'Don't fault the decision': Beamer breaks down what happened on final play of South Carolina-Alabama game

Two minutes may not seem like a lot of time. It goes by quick. But the final 120 seconds of Saturday’s South Carolina-Alabama game proved otherwise.

In the final two minutes of the back-and-forth affair, a lot happened to say the least. Between both teams, a combined 13 points were scored. Alabama seemingly had the game on ice. Then the Gamecocks drove down the field and scored an improbably touchdown with 43 seconds to go. But they couldn’t connect on the ensuing two-point try and still trailed by two points.

You’d think the craziness would end there. But that was just the climax. There was still an entire third act to go. On its last leg with no timeouts, South Carolina managed to recover an onside kick near midfield to give itself one shot to go out and do the unthinkable.

But like a bad ending to an otherwise great story, South Carolina didn’t come out on top. With 13 seconds left, LaNorris Sellers heaved a long pass downfield, hoping somebody in a white jersey would catch it. As the ball soared through the air, it landed in the hands of a crimson jersey for a game-sealing interception.

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And so all that happened in the span of two minutes, albeit in “football time”. But the last play of the game has sparked some debate in what ended up being a 27-25 loss for the Gamecocks. Why swing for the fences when all they needed was a field goal to try and win the game?

“For whatever reason, (the receivers) quit running a little bit on that play,” Beamer said. “Would love to have kept running and at least either draw a pass interference or make the catch, or at the worst, it’s an incomplete pass and you got time for maybe one more play to get out of bounds.”

There’s plenty to dissect from the final play. As it played out in real time, Sellers aired the ball out from the Alabama 47-yard line with the intention of connecting with his receiver Nyck Harbor. The two had linked up moments earlier for a 31-yard touchdown to cut the deficit down to two. It made sense to strike while the iron was hot.

“We get one-on-one coverage out there, we like our chances there,” Beamer said.

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Harbor, lined up as one of three receivers to the left of Sellers, ran a go route, meaning run as far as you can and be ready to make a play. But it looked like he started to slow down, unaware of where the ball might land.

“We felt like before the ball was snapped, we saw pressure coming. Knew it was going to be cover zero, which means it should be Nyck man-to-man and one-on-one with somebody,” said Beamer, explaining that Alabama’s defense was playing zero blitz. “We liked that matchup with the routes. Our defender in the flat fell off on him for whatever reason and ended up staying with Nyck on the deeper route.”

While riding with Harbor, the hot hand in that situation, seemed to be the plan, there were other options. After all, South Carolina did have 13 seconds to play with and only needed to move the ball a short distance to get in reasonable field goal range for kicker Alex Herrera.

And from the looks of it, the opportunity was there to do just that. While Harbor ran down the field, Gage Larvadain was left uncovered in the flat, closer to the sideline. The closest defender was standing around the Alabama logo at midfield and probably wouldn’t have been able to catch up. But if Sellers threw that way, there was some reason to believe Larvadain could’ve hauled in the pass, turned upfield for a decent gain and ran out of bounds before time expired. It just wasn’t a surefire bet to gamble on.

“Hindsight being 20-20, it’s easy for all of us, myself included, to sit here on Sunday and say, ‘Hey, shoot. If we just throw the ball out there to the flat, he’s going to catch it, because they were playing loose coverage, and we would have caught it, run for five or 10 yards, gotten out of bounds and kicked the field goal,'” Beamer said.

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But like Beamer mentioned, the Tide brought an all-out blitz South Carolina on the previous two plays. In turn, this left some of their defensive backs on an island. They had a few plays in mind they thought could work to expose their defensive scheme.

“If they ended up disguising it and playing something else, we had a couple routes that were breaking towards the sideline,” he said. “It was a very similar play to the one we scored on with Mazeo (Bennett) earlier in the game, just a little tweak off of it.”

Even if South Carolina played it safer and got as close as it could for Herrera, there were no guarantees he’d make the game-winning kick. While he connected from 37 yards much earlier in the first half, he also missed a 51-yarder with just over six minutes to go in the final quarter.

Instead, the Gamecocks trusted their offense to go out and find some of that two-minute magic like they had before. It just didn’t work out like they had hoped.

“Don’t fault the decision. Don’t fault the call,” Beamer said. “… But we certainly would’ve liked the opportunity to score a touchdown or try to get in field goal range, there’s no question about it.”

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