COLUMBIA- South Carolina got what it came for on Saturday, and then some. The Gamecocks’ 27-24 comeback win over Tennessee delivered a little relief, a little chaos and yet another chapter in a series neither side is likely to forget.
This one had the whole package: an early USC burst, a Tennessee push back into control, a messy middle, and then a finish that left everybody asking the same thing - huh?
South Carolina opened fast and looked like it might be in for one of those smooth afternoons. The Gamecocks put up 133 yards and two touchdowns on their first 12 plays.
Then the game tilted. Tennessee answered with a nine-minute drive, helped along by back-to-back foolish and inexcusable acts from Vicari Swain, and trimmed the lead.
USC then got the ball back and promptly gave it away when LaNorris Sellers was rushed on a swing to Matt Fuller for minus-5, tried to escape and throw, and never saw T.J. Metcalf waiting beside the receiver for the interception.
From there, the Gamecocks’ offense ground down to a crawl. That sequence turned into seven straight possessions that produced 43 plays, 131 yards and a field goal as Tennessee built a 24-17 lead.
The problem is familiar enough to need a medical chart. South Carolina starts hot, then lets the momentum slip right through its hands.
Swain was right in the middle of the mess. He and Mike Matthews traded helmet slaps and matched offsetting penalties, then Swain went back at it on the very next play after USC had forced a third-and-11.
Tennessee scored a touchdown on that drive. Then came the hit near the sideline that ended with targeting and an ejection.
With Swain out, Matthews nearly swung the game Tennessee’s way, and South Carolina’s thinnest position was laid bare. Damarcus Leach stepped in and played well again, one week after doing the same for the injured Judge Collier.
Swain has earned a reputation for fearlessness as a punt returner, for knowing when a ball should be left alone because it will be a free play, and for holding up decently at corner. But after costing his team at least four points and drawing the kind of attention officials were bound to give him, he has to be smarter.
There were other moments USC will want back, too. The Gamecocks built that 14-point cushion with RPOs, Sellers’ legs and a quick passing game against Tennessee man coverage. Then the offense drifted into sticking with the run into a stacked interior line, while Sellers slipped back into holding the ball too long and missing throws, including the pass to Donovan Murph in the end zone.
Even the clock management got awkward. On the drive before halftime, South Carolina could have waited for the two-minute timeout before snapping the ball, but instead got the play off with about 10-15 seconds left on the clock and saw it stop with 1:59 remaining. Tennessee scored with 24 seconds left anyway, but the sequence still stood out.
Then came the late-game stretch that could have buried USC. After the Gamecocks tied the game and forced a turnover, they had 33 seconds, one Tennessee timeout, and a kicker who had already made a 50-yard field goal.
The distance was 51. The instinct should have been simple: protect the shot.
Instead, South Carolina threw a screen pass that fell incomplete, took a bomb to D.J. Black in the end zone that also fell incomplete, and then committed a false start that pushed the kick out of comfortable range. Sellers ran for 9, and Orsan knocked through the 48-yarder.
Dude.
Still, the win mattered. It gave South Carolina a shot at something bigger, even if that path is still a long one.
An SEC playoff team will have at least one loss and probably multiple losses. Are the Gamecocks one of those?
Maybe. It’s too early to say for sure.
Handle business over the next three weeks and it becomes possible, though not likely.
The postgame mood, though, was pure relief. Kendal Briles was even in the middle of a postgame video with a student shouting, “I love you!”
And after all the swings, all the mistakes and all the noise around the result, the only answer that really fit came from Nuke LaLoosh: “I love winning. Hear what I’m saying?
It’s like better than losing?”
There was also the familiar Tennessee subplot, because of course there was. South Carolina’s staff, social media team and Beamer all piled on the Vols for their ongoing insistence that the Gamecocks’ 2022 win over Tennessee was illegitimate.
The referee Saturday, David Smith, played quarterback in the SEC at Alabama, and Tennessee’s side has its own grievances after three touchdowns were called back. The Vols pointed to holding on some key plays.
South Carolina, for its part, had plenty to say about how the game actually played out, including two huge Tennessee chances that George MacIntyre had in his hands and lost - first with a sack, then with the ball ripped away.
The feeling at the end was predictable enough. One side saw vindication. The other saw another game that went against it.
And in Columbia, the Gamecocks had the only thing that mattered: the win.
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