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South Carolina Football: Nation’s Toughest Schedule in 2023?

By Kevin Miller

South Carolina football's home venue, Williams-Brice Stadium, will be undergoing some renovations as part of a larger "Stadium Project." (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
South Carolina football's home venue, Williams-Brice Stadium, will be undergoing some renovations as part of a larger "Stadium Project." (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /
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The South Carolina football program continues to improve. That improvement has been shown directly in the team’s record the last two seasons, improving from 2 wins to 7 and from 7 wins to 8. Improving that number in 2023 could be an even more difficult task.

According to college football personality Phil Steele, the Gamecocks have the nation’s toughest schedule based on opponents’ win percentages from 2022, and it really isn’t that close. The Gamecocks’ 2023 opponents won 66% of their games last season. The rest of the top-13 in strength of schedule have their opponents’ 2022 win percentages somewhere between 60% and 62.7%.

The Gamecocks’ 2023 football schedule consists of seven games under the lights at Williams-Brice Stadium, four games on the road in the SEC, and a neutral-site game in Charlotte to open up the season.

The schedule:

September 2 – UNC (in Charlotte, NC)
September 9 – Furman
September 16 – @ Georgia
September 23 – Mississippi State
September – 30 @ Tennessee
October 7 – BYE
October 14 – Florida
October 21 – @ Missouri
October 28 – @Texas A&M
November 4 – Jacksonville State
November 11 – Vanderbilt
November 18 – Kentucky
November 25 – Clemson

The Gamecocks’ schedule includes four teams (Georgia, Mississippi State, Tennessee, and Clemson) in the top-20 of both the final 2022 AP Poll rankings and the final AFCA Coaches Poll. Furman finished the year in the top-10 of the FCS, as well.

At this point, it is too early to do a detailed and comprehensive schedule analysis, but there is no doubt that South Carolina is in for a huge challenge in 2023. Likely an underdog in at least five games if odds were released today, the Gamecocks will again need to overachieve regarding preseason expectations in order to improve on their 8-4 regular season mark from last year. The past two seasons, though, this has been exactly what the Gamecocks have done under Head Coach Shane Beamer.

The Gamecocks have opened as 1.5-point underdogs against North Carolina in the season opener, according to FanDuel.

light. Related Story. South Carolina Football: Way Too Early Predictions for the Depth Chart on Offense

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