In the SEC season opener, the South Carolina-Tennessee gridiron battle was your typical down-to-the-wire game as the Vols were able to hang on for a 31-27 victory in front of a limited crowd of 15,009 fans at Williams Brice Stadium in Columbia, SC.
On their opening drive of the season, the Gamecocks were able to match 75 yards under the direction on grad transfer quarterback Colin Hill to take an early 7-0 lead. Tennessee came back with 21 unanswered points before South Carolina was able to right the ship and get back on track.
The Gamecocks fought back and tie the score with 3:22 to play in the third quarter on a one-yard run by Hill. The two teams traded field goals before the Vols took the lead for good on a Jarrett Guarantano 32-yard touchdown pass to Josh Palmer with 9:35 left in the game. The Gamecocks cut the lead to 31-27 with a Parker White 45-yard field goal with 3:55 remaining in the game, but that was as close as they would get.
South Carolina looked like it had a final chance when it forced a Tennessee punt with 90 seconds left. But the punt bounced into Cam Smith after it hit the ground. Tennessee recovered and ran out the clock for the win.
“We knew it was going to be a tight ballgame,” South Carolina head coach Will Muschamp said after the game. “We knew it was going to come down to a one score game. It was exactly what we talked about with our players. We should have had an opportunity at 1:29 to go and win the game, but it didn’t happen that way. No one play lost us the game; we had our opportunities.
“Offensively, we came out strong with our first drive. Then we got bogged down with some issues, early-down negative plays and some field position issues in the first half. Defensively in the first half, I thought we did a nice job; they hit the one ball on (safety) Jammie (Robinson), but we had great coverage. It was a heck of a throw and a catch; we had double edge pressure on the flea flicker, but the flat player rushed instead of staying in the flat and they were able to dump the ball off as we were sacking the quarterback.”
Muschamp said that he felt good about his team’s position coming into the second half.
“We’re sitting there at the half and we feel pretty good defensively,” he said. “I thought offensively we came out and played really well in the second half. We played well enough for us to win the game. We got tempo’d in the third quarter on the first drive and didn’t get aligned and didn’t fit the runs as well as we did in the first half. We have to do a better job of that. They tempo’d us a little bit and hit the deep ball on us. They hit the throw back in a pressure situation; we lost our eyes in the secondary. We put ourselves in a position to win the game and didn’t get it done, give them credit.”
Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt was happy with the win.
“I’m tickled that we found a way to win you know?” he said. “The bottom line is we’re leaving Columbia with a ‘W’, and that’s what we came here for.”
“When you go on the road in the SEC, nothing comes easy,” Tennessee quarterback Jarrett Guarantano said. “You saw some of that today.”
The Volunteer senior completed 19 of 31 passes for 259 yards and also rushed for Tennessee’s first touchdown.
South Carolina, with new offensive coordinator Mike Bobo, the former head coach at Colorado State, was led by quarterback Collin Hill, who transferred to Columbia from Colorado State for his senior season. He finished 25 of 39 passing for 290 yards and a touchdown. Senior wide receiver Shi Smith had 10 catches for 140 yards and a touchdown to lead the Gamecocks.
“I told our team when we started this conference schedule that we’re going to have seven or eight one-score games and we’re going to have to make great decisions as coaches and players at the end of the game,” Muschamp said. “They made the right plays at the right time and we didn’t.”
“We’ve got to go back and figure out where we are offensively and where we can create some consistency.”
Next up, the Gamecocks travel to Florida for a noon kickoff with the Gators next Saturday (Oct. 3). Tennessee will host Missouri in its home opener.
