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Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, FL
When: Friday, December 30 at 3:30 pm ET
TV: ESPN
#19 South Carolina Gamecocks (8-4) vs. #21 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (8-4)
A solid Gator Bowl between two teams who both have some big upsets this year.
Vegas line/spread: Notre Dame by 5 (over/under 51)
A tight line on this game, initially one of the tighter bowls so far; it held steady for a while before nudging up 3 points by kickoff, while the o/u dropped from 52 to 50 before rebounding.
Strength power rating: #25 Notre Dame 31, #45 South Carolina 26
Best/Worst removed: Notre Dame 31-25
Turnover corrected: Notre Dame 30-26
Notre Dame ranks a lot higher than South Carolina, winning each of these comparisons by 5, 6, or 4 points, but most observers would say South Carolina only became the team they are now very late in the season, so are these measures relevant?
| Game-comparisons | win % | vs. -2 Spread |
| Notre Dame | 58% | 57% |
| South Carolina | 42% | 43% |
Whether straight up or against the slim spread, Notre Dame wins nearly 3/5 of the comparisons.
When South Carolina has the ball
| S. Carolina scoring offense(adj): #31 |
Notre Dame scoring defense(adj): #24 |
| S. Carolina rushing offense(raw): #99 |
Notre Dame rushing defense(raw): #43 |
| S. Carolina passing offense(raw): #42 | Notre Dame passing defense(raw): #20 |
The Gamecocks have a decent offense and Notre Dame has a solid defense. Oklahoma transfer QB Spencer Rattler has 2,780 passing yards and 16 TDs vs. 11 interceptions. The running game isn't so great as rusher Marshawn Lloyd has just 573 and he's in the transfer portal now. Two tight ends—the #4 and #5 receivers—are out too, and the #3 WR is hurt! But Notre Dame's pass rush is going to be much less effective with Isaiah Foskey (11 sacks) gone. Doesn't it suck that all these reviews are just about the multitude of players that are in the transfer portal or opting out?
When Notre Dame has the ball
| Notre Dame scoring offense(adj): #36 |
S. Carolina scoring defense(adj): #51 |
| Notre Dame rushing offense(raw): #42 |
S. Carolina rushing defense(raw): #113 |
| Notre Dame passing offense(raw): #106 | S. Carolina passing defense(raw): #27 |
Notre Dame's offense is roughly the equal of South Carolina's, and it's a bit stronger than the Gamecock defense. That is, when QB Drew Pyne (2,021 yards, 22:6) is at the helm, and he won't be since he's in the transfer portal (that thing has to be crowded right now). Tyler Buchner started the first two games which Notre Dame lost and scored just 31 points total. In any case, top target Michael Mayer (809 yards) is opting out. But Notre Dame is a better running team anyway, and South Carolina worse at defending the run, so if Audric Estime and Logan Diggs (1,557 yards combined) are around, then things might be ok, especially since a D-Line starter is opting out for South Carolina.
Special Teams Rank (per ESPN FPI): South Carolina: #1 Notre Dame: #8
In-between offensive snaps, during the kicks and punts and whatnot, we're watching a practical Playoff-level football game. While both teams excel in special teams, South Carolina in a class by itself, #6 in punt returns, #6 in kickoff returns, #3 in punting, and tied for #1 in field goal percentage.
S Carolina's season (8-4) • SOS: #23
Non-conf losses: 0 • Home losses: 2
Record vs. bowl-eligible teams: 2-4
Record vs. top 25 teams: 2-1
- Georgia St 35-14
- @Arkansas 30-44
- #1 Georgia 7-48
- UNC-Charlotte 56-20
- South Carolina St 50-10
- @Kentucky 24-14
- Texas A&M 30-24
- Missouri 10-23
- @Vanderbilt 38-27
- @Florida 6-38
- #6 Tennessee 63-38
- @#7 Clemson 31-30
The question this chart begs answered is: how do you go from losing 38-6 to Florida to beating Tennessee 63-38? There wasn't even a week of rest between. And sure, they were on the road and came home but they went on the road and beat Clemson the next week. How does a 6-4 team decide to beat two top ten opponents and arguably be the one that knocked them out of the Playoff?
The answer is in their offensive performance, which has driven all their variation this year. The defense has been sound and consistent while the offense has been up and down. Scoring 63 on Tennessee and 31 on Clemson are both outliers, and only scoring 6 on Florida or 10 on Missouri are other. It's the offense, stupid.
So how does the offense perform going forward? Good luck figuring that one out. Spencer Rattler was an amazing 30 of 37, 438 yards and 6 TDs vs. Tennessee but only 25 of 39 against Clemson and a 2:2 ratio (though 360 yards). WR Antwane Wells had big days in both, with 177 yards vs. Tennessee and 131 vs. Clemson. That combo might be the key against Notre Dame.
Notre Dame's season (8-4) • SOS: #56
Non-conf losses: n/a • Home losses: 2
Record vs. bowl-eligible teams: 4-3
Record vs. top 25 teams: 1-2
- @#4 Ohio State 10-21
- Marshall 21-26
- California 24-17
- @North Carolina 45-32
- =BYU 28-20
- Stanford 14-16
- UNLV 44-21
- @Syracuse 41-24
- #6 Clemson 35-14
- @Navy 35-32
- Boston College 44-0
- @#10 USC 27-38
Notre Dame's first loss wasn't so bad, especially in retrospect, and particularly through a defensive lens. Holding Ohio State to 21 points was something no one else did (other than Northwestern in a windstorm). But then Marshall came to town and Notre Dame's offense still couldn't produce. Marshall's defense is very good, too (#19 in nation) but their offense is #105 and Notre Dame couldn't outscore them.
Notre Dame changed quarterbacks as Tyler Buchner got a well-timed injury and Drew Pyne started the rest of the season. It wasn't exactly night and day—they just barely beat 4-8 Cal, and after good wins over UNC and BYU still lost to Stanford, a team with neither a good offense or defense—but the 2nd half of the season was pretty great, peaking at an upset of #6 Clemson and a 44-0 shutout of Boston College. They fell to #10 USC on the final game, and Pyne jumped into the portal.
Key Injuries / opt-outs / transfer portal
South Carolina: Leading rusher Marshawn Lloyd for South Carolina is in the portal, as well as tight ends Jaheim Bell and Austin Stogner who are the #4 and #5 receivers, while #3 receiver Josh Vann is inured. On defense D-line starter Zacch Pickens is opting out, as is backup DB Cam Smith (27 tackles)
For Notre Dame: QB Drew Pyne (2,021 yds, 22:6) is in the portal and #1 receiver TE Michael Mayer (809 yds, 9 TDs) is an opt-out; on defense, DE Isaiah Foskey (#4 tackler, 11 sacks) is opting out. A few more defensive 2nd stringers are questionable.
Psychology/Motivation - Some speculative factors that may come into play during the game:
- Favorite: Notre Dame is a slim favorite, no slight or motivation for either side here, especially given all the uncertainty of missing players.
- Location: Jacksonville, Florida. Teams from the South normally have a regional advantage in distance and that's the case here, but Notre Dame always brings a ton of fans.
- Coaching: No changes.
- Motivation: Notre Dame's season was a step or two down from last year's 11-1 regular season, while South Carolina's was up from 6-6. The Gamecocks really sparked their season into high gear at the end, too.
- Momentum: Gotta go with South Carolina and beating two top ten teams at the end, over Notre Dame losing to USC and having their quarterback bail.
South Carolina wins the motivation battle fairly easily. Both teams should be pretty "up" for the bowl. Notre Dame recovered from a bad 0-2 start and made a respectable season. But that doesn't compare to ending with an exclamation point like South Carolina did. Naturally the transfers and opt-outs on both sides put a damper on enthusiasm for both teams but the remaining players should be enthusiastic rather than bummed out.
Final analysis
All of the opt-outs and tranfer portal jumpers are making the bowl games suck, I have to say it. Over the years we've gotten some good data on pass-centric teams losing a great quarterback before a bowl, but we didn't have much on a balanced-attack or running team losing a mediocre quarterback. There's going to be a lot of data points for that this bowl season. For now we have to guesstimate.
Let's take a look at Notre Dame's QB situation. Is it worthy of the 16.5 point downgrade we figured for a pass-happy team with a great quarterback? Not at all. Notre Dame is a running team. But the team played so much better with Drew Pyne than Tyler Buchner, who has been injured since game two and is just getting back, "able to hit the ground running a little bit" according to the OC. Add in the loss of their top pass catcher (Mayer has 2x the receptions and yards as the #2 guy) and we can probably write off the pass game completely. Notre Dame will be one-dimensional but running the ball is anyone's best bet against South Carolina anyway.
Now South Carolina: It's sort of similar, in that they don't run the ball well and their leading rusher is out. But a running back is not a team leader, doesn't run the offense at least. They're better at passing and though they have some missing pieces there, Notre Dame is missing a huge piece of the defense in Isaiah Foskey and his 11 sacks. Their vaunted pass rush is now just average.
So for both teams, it just means doing more of what you're better at, becoming more one-dimensional, and having to beat the other team to the punch.
How much if any of South Carolina's giant-killing ways carries over into the bowl game? It seems the passing game—their only viable weapon now—has to be clicking. Against Tennessee, who has the #127 pass defense, that's no problem. Against Clemson's #77 pass defense, probably not too hard. Notre Dame's #20 pass defense? Might be a lot harder.
But remember those are unadjusted figures and often very misleading. Just changing to yards per attempt and Tennessee is #70, Clemson #29, and Notre Dame #35. Figures are similar for Pass Efficiency Defense. So maybe Notre Dame's pass defense isn't that hard to crack? Especially with their leading pass rusher out, making their pass rush pedestrian? The Gamecocks can do the same thing to the Irish as they did to the Tigers, at least.
That doesn't mean that Notre Dame's offense won't be able to exploit South Carolina's bad rushing defense. In fact it's to be expected. Watch Rattler throw a bomb for a touchdown...then the next drive Estime or Diggs busts through the line for a 30-yard touchdown run. But if there's a shootout I'd rather be the team with Spencer Rattler appearing to be at his peak than the team that has to revert to their now-2nd-string quarterback who might be getting a handle on things after missing 10 games. The Gamecocks are missing 3 top pass catchers but as long as they have Antwane Wells they should do fine.
And South Carolina will very likely control field position, even against the Irish's own solid special teams.
Prediction: South Carolina 34, Notre Dame 31
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