South Carolina bowl projections: One early consensus has USC close to home

South Carolina, along with many other college football teams, was unable to play this past weekend due to the impact of Hurricane Florence.

Even with only two games under their belts, the Gamecocks were still included in every major national media outlet’s bowl projections for Week 3 of the season. So where do ESPN, USA Today, CBS and other major publications think USC will be heading at year’s end?

The most common answer was Charlotte. Of eight predictions tallied by The State, five predicted a trip to the Belk Bowl on Dec. 29. While Will Muschamp’s squad played in Bank of America Stadium to open the 2017 season, South Carolina has never played in the Belk Bowl since it began in 2002 as the Continental Tire Bowl.

The second-most common guess was another bowl USC has never played in — the Music City Bowl in Nashville. Two analysts predicted the Gamecocks would wind up facing Boston College in that game.

Meanwhile, one projection had South Carolina in a familiar postseason location facing a blueblood of college football — Notre Dame at the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl. The Gamecocks and the Irish have faced off four times before, most recently in 1984.

BOWL PROJECTIONS

▪ USA Today has South Carolina facing the ACC’s Louisville in the Belk Bowl in Charlotte on Dec. 29

▪ ESPN’s duo of analysts, Kyle Bonagura and Mitch Sherman, both say USC will be in the Belk Bowl as well, but they are split on who they think the Gamecocks will face — Bonagura says Duke, Sherman says Virginia Tech.

▪ Jerry Palm of CBS Sports predicts that South Carolina will play in the Music City Bowl in Nashville on Dec. 28 against Boston College

▪ Jason Kirk at SB Nation also says the Gamecocks will face Boston College, but he has that matchup happening at the Belk Bowl.

▪ Brad Crawford of 247Sports also has USC playing Boston College, but he thinks that game will take place in the Music City Bowl.

▪ College Football News is projecting a rematch of South Carolina’s 2017 season opener against North Carolina State, happening in the Belk Bowl in the same stadium — Bank of America Stadium — as that 2017 contest, which USC won, 35-28.

▪ Sporting News has the Gamecocks meeting a college football blueblood in Notre Dame in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl in Jacksonville on Dec. 31