Tennessee had the game in its hands, then let it slip away in one brutal sequence.
With 3:38 left in the fourth quarter Saturday, the Volunteers faced 4th and 1 at the South Carolina 38. Josh Heupel chose to keep the offense on the field instead of sending out Cooper Ranvier for what would have been a roughly 55-yard try. Ranvier’s career long is 51, and he’s 2-6 from 50-plus in his career.
The call made sense in the moment. Tennessee had already fought back from South Carolina’s 14-0 start and had controlled much of the game since then. But with DeSean Bishop suddenly sidelined by injury, the fourth-down play unraveled fast.
George MacIntyre did not give the ball to DaSaahn Brame as the design appeared to call for. Javin Gordon never looked ready for the handoff, and the whole thing dissolved into confusion. The result was a two-yard loss and a turnover on downs, giving South Carolina the opening it needed to tie the game and then win it.
Afterward, Heupel pointed directly to the quarterback’s mistake.
“Yeah, just missteps by George on that one,” Heupel said after the game of the play.
MacIntyre, making just his third career start, said the issue was a simple breakdown on a play Tennessee had already used successfully throughout the day.
”Yeah, just simple miscommunication - a formation we’ve been running all game,” MacIntyre said after the loss. “Just got to be more locked into the details of the different plays and that big jumbo formation.
“There’s a lot of moving parts of the play with kills and checks and what fronts they’re going to run. But, yeah, it would have been similar to DaSaahn’s touchdown in the first half.”
From there, the finish got away from Tennessee in a hurry. LaNorris Sellers scored quickly to pull South Carolina even at 24-24, and MacIntyre then fumbled soon after, handing the ball back to the Gamecocks and setting them up for the game-winning field goal.
Even with the penalties that slowed things down, Tennessee had carried this one for long stretches. But in the end, the Volunteers let a game they were controlling turn into a loss.
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