How a cast of familiar and unlikely heroes saved the day in South Carolina's thrilling win

This could’ve been the same old story where South Carolina looked back on what could’ve, should’ve and would’ve been. Blowing not one but two late fourth quarter leads should’ve put the nail in the coffin. Not with this team, though.

And not with their star redshirt freshman quarterback under center. In most games this season, it’s been the Gamecock defense doing most of the heavy lifting in their first six wins. But when push came to shove and the team needed a hero, LaNorris Sellers delivered.

Behind a fantastic performance from Sellers, along with many other unsung heroes who stepped up, No. 21 South Carolina survived and defeated No. 23 Missouri 34-30 on Saturday.

But the Gamecocks might not have gotten the win had it not been for Sellers making seemingly impossible plays happen. At this point, he’s usually due to make at least one per game these days. And here he was, on 3rd and 10 trailing 22-21 with just over seven minutes to go, nearly being brought to the ground by Missouri EDGE Johnny Walker.

“I remember watching it. He ’bout to get sacked and I’m like, ‘Oh, no,'” Boogie Huntley said. “He gets hit and I’m just thinking like, ‘LaNorris, I need some of that magic. I need something.'”

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However, Walker couldn’t complete the sack and Sellers escaped to barely stay alive. As he rolled back out to his left, he didn’t have many options at his disposal. So he fired to his tight end Brady Hunt who managed to pick up 11 yards for the first down to extend the drive.

“The second he got out of it, I knew something good was going to happen,” Huntley said. “So that’s kind of been his MO. He’s a guy the whole team trusts.”

On the next play, Sellers connected with another unlikely hero, Dalevon Campbell, who caught the pass for a first down and went off to the races, breaking a few tackles in the process. The sixth-year receiver turned a regular first-down pickup into a 47-yard gain to put the Gamecocks inside the red zone.

Two plays later, Michael Smith caught his first college touchdown, a five-yard pass from Sellers into the end zone to take a one-point lead with five minutes to go. Smith hadn’t caught a pass since the Oklahoma game back on Oct. 19. But here he was, just like many of his other teammates on this particular drive, making an unexpected impact.

“That is us. There is no unselfishness. Guys just compete and play,” head coach Shane Beamer said. “They just work. To me, that is what it says is just we are a team that cares for one another. They love playing for one another. They are just so much fun to coach because of the kind of young men they are. They are great kids. They really are.”

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Just when it looked like South Carolina would escape with the victory, Missouri had another big play up its sleeve in what was an impressive second half showing. On 4th and 5, Tigers quarterback Brady Cook lobbed a long pass to his top receiver Luther Burden, who made the catch and then broke out of a tackle to score a 37-yard touchdown to retake the lead with a little over a minute to go in the game.

Even after going down again, there was no sense of worry or quit from the Gamecocks. Especially from the leader of the offense, Sellers knew he had to stay calm and take it one play at a time. Let the pieces fall into place and make things happen.

“We’ve got to score. We got to score,” Sellers said. “Because if you say we’ve got score, we’ve got score, you get desperate. You’ll just start trying stuff. So just take one play at a time, and then whatever happens, happens.”

Just like he did before, Sellers found Campbell for another big gain, a 39-yard catch and run, with under 30 seconds left to move deep into Missouri territory. A field goal would’ve been enough to tie the game. South Carolina could’ve easily settled and tried to run the clock down in this spot. But like he had all game, Beamer wasn’t going to be conservative. He wanted to be smart but he also wasn’t playing for overtime.

“We were going to call and run and if we didn’t get it, I was going to call a timeout immediately. I guess we did have a run before that. I think I called the first one. We had two more. We were going to pop another one in there,” Beamer said. “It worked out the way we thought. If we hadn’t gotten that one, we were going to call another timeout and take one more shot at the end zone and get to the overtime. We liked our opportunities and chances there and it was a great way to finish.”

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While it took multiple heroes who hadn’t made a huge impact before Saturday to get to this point, it would be another huge piece of the offense who came through with the biggest score of the game. On a shovel pass play akin to what the offense ran at one point against Alabama, Sellers flipped the short pass off to Rocket Sanders who lowered a shoulder and plowed his way into the end zone for a 15-yard touchdown to take the lead again with 15 seconds to play.

“We were scoring,” Sanders said on the mindset of the final touchdown drive. “I told Mazeo (Bennett) right away, I was like, ‘I’m finna get in the box.’ And I told my coach, too. It happened. After that, it was history.”

Although the defense wasn’t having its best night, giving up 30 points and nearly 150 rushing yards, the unit saved its best for last when Kyle Kennard sacked Cook on the first play of the next possession. To one-up him, Jalon Kilgore, who was in coverage on Burden’s earlier go-ahed score, sealed the deal with a diving interception. Ballgame.

“What a way to finish. Proud of those guys because we have been through shared struggles together and that makes you closer,” Beamer said. “You saw that tonight with some of the injury situation.  At one point, we were down our top three tight ends. We didn’t have a healthy top three tight end at one point. Guys kept stepping up and making plays and was really cool to see.”

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