Scott Davis: Saturday night fever returns to Williams-Brice

Scott Davis has followed South Carolina athletics for over 40 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective. He writes a weekly newsletter year-round (sign up here) and a column during football season that’s published each Monday on GamecockCentral.com.

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It’s different at Williams-Brice Stadium at night.

Growing up in South Carolina, I always heard it.

As a lifelong Gamecock fan, I often said it.

But there were times, across the long decades, when many of us who love the University of South Carolina could be forgiven for wondering: Is it? Is it really?

Is it really that different when we turn the lights on above the old stadium on George Rogers Boulevard? Haven’t we lost a bunch of Saturday night games over the years here, some of them genuinely depressing, some of them the kind we never want to recall again?

Yes, we wanted to believe in that old maxim about night games at Williams-Brice, but sometimes, when we glanced up through the darkness at the scoreboard and saw disappointment yet again…well, it wasn’t always easy.

Things started changing for the better when Steve Spurrier arrived to coach the Gamecocks. Thursday nights under the lights in Columbia delivered some of the most stirring environments we’d ever seen here, and fans of a certain age are still talking about Spurrier’s nighttime wins over Kentucky (The Rain Game) and Ole Miss (The Birth of Sandstorm).

Then there was that epic, earth-shaking smackdown of Georgia beneath the stars back in 2012, and all of those after-dark whippings of Dabo Swinney’s team in the early 2010s. Finally, after all this time, it was indeed different at Williams-Brice Stadium at night.

And then it wasn’t.

By the time Shane Beamer was named head coach at the end of 2020, our SEC brethren and their fans had little to fear when they looked towards the prospect of playing under a nighttime South Carolina sky. Williams-Brice at night was no longer a thing. It was almost hard to remember that it ever had been.

But in his very first season at the helm, Beamer and his team quickly began to remind us why we always liked playing nighttime football here. After an inconsistent start in 2021, the Gamecocks returned to Williams-Brice for a night game against Florida and promptly ran the Gators out of the state to the tune of 40-17. A few weeks later, again under the lights, they turned back a desperate Auburn (which had tormented South Carolina since it joined the SEC decades earlier).

I was in the stands for a night game against none other than the Aggies of Texas A&M in 2022 when the Gamecocks hung on to finally defeat their Lone Star State rivals amidst an environment so raucous I dubbed it “Electric Avenue” in the next morning’s column. A month or so later, Tennessee carried a Top 10 ranking into Williams-Brice for a night game and promptly found itself on the wrong end of a 63-38 spanking.

Once again, it had become different at Williams-Brice Stadium at night.

And it was to Williams-Brice Stadium at night where those Aggies of A&M once again arrived on Saturday evening. They entered South Carolina’s house on the heels of a big win over LSU, bringing with them a Top 10 ranking and a swagger derived from their status as the only remaining team still undefeated in SEC play.

A few hours later, they left that same stadium having been engulfed by Electric Avenue.

Saturday Night Fever had struck again, this time claiming an Aggies team that appeared to be cruising towards a berth in the College Football Playoff.

The Gamecocks used a potent running game, a defense that clamped down in the fourth quarter, and an unrelenting crowd to obliterate A&M by the time triple zero’s hit the scoreboard. And when it was all over, that scene on the field told a story to every other program across college football.

ABC’s overhead cameras captured Shane Beamer – a tiny dot in the center of a frenzied mob – attempting to conduct a victorious postgame interview with a sideline reporter as the crowd surged and chanted and writhed around him. Have we ever seen Williams-Brice this imposing, this unforgettable, this alive?

That scene will live in the memories of every Gamecock fan for all time now, fans stretching out forever, garnet-and-black-clad bodies blanketing the old field, covering it completely – at night, under the lights one more time.

It felt like the beginning of something, something good, something we’ve been waiting for our entire lives, waiting for on all those Saturdays when we put on the garnet and black hats and shirts and jackets and parked in the Fairgrounds four hours before kickoff and waited and hoped for deliverance.

Yes, this was a scene that told a story.

Its message to everyone else in the SEC, to everyone in college football, to everyone in the whole wide world was this: It is once again different at Williams-Brice Stadium at night.

And unless you are wearing garnet and black, you do not want to be there.

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The Williams-Brice Stadium at Night Saturday Night Fever Game Balls of the Week

Multiple South Carolina Gamecocks hold a solid argument for being the namesake of this week’s Game Balls, most notably running back Rocket Sanders. And yet, looking at that epic scene following the game, how can we fail to give that honor to none other than…

Williams-Brice Stadium at Night – It’s baaaaaaaaaack. Shane Beamer and his players have officially revitalized Electric Avenue. Williams-Brice is alive, well, electric and ready to wreak havoc. Who do we need to talk to so that we can start scheduling every home game after dark?

As I watched the postgame celebration on TV from my home in Georgia, I couldn’t help but wonder: What recruit who saw this footage wouldn’t want to come play here immediately? And indeed, as reported by On3, the recruits in attendance at the game left the experience in awe of what they’d just witnessed.

As the celebrating throng collapsed around Beamer during the postgame, he said to ABC’s Molly McGrath, “This is the best environment in college football.” Looking at the scene, it was impossible to argue. If you’re playing for a Power 5 program and contemplating transferring somewhere for a livelier experience, you are considering South Carolina right now. Electric Avenue lives!

Rocket Sanders – When Sanders transferred to South Carolina over the winter, he undoubtedly dreamed of a night like this one. The running back took the fight directly to the Aggie defense with a 144-yard, two-touchdown night that also included 92 receiving yards. And speaking of running…

LaNorris Sellers – South Carolina’s quarterback had his moments in the passing game, but it was his overall elusiveness and ability to move the chains with his legs that ultimately left A&M confounded. Sellers rushed for 106 yards and a touchdown, delivering his most complete performance as the Gamecocks’ QB1.

4th-and-1 – Texas A&M twice went for it on fourth-and-one, and twice the Gamecock defense denied them. On the flip side, the Gamecocks converted an early fourth-and-one on offense to keep alive a drive that ended in a touchdown. For the first time in at least a decade, South Carolina simply looked stronger, more physical and more powerful than a quality SEC opponent.

Josh Simon – The tight end broke out on Saturday night with a four-catch, two-touchdown, 132-yard effort that gave the South Carolina passing game some life after the team lost leading receiver Mazeo Bennett to an injury.

Finishing – Gamecock fans entered the fourth quarter with a familiar sense of dread as they watched their team cling to a late lead against an SEC powerhouse. After all, just this season we’ve been asked to endure not just one, but two stomach punches in down-to-wire, come-from-ahead losses to LSU and Alabama. But this time, the team took what was theirs. In the fourth quarter, South Carolina’s defense simply refused to allow the Aggies back into the contest, repeatedly (and finally) sacking A&M quarterback Marcel Reed with the football game on the line and delivering the disruption and havoc they’ve come to be known for in 2024. And after they gave the ball back to their offense, the O immediately tapped nails directly into Texas A&M’s coffin with late touchdowns.

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The “Man, If We’d Just Finished Those Games Against LSU and Alabama, We’d Be Talking About the College Football Playoff Right About Now” Deflated Balls of the Week

Sure, we certainly could hand out Deflated Balls this week. The Gamecocks jumped out to an early lead, only to allow the Aggies to soar back ahead before the first half ended. There were some of the mistakes and miscues we’ve come to expect from this team through eight games. But after a night that ended with Shane Beamer being swarmed by a cheering throng, there’s really only one Deflated Ball worth giving, and that’s to…

“Man, If We’d Just Finished Those Games Against LSU and Alabama, We’d Be Talking About the College Football Playoff Right About Now” – As crazy as it sounds, it’s true.

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Here’s what else is true: South Carolina’s biggest game of the year is now its upcoming one, in Nashville this Saturday against Vanderbilt. The Commodores have shaken up the SEC by winning six games already in 2024, with Alabama and Auburn both among Vandy’s victims.

But for South Carolina, the old maxim has become true: When you start putting some wins together, your biggest game of the year is the next one on the schedule.

And here’s one more maxim that has become true again in this wild, mad, unforgettable season: It is different at Williams-Brice Stadium at night.

Yes. It certainly is.

My friends, Saturday Night Fever is contagious.

Tell me how you’re feeling after an electric evening at Williams-Brice by writing me at [email protected].

Discuss the South Carolina-Texas A&M football game on The Insiders Forum!