South Carolina's latest bowl projections following Alabama loss
The South Carolina football team almost had their season take a huge turn on Saturday. The Gamecocks were dangerously close to knocking off the Alabama Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa, but in the end, Shane Beamer’s team couldn’t pull off the upset despite outplaying the No. 7-ranked Tide for most of the afternoon.
The close game gave many national analysts better feelings about the Gamecocks, but because it still goes down as a loss on the record, not much changed about South Carolina’s place in the bowl season landscape.
When most outlets released their latest projections for bowl season, the Gamecocks remained in similar positions as last week.
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ESPN’s Mark Schlabach and Kyle Bonagura released their updated bowl projections on Thursday. Like last week, Schlabach penciled the Gamecocks into a Gasparilla Bowl matchup with the Boston College Eagles. Bonagura, though, slotted Carolina into a Birmingham Bowl contest against the Minnesota Golden Gophers. USC has never played Boston College or Minnesota, and they’ve never been in the Gasparilla Bowl. The team’s last trip to Birmingham was an overtime 2016 loss to the South Florida Bulls.
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Another projection to the Birmingham Bowl came in from Athlon Sports’ Steve Lassan. Lassan, though, predicted the Gamecocks to match up with the Memphis Tigers. South Carolina and Memphis have not played since 1972. Former starting running back Mario Anderson is now the starter at Memphis.
Again, both Action Network’s Brett McMurphy and CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm left the Gamecocks out of their bowl projections altogether.
A huge game for South Carolina football’s bowl chances looms this Saturday. The Gamecocks are traveling west to Norman, Oklahoma for the second-longest possible road trip in the conference (trailing only the distance between Gainesville, Florida and Norman). The Gamecocks and Sooners have never met on the gridiron. USC and OU will kick off on Saturday at 12:45 p.m. on SEC Network and the ESPN app.
