Is South Carolina's 2023 Schedule Tougher Compared To Last Year?

South Carolina's Football team is facing one of toughest schedules in the country this Fall, but how does it compare to last year's schedule?

As is life in the SEC, Shane Beamer and the South Carolina Gamecocks will play a schedule this Fall that would make most teams in college football shake their heads in disbelief. Top it off with an annual rivalry with the Clemson Tigers, one of the Top 15 programs in the sport, and the Gamecocks' annual slate is automatically more daunting than some of their SEC counterparts.

Some metrics have viewed this 2023 slate as the toughest schedule in the country, and it's a narrative similar to what Gamecock Nation heard from national pundits this past offseason. So how much more difficult is the Fall schedule compared to 2022?

To figure out the answer to this question, I compiled data using three different factors:

Opponents' Collective Winning Percentage From Previous Season

Road Schedule

Amount Of Top 25 Teams Faced (Preseason Poll From Associated Press)

Below is the data from this past season, heading into the 2023 season.

2023

Opponents' Collective Winning Percentage From The Previous Season: 66%

Road Schedule: Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri, & Texas A&M

Amount Of Top 25 Teams Faced (Guess): Anywhere from four to six, including Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Clemson, and possibly Kentucky, and Texas A&M

2022

Opponents' Collective Winning Percentage From The Previous Season: 59.7%

Road Schedule: Arkansas, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Florida, & Clemson

Amount Of Top 25 Teams Faced: Five

Let's now break this down by each individual factor. If we were purely basing this discussion off of opponent winning percentage, there would be no doubt that the 2023 schedule is more difficult. This primarily stems from the fact that each of South Carolina's non-conference opponents won nine games in 2022.

When it comes to the road schedules, once again, the 2023 slate trumps the 2022 slate because the Gamecocks could be facing three Top 25 teams in Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas A&M, where the average stadium capacity is 99,131. At this point, there's no point in discussing the Top 25 teams the Gamecock could face because there's no doubt that the 2023 schedule is somehow more difficult than last year's. Shane Beamer and his staff will need multiple players in each phase of the game to step up in a big way if the Gamecocks are going to continue to progress on the field this Fall.

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