South Carolina Football: ESPN down on the 2023 Gamecocks; Why the 4-letter network is wrong
By Kevin Miller
![South Carolina football Head Coach Shane Beamer and his team continue to be doubted despite improving every season. [Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape%2Fcover%2Fsport%2F1de6675713d7ede3758bd41631575942384d69798469e4e1e26e7fc76e0e12da.jpg "South Carolina football Head Coach Shane Beamer and his team continue to be doubted despite improving every season. [Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union]")
Computers seem to be able to rank anything and everything these days. Sometimes the machines do well, and sometimes…well, sometimes it is obvious that computers don’t have real brains. On Tuesday, ESPN updated its
. The South Carolina football program came in at a shockingly low spot in the FPI rankings as the Index rated the Gamecocks the 42nd-best team in the country for the upcoming 2023 season.
Ahead of Carolina in the FPI are SEC teams Alabama (2), Georgia (3), LSU (4), Tennessee (12), Ole Miss (16), Florida (18), Texas A&M (19), Kentucky (28), Arkansas (30), Mississippi State (32), Auburn (39), and Missouri (40), meaning only Vanderbilt (73) is ranked below the Gamecocks. South Carolina will play Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Texas A&M, Kentucky, Mississippi State, and Missouri this season. Also ahead of the Gamecocks and on the South Carolina football schedule are rival Clemson (8) and season-opening opponent North Carolina (25).
The low ranking comes as a bit of a surprise as the Gamecocks are expected to be a competitive team with an upside of challenging for the SEC East. By these numbers, South Carolina should be underdogs in 9 games this season, and that does not match expectations for the program.
AthlonSports has picked South Carolina to finish third in the SEC East and have a better season than Kentucky, Missouri, Florida, Texas A&M, and Mississippi State who are all on the schedule and are positioned higher than the Gamecocks in ESPN’s FPI.
Mike Farrell has projected the Gamecocks to be “good” and finish at 8-4 in the 2023 regular season. In his projection, the Gamecocks would be behind only Georgia and Tennessee in the East and Alabama and LSU in the West.
According to DraftKings, just when comparing them to the teams on the schedule, South Carolina has better national title odds than Florida, Mississippi State, and Missouri, and the Gamecocks share odds with Kentucky and North Carolina.
CBSSports also gives the Gamecocks better odds than Mississippi State, Florida, and Missouri and the same odds as Kentucky and North Carolina.
BetMGM lists South Carolina football as having better odds than Mississippi State and Missouri and as having the same odds as Florida, North Carolina, and Kentucky.
The list of evidence against the FPI’s projection could go on forever. South Carolina football should be a good team in 2023. If they are not, like Texas A&M in 2022, it is because things went horribly wrong, not because the program is in disarray.
Gamecock fans have no reason to sweat the FPI. After all, ESPN is the same company that gave South Carolina a 90%+ chance to lose to both Tennessee and Clemson last season, and everyone knows how that turned out.