LSU vs. South Carolina score prediction by expert college football model

What the analytics predict for LSU vs. South Carolina in this Week 3 college football game.

LSU Tigers vs. South Carolina Gamecocks Prediction / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

Two SEC rivals looking to make important statements this weekend meet up as No. 16 LSU goes on the road against South Carolina in college football's Week 3 action on Saturday.

South Carolina sits happily and all alone in first place in the early SEC football standings as the only member school to have a 1-0 mark against a conference team so far after trouncing Kentucky in a 31-6 decision last weekend.

LSU is already sitting at 1-1 after the loss to USC in the opener, and coming off a surprisingly-close win against Nicholls, last week can ill afford falling below .500 in Brian Kelly's third year and have any real shot at the College Football Playoff.

South Carolina is seeking its first 3-0 start in football since the 2012 season when it started 6-0 and finished 11-2, and the analytics seem to favor a pretty close game.

What do those analytics project for the matchup? For that, let's turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview of how LSU and South Carolina compare in this Week 3 college football game.

LSU vs. South Carolina score prediction

The simulations favor the road team in this matchup, but in a very close game.

SP+ predicts that LSU will defeat South Carolina by a projected score of 31 to 27 and to win the game by an expected 3.6 points.

The model gives the Tigers a 59 percent chance of outright victory over the Gamecocks.

SP+ is a “tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency” that attempts to predict game outcomes by measuring “the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football.”

How good is it this season? So far, the SP+ model is 47-44 against the spread with a 51.6 win percentage.

Point spread

LSU is a 6.5 point favorite against South Carolina, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook, which set the total at 48.5 points for the game.

FanDuel lists the moneyline odds for LSU at -260 and for South Carolina at +210.

If you're using this projection to bet on the game, you should take...

• South Carolina +6.5
• LSU to win -260
• Bet over 48.5 points

Computer prediction

Other analytic models also favor LSU to win the game, but by a close margin.

That includes the College Football Power Index, a computer prediction model that uses data points from both teams to simulate games 20,000 times to pick winners.

LSU comes out the expected winner in a slight majority 51.3 percent of the computer's updated simulations, while South Carolina wins the game in 48.7 percent of sims.

The index forecasts a very close game, projecting LSU will be 0.4 points better than South Carolina on the same field, not enough to cover this spread.

LSU will win 6.3 games this season, according to the index's latest simulations, and has just a 5.3 percent chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff.

The model projects South Carolina will win 6.7 games and sits at 6.5 percent to make the playoff.

LSU vs. South Carolina game time, schedule

When: Sat., Sept. 14
Time: 12 p.m. Eastern
TV: ABC network

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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