Florida football: Advanced metrics favor the Gators over South Carolina

Florida football has a tough task ahead of them this Saturday as they get ready to travel to Columbia to take on South Carolina.

The Gators are looking to improve to 5-2, while the Gamecocks and Shane Beamer try to get to .500.

Florida currently sits as a 2.5-point underdog, but the difference between these two teams may be inverse to what the line says.

SP+ and other advanced metrics say that the Gators are the better team and that they have the advantage heading into Saturday.

Florida football: Not as bad as it seems

SP+ ranks teams based on how many points they are above the average team in college football.

For this season, the Gators are 9.6 points above average in the country, and South Carolina is a little behind them at 6.1 points above the average.

With the 2-3 points that swing toward the home team, these metrics indicate that the Gators are the team that should actually be favored in this one.

Digging a little deeper, we can see why Florida has an advantage over the Gamecocks.

When it comes to predicted points added per play, Florida’s offense has performed better than South Carolina’s. In total, the Gators’ offense adds 0.284 points per play while South Carolina only adds 0.22. That may not seem like a massive difference on the scale of one play, but they are on opposite ends of the spectrum in college football.

The Gators also have a higher success rate across the board than South Carolina. Offensively, UF has a 48% success rate compared to SC’s 41%, and the Gators’ defense only allows successful plays 31% of the time while the Gamecocks surrender them 47% of the time.

So, is this still a challenging game for the Gators? Yes. Their road struggles are well documented, and it’s been a lot of self-inflicted wounds that have killed them.

But is it impossible? No. The stats show that Florida is a better team than South Carolina. It’s on them to go out and prove it.