What started with a spark ended in electricity at Williams-Brice Stadium as South Carolina defeated Texas A&M for the first time in program history, snapping an eight-game losing streak against the Aggies.
Xavier Legette returned the opening kickoff back 100 yards and the Gamecocks led Texas A&M 17-0 inside the first six minutes thanks to two more turnovers, but had to grind out a 30-21 victory in front of a sellout crowd.
The defining drive came in the fourth quarter when South Carolina (5-2, 2-2 SEC) got the ball back at its own 20 leading 24-21 with 8:21 to go after an impressive open field tackle from Bam Martin-Scott forced a punt. South Carolina went on the drive of its game, its season and probably the Shane Beamer era by taking the ball 80 yards on eight plays, chewing more than five minutes off the clock and scoring when MarShawn Lloyd hammered the ball into the end zone with 3:08 to play.
Spencer Rattler’s fist pump as Lloyd crossed the goal line set it all, a mixture of elation over icing the game and relief for thwarting a sustained Aggie rally.
Legette’s exhilarating opening jolt turned into a frenzy when Darius Rush intercepted a Haynes King pass and returned it all the way down to the five just four plays later, but South Carolina could only muster a field goal off the sudden change situation.
Turnovers were a theme throughout the game with each side committing two of them, but Texas A&M’s (3-4, 1-3 SEC) came on back-to-back possessions. Shortly after the fumble, a miscommunication between King and backup center Matthew Wykoff resulted in a fumble Tonka Hemingway scooped up and returned into the red zone. This time the offense capitalized on the takeaway when Christian Beal-Smith initially set up first-and-goal with a wildcat run and then scored from five yards out.
By the time Texas A&M even had a chance to give the ball to standout running back Devon Achane for the first time, it was already trailing by three possessions on the scoreboard. But Achane and company slowly worked the visitors back into the contest with a pair of field goal drives and sustained offensive success.
That first half success on offense peaked when the Aggies marched 94 yards down the field on a draft that elapsed more than eight minutes and resulted in a touchdown. The two crucial plays were both third downs, first a third-and-3 run for Achane and then a third-and-goal pass from King to Max Wright into the front left corner of the end zone. After a successful two-point conversion and a successful stop in the two-minute drill, Texas A&M went into halftime only trailing by a field goal.
Despite being South Carolina’s leading rusher in the first half of the season and scoring seven touchdowns throughout the first six games, Lloyd only carried the ball three times throughout the first half. But he more than doubled his output on one second half possession when he carried it on five out of six snaps. He totaled 31 yards, 18 of which came on his scamper to the end zone that made it 24-14 Gamecocks.
An Achane fumble off a Rattler fumble took the score back to three points heading into the fourth quarter, a situation the Gamecocks had not found themselves in coming into Saturday. Throughout the first half of the season, South Carolina’s closest final margin in a game was 10 points, and it had only even played one snap in the final frame with the margin standing in single-digits.
But thanks to a pair of trio defensive stops and a lights out drive from the offense after an erratic night, Beamer’s bunch secured their first four-game winning streak since 2013 and potentially positioned themselves to join the national rankings tomorrow.
Texas A&M's last-ditch effort went by the boards when a false start penalty — Texas A&M's sixth of the night — backed it up into a fourth-and-7 situation and Connor Weigman's pass fell incomplete. Weigman took over after King injured himself on a scramble early in the fourth quarter, completing four out of eight pass attempts.
The Aggies did manage to get the ball back and kick a field goal with ten seconds remaining before recovering an onside kick and giving itself a chance to steal the game, but the final flickers of the comeback died when Martin-Scott fittingly capped the night with a hit on Weigman as he uncorked his hail mary attempt.
South Carolina will be be back at home next week for its homecoming game against Missouri.
