The South Carolina Gamecocks motto for November is a “November to Remember.”
On Saturday, Carolina gave the capacity crowd of 79,361 at Williams-Brice Stadium a memory that they will not soon forget as they drove the length of the field to score on a 15-yard shuttle pass from quarterback LeNorris Sellers to Rocket Sanders with 15 seconds remaining in the game, giving the Gamecocks a 34-30 SEC victory over Missouri.
It looked like Carolina was going to lose another heartbreaking game to a ranked SEC opponent when Missouri quarterback Brady Cook’s fourth-down pass was completed to Luther Burden III to give the Tigers a 30-27 lead with 1:10 to go. Unlike previous games this season, the Gamecocks were not going to be denied as they found a way to win. The game was South Carolina’s third straight win against a ranked opponent.
Sellers finished the game with a career-high five touchdown passes and 353 yards, completing 21 of 30 attempts. He also rushed for 45 yards and was named the SEC Offensive Player of the Week.
After the game, Sellers talked about the final drive.
“They were up by three so I knew if we got to the red zone, we have points. Once you got to the red zone, it was just like alright, protect the ball at that point, but I wanted to score, obviously. We did show some pass early in the game and they overplayed it the first time we ran it, so we came back to it because they overplayed it. I got it to Rocket and he scored … once he broke that tackle from the linebacker, I don’t think any defensive back in the conference is going to stop Rocket. So, once he did that and broke the second one, and another one, that’s the game right there.”
“Really just staying calm, not budging, not flinching, just taking it one play at a time, not worrying about the outcome,” Sellers said. Not worrying about, ‘Hey, we gotta score. We gotta score,’ because you say ‘We gotta score, we gotta score,’ you get desperate. Take it one play at a time and whatever happens, happens.”
Josh Simon, a sixth-year senior tight end who caught a six-yard touchdown pass from Sellers, talked about the team’s success in his final season at South Carolina.
“Second year in this offense, second year with Coach (Dowell) Loggains, first year with LaNorris, but just being able to be myself and play ball, it means a lot, to come back to this team, to South Carolina,” he said. “I’m at home and we have a good chemistry here and as y’all can see, we’re learning how to win games. We know how to win games around here and we have a whole lot of fun doing that. I’m glad I did it, to come back and play a full season of college football, being a starter and putting that stuff on tape. One of the best decisions I made.”
South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer talked about the final drive.
“We’re fortunate that we had three timeouts so we had some flexibility. Once we hit the pass – who was that, Camp [Dalevon Campbell] – that got us down there, we were in the red zone. We know we’re in field goal range, but we’re not playing for overtime … we also wanted to be smart. So, Dowell [Loggains] and I were talking on the headphones, and Dowell said, ‘Hey, are you good if we try and pop a run in here?’ And I was like, ‘Heck, yeah.’ I mean, we’ve got time for plenty of plays right here because of our timeout situation. So we were going to call a run, and if we didn’t get it, I was going to call time out immediately. I guess we did have a run before that; I think I called the first [timeout]. We had two more. We’re going to pop another one in there. It worked out the way we the way we thought … and it’s a great way to finish.”
The Gamecocks (7-3, 5-3) have won four straight Southeastern Conference games for the first time since 2012 when Steve Spurrier was the head coach. But it’s now one of Spurrier’s assistant coaches who has South Carolina as the hottest team in the powerhouse conference.
Next week Carolina will host Wofford on Senior Day in an afternoon game before traveling to Clemson for the annual in-state rivalry at noon to finish up the regular season.
