Grading all performances from South Carolina's win over Missouri in Top 25 showdown

These are not the games where South Carolina usually comes out on top. It’s a tale as old as time, where the Gamecocks go into a big matchup and take an early lead, but as the game wears on, it starts to slip away from them and ends in utter defeat.

Even this season, South Carolina was in those type of situations with late leads against LSU and Alabama but couldn’t hold on to win. Those losses still have a lingering effect on many. And it looked for a time the same thing would happen again on Saturday. But the Gamecocks finally found a way.

In arguably improbable fashion, South Carolina came away with a 34-30 win over Missouri after blowing a 15-point lead and giving up two go-ahead touchdowns in the fourth quarter. The win puts the team at 7-3 on the year and they’ll now finish 5-3 in SEC play for the first time since 2017.

Let’s grade each position group and the coaching staff and break down how they performed this weekend.

Quarterback: A+

Take a second to look past the one interception thrown and the misfired throw on a 4th and 4 play. In the grand scheme of things, those plays were just a footnote in an insane game. The point is, LaNorris Sellers had a day to remember on Saturday.

The redshirt freshman quarterback completed 21-of-30 passes for 353 yards and five touchdowns, each of which were thrown to five different players. He’s only one of eight quarterbacks in program history to have ever thrown five or more touchdown passes in a game. So yeah, he deserves a top-of-the-line grade.

The stats aren’t a good enough indicator to tell you just how good his performance was. Some of the plays he made were absolutely crazy. Like when he miraculously broke out of a likely sack in the fourth quarter on 3rd and 10 and spun out to make a pass to Brady Hunt for a first down.

When his team needed him the most, he led two go-ahead touchdown drives in the final quarter, the second of which became the game-winning score. Sellers only continues to get better with each game he plays. The future is awfully bright with him under center.

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Running back: B+

It wasn’t a great game for the running backs on Saturday until Rocket Sanders decided to change that when he scored the game-winning touchdown to take a 34-30 lead. Down by three points with 22 seconds left, Sanders caught a shovel pass from Sellers and plowed through multiple defenders on his way to the end zone for a 15-yard score.

Sanders caught three passes for 21 yards and rushed for 53 yards on 19 carries. Oscar Adaway III only had one carry and went for a yard on the ground. So, this grade is really based on Sanders’ performance alone. Big-time players make big-time plays.

Wide receiver: A

In his real return to action, Mazeo Bennett led the team with five catches on five targets but only finished with 23 yards. He did his job in this game, but there were plenty of other receivers who made a substantial impact, as well.

Most notably, Nyck Harbor had one of his best games of his college career so far. He only caught two passes for 69 yards on Saturday but both catches were crucial in helping the Gamecocks win. His first catch was a 26-yard touchdown to give South Carolina its first lead of the day in the first quarter. Then in the final minutes before halftime, he ran a fade route to create separation and hauled in a 43-yard catch, which led to a Josh Simon six-yard touchdown on the next play.

Jared Brown caught his first touchdown as a Gamecock in the win, a 38-yard play in the final minute of the second quarter, where he had blocking in front and took it to the house. He finished with two catches for 48 yards.

And then how about the emergence of Dalevon Campbell? Some Gamecock fans probably forgot he existed considering he hadn’t caught a pass since the Oklahoma game on Oct. 19. But during crunch time in the fourth quarter, he made two of the biggest plays of the game.

Campbell caught a short pass from Sellers and took off down the sideline for a 47-yard gain to set up a touchdown a few plays later. Then on the game-winning drive, he made a 39-yard catch to put the Gamecocks into plus territory with 36 seconds to go. This was a game where multiple unsung heroes had to step up and Campbell was arguably the biggest one to do so.

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Tight end: A+

Simon continues to play at an unreal level as he hauled in another touchdown catch in a game where he caught four passes for 76 yards on Saturday. He now has five touchdowns in his last four games. He’s up to six overall this season.

Hunt also made a big play in this game when Sellers broke out of that aforementioned sack and he caught an 11-yard pass to extend the drive with a first down. Unfortunately, head coach Shane Beamer announced on Sunday that Hunt would miss the rest of the regular season with a lower leg injury. But he expects to have him back for the postseason.

Rounding out the tight end trio, Michael Smith caught his first touchdown of the year, a five-yard catch in the end zone to go up 27-22 in the fourth quarter.

They all had some of the higher blocking grades amongst all offensive players on Saturday, according to PFF. Simon earned a 71.5 pass blocking and 68 run blocking grades. Hunt finished with a team-best 80.5 run blocking grade. And Smith had a 67.4 pass blocking grade.

Offensive line: B-

Well, the streak is finally over. For the first time since Oct. 19, South Carolina gave up a sack. Otherwise, it was a decent day for the offensive line.

Torricelli Simpkins III and Vershon Lee were solid and ranked as the two highest blockers with PFF grades of 72.6 and 75.7, respectively. There were undoubtedly some plays in this game where the blocking just wasn’t good. But overall, it was a good enough performance to where you still feel like this group has made tremendous strides since the beginning of the season.

Defensive line: B+

One of the biggest battles in this game would be at the line of scrimmage, an area where Missouri had been the better team for years in this rivalry. Even at times on Saturday, the Tigers blocked really well against the Gamecocks.

But even with good blocking, South Carolina’s defensive line still found ways to be disruptive and make life hard on quarterback Brady Cook. While there were only two sacks by the defense, each one came at a pivotal point.

After Sellers threw an interception in the second quarter, TJ Sanders bailed his quarterback out by delivering a huge third-down sack to force a much longer (and ultimately missed) field goal attempt. After South Carolina took the lead with 15 seconds remaining, Kyle Kennard sacked Cook on the second to last play. This was his team-leading 10.5 sack of the year.

The Gamecocks did struggle to slow down Missouri’s run game and were outplayed in the second half. But when the defensive line needed to make a big play, they still managed to do so.

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Linebacker: B

Demetrius Knight Jr. led the linebacker group with nine tackles, eight of which were solo. Debo Williams was right behind him with seven tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss. Bam Martin-Scott only had four tackles and one TFL, but he graded out higher than anyone on defense with a 75.8 grade.

Secondary: B-

It was a mixed bag performance from South Carolina’s secondary. Before going down with an injury in the first half, Judge Collier made some outstanding plays, including a pair of pass breakups in the end zone to prevent Missouri from scoring.

Nick Emmanwori was all over the field and made a team-high 11 tackles, eight of which were solo. Jalon Kilgore made the game-sealing interception on the final play to secure the win for the Gamecocks. But there were also some struggles.

Kilgore did a fine job in coverage, but he was on the other end of a 37-yard touchdown catch by Missouri’s Luther Burden III late in the fourth quarter where he missed a tackle near the goal line. Cook completed five passes for more than 20 yards on Saturday, including a game-long 49-yard catch by Marquis Johnson.

Special teams: B

Special teams didn’t really have a major impact on this game from a punting and kicking standpoint. Kai Kroeger only had to punt one time for 41 yards and Alex Herrera didn’t have any field goal attempts.

But there was one big play that helped bump this grade up to where it is. With the offense getting ready to go for its final drive of the game, South Carolina ran a reverse on the kickoff return. Harbor took a handoff from Juju McDowell and ran up field for a 20 yards to start the offense at its own 30. This play would help kickstart what would be the game-winning touchdown drive.

Coaching: B

A lot will be made about Beamer choosing to go for it on fourth down as much as he did. South Carolina went just 2-of-5 on fourth downs, which played a role in Missouri’s second half comeback efforts.

At the same time, Beamer’s aggressiveness was good in some ways, like when he used his final two timeouts to preserve enough time on the clock for his offense to go down and score to take a 21-6 lead into halftime. This was very smart and strategic by Beamer to have enough trust in his offense to go for an early kill in this game.

If there are still any Dowell Loggains doubters out there, it might be time to hang it up. South Carolina continues to look much better on offense and his play calling is a big reason why. It took some guts to run a shovel pass that ended up being the game-winning score in the fourth quarter. But that just shows how confident Loggains is in his play calling abilities and he should be commended for that.

This could’ve been a game where things fell apart for South Carolina and it would be another rough loss added to the record books. But unlike so many times before where this team has crumbled, they didn’t on Saturday. A lot of credit needs to go to the players for not giving up when things got tough. Likewise, the same needs to be said for the coaching staff. This four-game winning streak they’re on is not some accident. This is a very good football team and coaching has been a big factor in this recent success.

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