Jabari Ellis nestled into the padded chair sitting in front of a laptop with reporters’ faces on it, orange and blue clad ball in hand and a smile the size South Carolina plastered on his face.
The ball, which Ellis held as he crossed the goal line of a scoop and score, the first nail in the coffin Saturday night, was dubbed “Lil Chomp,” and it never left Ellis’s hands, much like the smile he had rarely subsided off his face.
Over the last few weeks, the smiles had been few and far between postgame for the Gamecocks, who had lost three of their last five games entering Saturday, two of those by at least 20 points.
But—after a 23-point drubbing of the Gators and Shane Beamer’s first signature win at South Carolina—the smiles were flowing freely.
“All I can remember was telling guys on the sideline, ‘Man, this feels good. This feels good,’” Ellis said. “I remember saying it over and over that we need to finish it so we can really have that true feeling. This feels good and let’s keep our foot on the gas and enjoy the moment."
Before Saturday, it’d been a long three weeks for the Gamecocks, dropping road games at Tennessee and Texas A&M by 25 and 30 points, respectively, and engineering a late comeback against Vanderbilt to stay at .500 on the year.
Coming off a much-needed bye week, the hill up to bowl eligibility would be tough with three conference games and a rivalry game due up.
But then Saturday happened.
The Gamecocks dominated in nearly every facet, dismantling the Gators by 23 points, the largest margin of victory over the Gators in program history, and the first SEC win over a non-Vanderbilt team by double digits since beating Kentucky by 17 in 2019.
They’d rush for 284 yards and average 6.8 yards per pop on the ground while Jason Brown averaged 7.3 yards per attempt and threw in a few dimes en route to the offense putting up the most points its had at home against a FBS school since 2018 against Coastal Carolina.
“We made a statement. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing,” said Josh Vann, who ended with 111 yards receiving and a touchdown. “We’re going to come out there and fight. That’s what a Gamecock does. Gamecocks fight.”
It was just the Gamecocks’ 10th win ever over the Gators and first in four tries as South Carolina tries to build momentum in year one under Beamer.
“That’s a good football team we just beat, so I hope we don’t start with the narrative about Florida or anything,” Beamer said. “Tonight was about South Carolina. That is a team with a bunch of really good players.”
One game is not a sample size and the Gamecocks will need to show continued improvement over the next few weeks, starting Saturday at Missouri, that they’ve put the anemic issues from earlier in the year behind them.
But Saturday against Florida was a good place to start.
“This is a team that continues to get better and better and loves each other, cares for one another...We knew we had a good football team. I know we didn’t look like it out at Texas A&M tow weeks ago and it wasn’t always pretty against Vandy,” Beamer said.
“Winning’s hard. I know everyone expects us to beat the team we’re supposed to beat by a certain amount. They have good players too, and winning is hard. I think tonight was a great testament in how much they love each other and how much they love playing for each other and this staff.”
Now Beamer has the Gamecocks (5-4, 2-4 SEC) one win away from a bowl game in his first year, which would be a high water mark for a program that won six combined games from 2019 through the end of last season.
The work resumes Sunday for the final three-game sprint, but for now enjoy the win.
“There haven’t been a lot of great moments like this over the last couple years,” Beamer said. “Just like I want our players to have success I want these fans that are so passionate for us to be able to celebrate and have night like this as well. I’m really happy for them, happy for our players and hopefully we have a lot more of these games coming.”
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