ESPN analytics model predicts final score for South Carolina-Kentucky

South Carolina will look to bounce back this weekend following back-to-back SEC losses. The Gamecocks fell at home to Vanderbilt two weeks ago before losing to Missouri on the road last Saturday. Sitting at 2-2 overall and 0-2 in conference play, USC will match up with the 2-1 (0-1) Kentucky Wildcats next.

Kickoff will be at 7:45 p.m. SEC Network will carry the television broadcast, while the ESPN app makes it available via streaming.

A sold-out crowd at Williams-Brice Stadium is part of why Carolina enters the SEC showdown as an expected winner. BetMGM lists the Gamecocks as a 6.5-point favorite in this one. The national consensus is also that Shane Beamer’s team will win on Saturday.

However, one of the most Kentucky-leaning projections comes from ESPN’s analytics model SP+.

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Designed by ESPN’s Bill Connelly, SP+ is a projection, not merely a ranking of what a team has already accomplished. Connelly explains, “What is SP+? In a single sentence, it’s a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency that I originally created at Football Outsiders in 2008. SP+ is intended to be predictive and forward-facing. It is not a résumé ranking.”

Based on what the two teams have accomplished so far in 2025, Connelly’s model predicts a 24-24 final score against Kentucky.

What?

No, the model isn’t actually predicting a tie. Instead, thanks to rounding, SP+ believes that the Gamecocks hold a 0.2-point advantage over the Wildcats, and both scores, when rounded, would equal 24. A closer representation–to just one decimal point–of the projection is a 23.8-23.6 South Carolina victory. The SP+ over/under for the game is set at 47.5, and the model has the under (barely) hitting.

Naturally, football games are not played with decimal points in mind, but the analytics model is illustrating that it views USC as a very slight favorite for Saturday’s conference matchup. Backing up the “slight” in “slight favorite,” the Gamecocks’ chances of victory still round down to 50%, per the SP+.

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The model considers South Carolina to be the country’s No. 51 overall team. They were No. 12 nationally just two weeks ago.

By contrast, Kentucky sits at No. 39 in the SP+ rankings. The Gamecocks are the favorites on Saturday, largely due to home-field advantage.

At the time of this writing, the Wildcats hold a slight edge offensively, 63, compared to the Gamecocks’ 73 spot in the SP+ efficiency rankings. Defensively, the two teams are even closer, with UK earning the No. 29 spot and USC holding down No. 30. On special teams, South Carolina trails 28 to 7.

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