The most important stretch of South Carolina’s 2020 football season
In 2019, the South Carolina football team put itself behind the sticks, so to speak, from the start.
Losing to UNC in the opener made the road to a bowl game difficult. Then losing at Missouri made the postseason near impossible. An upset of No. 3 Georgia opened up a narrow path, assuming the Gamecocks could win three in a row as a slight favorite. But Will Muschamp’s team went 1-2 in that stretch as hopes dimmed with more challenging foes to finish things out. (South Carolina was 1-5 in the second half of 2019.)
The schedule will be even more backloaded in 2020, and that means a great deal of weight will fall on one crucial stretch in the first month.
It’s not a long stretch, only two weeks, in fact. But those two weeks will have a massive table-setting impact on how things go for the Gamecocks.
Missouri, with a new coach (Eli Drinkwitz) who beat South Carolina last season (while at App State), comes to Williams-Brice on Sept. 19. A week later, the Gamecocks head up to Lexington to face Kentucky. Why it’s important:
▪ Go 2-0, and USC is at least bowling barring something calamitous.
▪ Go 1-1, and the rest of the season is tricky.
▪ Go 0-2, and the Gamecocks will be in the same spot they were in last season, needing to pull off several longshot upsets down the stretch.
All this assumes the football season proceeds as planned and without a coronavirus disruption.
Based on the SP+ projection system, South Carolina will be favored by an average of nearly two touchdowns in the first couple weeks of 2020. The rest of the way, they project to be underdogs seven times, four by two touchdowns or more.
USC looks to be a solid favorite vs Missouri, eight points against a team with a new coach and new QB. They project as 4 1/2 point-underdogs against Kentucky, which is close to tossup territory.
Pull off both wins, and Will Muschamp’s squad is likely 4-0 heading into a trip to face Florida in Gainesville. The rest of the schedule includes Vanderbilt (projected 20-point home underdog) and an FCS team. So if USC can pull in those two wins, it will be all but bowl-bound.
What’s more, 4-0 would give the Gamecocks a launching point of sorts. With a bowl spot almost in hand, any other win would get them over .500, with all those upset chances ahead.
The best projected chance to win as an underdog would be Tennessee, where the Vols look to be less than a field goal favorite in Columbia. That and a little of the Georgia magic from the season before could get USC to eight wins.
Going 3-1 to start is trickier. It would put a ton of weight on that Tennessee game one week after the trip to Florida. Not that USC would be in a bad spot, but the Vols did battle the Gamecocks in 2018 and then blew them out in the second half in 2019. (UT won its final six games last year as the schedule lightened up.)
That loss in Knoxville came two weeks after the Gamecocks were back on a narrow path to bowl eligibility. If last year is any lesson, getting in a spot where the postseason rests on winning a tossup isn’t ideal.
And if the Gamecocks can’t win against the Tigers or Wildcats in September, they would at minimum need to edge the Vols and either a Texas A&M team that projects as an 8 1/2-point road favorite with a senior quarterback or one of the teams that currently look like two-touchdown favorites vs. USC.
In total, those two weeks in September will be a tone setter. Which of the three outcomes the team earns will in a highly tangible way set the mood, expectations and momentum for the second half of the 2020 season.
The Gamecocks could end October with a bowl path easily within their grasp and a chance to play with house money. Or they could be staring uphill at a trek just to get back to Shreveport or Birmingham.
Projected 2020 South Carolina betting lines in FBS games
Sept. 5 vs. Coastal Carolina: Gamecocks by 22
Sept. 12 vs. East Carolina: Gamecocks by 19
Sept. 19 vs. Missouri: Gamecocks by 8
Sept. 26 at Kentucky: Wildcats by 4 1/2
Oct. 3 at Florida: Gators by 14
Oct. 10 vs. Tennessee: Volunteers by 2 1/2
Oct. 24 vs. Texas A&M: Aggies by 8 1/2
Oct. 31 at Vanderbilt: Gamecocks by 20
Nov. 7 Georgia: Bulldogs by 14
Nov. 14 at LSU: Tigers by 16 1/2
Nov. 21 v. Wofford (no spread)
Nov. 28 at Clemson: Tigers by 20
