How South Carolina beat Missouri even without its best defensive performance

More times than not, when South Carolina has found ways to win games this season, the defense has usually been the main reason why. But for one of the first times all year, the Gamecocks couldn’t count on their defense alone to get past Missouri on Saturday.

After holding the Tigers to two field goals in the first half, South Carolina didn’t have many answers in a second half where it blew a 15-point lead. Just when it looked like the team was doomed after the defense showed some struggles, the offense, which hadn’t done much in the third quarter, put together two touchdown drives in the final five minutes of the game to escape with a narrow 34-30 win over Missouri.

Even on a night where the Gamecock defense didn’t have their fastball, they still made enough plays, along with a great effort from the offense and special teams, to win the game.

“That’s what it’s all about. Teams are going to move the ball. Teams are going to hit some plays on you and things like that,” head coach Shane Beamer said. “But you got to do a good job tackling, and we did that for the most part. And then when they get down in the red zone, you got to get stops. We did a really good job of that.”

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As all the momentum slipped away in the second half, Missouri was outplaying South Carolina. The Tigers exploded for 24 points with over 200 yards of offense. Simply put, Missouri did almost anything it wanted with an explosive run game and elite weapons on the outside.

But when the Gamecocks came through on offense, it gave enough of a jolt to allow for the defense to redeem itself with only mere seconds remaining. After South Carolina took back the lead with 15 seconds to go, the defense now had to keep the Tigers from driving down the field to get into field goal range or score a touchdown.

During Friday practices each week, the team will do a walk through and prepare for the unpredictability of all the things that can happen in the final seconds of a game. A Hail Mary, lateral passes as time expires, you name it. It’s one thing to work on it in a walk through. But it’s another to encounter it in a crazy and wild game.

“The first thing is, after you score, you’re thinking about the kickoff. Do you kick it deep and try and kick it into the end zone where they don’t get a return? Do you squib it down there where it prevents their ability to get a return a little bit? But it also takes time off the clock. That was the first conversation that Joe (DeCamillis) and I were having,” Beamer said.

“And then in regards to Clayton (White) and myself with, along with the rest of the defensive staff, we were talking about one, how we wanted to play it, and we knew we wanted to be in some sort of prevent type thing. But there were two different things you’re thinking about.”

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Starting at the 25-yard line, Missouri had a long way to go with not much time remaining. But it still had one timeout. That was the first thing Beamer thought about. He knew the Tigers could run a few plays or even one chunk play. Then they could call a timeout and throw the ball to the end zone.

But as Missouri quarterback Brady Cook looked to pass, the latter option was essentially taken out of the picture. Kyle Kennard swarmed in off the edge and sacked Cook for a loss of six yards with nine seconds left. Missouri had to burn its last timeout as a result.

Now with virtually no options, the Tigers were going to be in lateral mode on their potentially last play of the game. But much like the play before, that option was taken away from them, this time by their own doing. Cook’s final pass sailed into the hands of a diving Jalon Kilgore for a game-sealing interception.

“They got stops when they needed to,” Beamer said. “And then our offense, they made plays when they needed to. Both sides of the ball, as I alluded to, had each other’s backs and picked each other up throughout the night.”

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