and are changing things with Jimbo Fisher. The numbers say the game is a true coin flip in Williams-Brice, with A&M ranked 2.9 points and 11 spots ahead of USC. The Aggies’ traditionally strong recruiting is probably buoying that.
At Ole Miss (47.1): This is basically in 50-50 territory, but it’s less clear as to why. The Rebels lose a lot, weren’t that good last year and have had a couple down years recruiting. The fact it’s on the road seems to make up for the gap, but still just sort of strange.
At Florida (34.2): These rankings have USC nearly three points worse than the Gators on a neutral field. Florida has the new coach (granted one with a lot of experience). Last year was a mess, and the previous three were good, not great. Returning starters aren’t anything noteworthy, so it likely means top-15 level recruiting and being on the road put this number where it is.
USC’s closest game outside those is a 62.9 percent chance to win at Kentucky and a 77.1 percent chance to win against Tennessee at home.
The numbers put USC with the eighth-most projected wins in the conference, just behind Missouri. It has only Alabama and Georgia above 9.1 wins.
The projection already has drawn some fire from one national voice who is high on USC.
This story was originally published April 11, 2018 at 2:05 PM with the headline "Why ESPN projects the Gamecocks to win fewer than eight games in 2018."