SEC football returns to the gridiron this weekend as No. 12 Ole Miss looks to rebound from its first loss with a road trip to South Carolina in college football’s Week 6 action on Saturday. Let’s check in with our updated prediction for the game.

Ole Miss bulldozed its non-conference schedule but started 0-1 in SEC play after a surprising loss at home to Kentucky in which the team’s top-ranked offense was slowed and the defense allowed a late touchdown.

South Carolina is a mixed bag offensively, averaging 40th in FBS in rushing production but is just 107th nationally in passing output, sitting at 3-1 after a big win over Akron and with a loss to LSU and a victory over Kentucky in SEC conference play.

What can we expect in this week’s game?

Here’s what you should watch out for as Ole Miss and South Carolina face off in this Week 6 college football matchup, with our updated prediction.

1. Gamecocks up front. South Carolina’s defensive front presents a formidable challenge for the Ole Miss offense and can bring some serious speed and pressure off the edges. 

Kyle Kennard has 5.5 sacks and Dylan Stewart has another 2.5, while Rebels quarterback Jaxson Dart was sacked 4 times last week.

As a team, the Gamecocks have 14 sacks and 11 tackles for loss, and come into the game ranked 4th among SEC teams with 161 passing yards allowed and have surrendered 17 points on average. 

2. Rebels on the attack. Despite last week’s struggles, this is still a potent offense led by a quarterback who is averaging 363 yards per game and has 13 touchdowns on the year.

And despite Carolina’s overall defensive success, there could be some holes on the back end after the unit allowed long scoring plays to the likes of Old Dominion and Akron.

Ole Miss should find some room to send its receivers in the deeper portion of the field with the likes of Tre Harris, the offense’s only real hope last week and the nation’s most productive pass catcher, in addition to former Gamecock transfer Antwane Wells, to test this secondary.

If Dart and the Rebel blockers can adapt to Carolina’s speedy pass rush early on by getting the ball out quickly, they can force this defense to spread out and diminish some of the Gamecocks’ advantages near the line.

3. Stop the QB. It’s either LaNorris Sellers or Robby Ashford for Carolina at quarterback, and both are a real challenge for the Rebels’ front seven tacklers, each presenting as credible rushing threats who can extend plays and create their own with a battery of scripted and unscripted runs.

Sellers built a two-touchdown lead against LSU before leaving with an ankle injury, and there’s some question around if he’ll be healthy. If not, Ashford is more than capable, passing for 243 yards and running for another 133 yards last week.

Most analytical models still side with the Rebels to take care of the Gamecocks.

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.

Ole Miss is projected to win the game in the majority 75.2 percent of the computer’s most recent simulations.

That left South Carolina as the expected winner in the remaining 24.8 percent of sims.

Ole Miss is projected to be 10.3 points better than South Carolina on the same field in both teams’ current composition, according to the model’s latest forecast.

More … Ole Miss vs. South Carolina prediction: What the analytics say

Ole Miss is a 9 point favorite against South Carolina, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook.

FanDuel lists the total at 53.5 points for the game.

And it set the moneyline odds for Ole Miss at -350 and for South Carolina at +280 to win outright.

Most wagers project the Gamecocks will make this a game against the Rebels, according to the latest spread consensus picks.

A solid majority — around 60 percent — of bets predict that South Carolina will either upset Ole Miss outright, or keep the game within the point spread.

The other 40 percent of bets expect the Rebels will win the game and cover the spread.

If the first four games of the season felt like the Rebels’ ceiling, last week felt like their floor. The reality of this team is somewhere in the middle.

Carolina boasts two mobile quarterbacks who can give any defense some real headaches, but they’re still playing behind a somewhat suspect line that is susceptible to pressure at times.

Ole Miss comes into the game ranked third nationally in sacks recorded and 1st in FBS in tackles for loss, which should cut into some of Sellers’ or Ashford’s success creating plays.

And while the Gamecocks will create plenty of pressure off the edges and throw Dart out of his rhythm early on, the Rebels have more than enough outlets for the quarterback to dump quick passes to and who can skirt around these midfield defenders and churn out yards after the catch.

College Football HQ picks …

More … Ole Miss vs. South Carolina score prediction by expert model

When: Sat., Oct. 5
Time: 3:30 p.m. Eastern
TV: ESPN network

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Today’s Locked On Ole Miss Podcast discusses why Ole Miss should win its game against South Carolina this weekend. It is a game where Lane Kiffin and Jaxson Dart will have to overcome a hostile atmosphere directed at Juice Wells, but Dart has answered every question and has not had a losing streak since 2022. Dart and the offense, when they are clicking, are unstoppable, and I expect after this week, they put out their best performance of the season.

Ole Miss needs to utilize the running game this week as it failed to do a week ago against the Kentucky Wildcats. When the offense gets too predictable, it is manageable to play against, but when the running game gets going and Ole Miss attacks the whole field, it becomes a handful. 

On Wednesday’s injury report, both Matt Jones and Henry Parrish are listed as questionable which makes it seem like this might be a Ulysses Bentley game against South Carolina. Ole Miss will need to run against the defensive line for the Gamecocks to wear them down during the game.

In our final segment of the day, we put our finishing touches on the South Carolina Gamecocks and talk about some players who might show out on Saturday. We also give our final score predictions for the game.

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The Ole Miss Rebels are looking to bounce back from an upset loss when they travel to Columbia to take on the South Carolina Gamecocks. Ahead of that game, each team shared its injury report on the Thursday before the game.

Coming into the game, the biggest question is the status of South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers. He suffered an ankle injury late in the game against LSU that forced him to miss South Carolina’s Week 4 game. On Wednesday, he practiced and was listed as questionable on the injury report. On top of that, head coach Shane Beamer has listed him as the starting quarterback on the team’s depth chart.

While Sellers is the biggest concern going into the game, both Ole Miss and South Carolina have several other players whose status is up in the air going into the game. You can view the full list of players appearing on the Thursday injury report here.

Ole Miss

• Cedrick Beavers–CB–Out
• Izaiah Hartrup–WR–Out
• Devin Price–WR–Out
• Daniel Demery–LB–Out
• Logan Diggs–RB–Out
• Jayden Williams–OL–Out
• Cam East–OL–Out
• Joshua Pfeifer–WR–Out
• Hudson Wolfe–TE–Out
• Princely Umanmielen–DE–Questionable
• TJ Dottery–LB–Questionable
• Louis Moore–S–Questionable
• Cayden Lee–WR–Questionable
• Henry Parrish Jr.–RB–Questionable
• JJ Pegues–DT–Questionable
• Micah Pettus–OL–Questionable
• Jeremy James–OL–Questionable
• Akelo Stone–DT–Questionable
• Matt Jones–RB–Probable
• Antwane Wells Jr.–WR–Probable
• Micah Davis–WR–Probable
• Tre Harris–WR–Probable
• Chris Graves Jr.–CB–Probable
• Caden Prieskorn–TE–Probable

South Carolina

• Kelvin Hunter–DB–Out
• Jakai Moore–OL–Out
• Raheim Sanders–RB–Probable
• Jared Brown–WR–Probable
• LaNorris Sellers–QB–Probable

South Carolina is coming off a win over Akron, which saw the Gamecocks play shorthanded. Not only were they without LaNorris Sellers, but the Gamecocks only gave running back Rocket Sanders one carry before he left that game with his own ankle injury.

In place of LaNorris Sellers, Robby Ashford took over and played well. Despite that, offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains made it clear that Sellers is still the team’s quarterback once he’s healthy enough to play.

“LaNorris Sellers is our quarterback,” Loggains said. “I will say that.”

For the Gamecocks, the key to beating Ole Miss is going to be on the defensive side of the ball, though. Ole Miss has an explosive offense but the Rebels were held in check by Kentucky‘s defense, and in particular the Kentucky defensive line.

Another key storyline is going to be centered around Ole Miss wide receiver Juice Wells. A transfer into the program from South Carolina, this game is going to represent a kind of homecoming for Wells, though Shane Beamer has downplayed that.

“I think that’s every game,” Beamer said. “You want to make sure you play with great poise. They’ve got a good football team and I know we’re gonna get the best version of Ole Miss. What we’re focusing on is that they get the best version of South Carolina. They’ve got a lot of really good players on offense. Juice is a good player, but when you sit there and watch [Tre Harris], they threw him the ball 15 times Saturday. So we better be not caught up in one player. We better be aware of him.”

Ole Miss and South Carolina will kickoff at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium.