South Carolina football moves up in multiple projection-based ranking systems

Shane Beamer's South Carolina football team is 3-1 so far in 2024, and the Gamecocks have most of their biggest test coming for them on the remaining portion of the schedule. If USC can pull off some big wins, then a nice bowl game (or maybe even better) could be in the cards.

Accurately predicting what might happen over the next two months in college football is impossible, but several outlets do their best at projecting how well each team in the country will finish the season. According to predictive models from both ESPN's FPI (Football Power Index) and Kelley Ford's KFord Rating Power Rankings, the Gamecocks are improving.

After bouncing around a bit in the FPI this season, South Carolina sat in the low-to-mid-30s for two weeks in a row, but the Gamecocks moved up from 34th to 29th after a convincing win this past Saturday over the Akron Zips. Though the opponent wasn't the toughest (something FPI takes into consideration), Carolina dominated and increased their projected chances at bowl eligibility from 60.6% to 74.9%. The team's projected win total now sits at 6.4, a slight increase from the 6.2 prognostication from last week's FPI rankings.

The KFord Ratings considered South Carolina football one of its biggest winners of week 4. The Gamecocks moved from 30th to 25th in that projection model, and that +5 jump was only bested by two other teams (the Iowa State Cyclones and SMU Mustangs).

South Carolina still has to play six teams ranked ahead of them in both the ESPN FPI and the KFord Ratings Power Rankings as only the Vanderbilt Commodores and Wofford Terriers are behind the Gamecocks among the team's final eight opponents. With a difficult slate ahead comes opportunity, and the garnet and black will have plenty of chances for more upward mobility this season, but with top-30 rankings in two of the most prominent projection systems out there, it seems like optimism for the Gamecocks isn't limited to just Columbia, South Carolina.