Game Analysis

South Carolina (-10)  29   Illinois  19

South Carolina’s offense started slowly under new starting quarterback LaNorris Sellers, as he tallied just 82 yards on 27 pass plays against Old Dominion in the opening game. Sellers got batter as the season progressed and averaged 6.7 yppl against FBS teams that would combine to allow 5.8 yppl to an average quarterback. Sellers also ran for 786 yards at 7.0 yards per run (not including sacks) in 10 games against FBS opponents. More of the offense will be on Sellers in this game with RB Rocket Sanders opting out. Sanders only averaged 4.8 ypr but the two backs taking his place in this game combined for just 3.7 ypr on 81 runs against FBS teams and Sanders also contributed to the pass game with 277 yards on 25 targets against FBS teams. I rate the Gamecocks’ offense at 0.3 yppl better than average without Sanders, who is worth a total of 2.6 points to this offense relative to his backups.

The Illinois defense is nothing special, as the Illini yielded 5.7 yppl against FBS teams that would combine to average 6.0 yppl against an average defense. However, I’ve adjusted for the negative outlier against Purdue (536 yards allowed at 9.2 yppl) and rate the Illini stop unit at 0.5 yppl better than average. The only possible absence of note would be LB Seth Coleman, who missed the regular season finale with a shoulder injury. But I’m going to assume he’ll be able to play with a month off to heal.

The Illini offense was 0.3 yppl better than average in the regular season, averaging 5.8 yppl against FBS teams that would combine to allow 5.5 yppl to an average attack. The run game improved with an injury to RB Kaden Eagin, who averaged just 3.9 ypr on 51 runs in 4 games against FBS competition. His injury gave Aidan Laughery and Josh McCray more touches and those two combined to average 5.4 ypr for the season against FBS teams while getting the large majority of their runs against Big-10 opponents. The Illinois rushing attack was 0.3 yards per rushing play better than average for the season but was +0.8 yprp after the injury to Eagin. The big loss for the Illini attack is star WR Pat Bryant, who has opted out of playing in this game to turn his attention towards the NFL. Bryant averaged 11.8 yards on his 78 targets against FBS opponents while the rest of the wide receivers combined to average 7.9 YPT and Zakhari Franklin, the other highly targeted WR, averaged only 7.0 YPT on 84 targets. The absence of Bryant equates to 0.9 yards per pass play and 2.8 points.

The South Carolina defense yielded just 18.4 points per game and 4.9 yards per play to FBS teams that would combine to average 6.1 yppl against an average defense. That unit is obviously worse without DE Kyle Kennard, who led the team with 11.5 sacks (but didn’t make many tackles against the run). There is still plenty of talent along the Gamecocks’ defensive front, but Kennard is worth 1.2 points based on my algorithm.

After adjusting for the players that are out, I get South Carolina by 10.3 points with a total of 49.1 points. Pass.