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CLEMSON, S.C. -- Spencer Rattler jumped up on the steps in the cramped visitor’s tunnel at Memorial Stadium. Phone in his left hand broadcasting live on Instagram, victory cigar between two fingers in his right, he let out the type of dance you can only start after throwing for 360 yards in a road rivalry win.

A few minutes later Todd Ellis — the long-time radio voice of South Carolina football who authored a famous win over Clemson of his own as starting quarterback in 1987 — went out of his way to find punter Kai Kroeger in that same tunnel.

“That was one hell of a game,” Ellis shouted as he extended a bear hug to Kroeger. Fresh off a career day where he dropped three punts inside the 5-yard-line.

Kroeger embraced him back and smiled.

Running back JuJu McDowell, the “little firecracker” of the team as Josh Vann dubbed him pre-season who caught a 65-yard pass on a second quarter fourth down play, ran past Shane Beamer’s post-game press conference, still looking like he had enough energy to play another 60 minutes, with a chant.

“Beamer Ball!!”

Beamer, in the middle of answering a question, grabbed the Palmetto Bowl Trophy and held it up, symbolically grabbing it both from the South Carolina staffer who handed it to him and from Clemson University as a whole.

As for Beamer himself in the aftermath of his team’s stunning 31-30 upset win on the road at No. 8 Clemson? A game that snapped Clemson’s (10-2, 8-0 ACC) seven game-winning streak in the rivalry, its 40-game home winning streak overall and blasted its hopes of reaching the College Football Playoff? Some combination of relief and jubilation.

“I know what this rivalry means to the people of South Carolina and Gamecocks everywhere,” he said. “I’m just really happy for them; really happy for our seniors. There’s a lot of emotions, there really is. It still hasn’t hit me I don’t think. It’s pretty spectacular.”

Rattler did not quite know what to make of it, either. His day was turbulent, just like his team’s. When he threw a pick six on just South Carolina’s (8-4, 4-4 SEC) fourth play from scrimmage as part of an early 14-0 deficit, it looked like a repeat of the early meltdown at Florida. When he pulled South Carolina back within two points on two separate occasions, it looked similar to when the 21-3 deficit at Arkansas turned into a 21-16 game before the team ran out of steam.

But when he connected with Antwane Wells Jr. on a third-and-4 screen pass to secure the game-clinching first down, it no longer had any peers. Not just like Florida, or just like Arkansas. Just Clemson, the place where the Gamecocks locked down one of the most memorable wins in the history of a rivalry dating back to 1896.

“It’s a surreal moment right now,” Rattler said. “Just pure excitement. Just like, ‘wow.’ All these Clemson fans were talking mess behind our bench and they didn’t say anything after. We haven’t beaten them since 2013 and they were on a 40-game [home] winning streak. For us to come in and beat them, it’s huge.”

Last Saturday, Beamer took the podium after his team took down Tennessee and was adamant it was not a fluke. It was not one great night, or an isolated performance. It was a night symbolic of his program and what he is building.

“This is a new Carolina, guys,” Beamer said post-Tennessee. “Everybody thinks they’ve read this book, seen this movie, they know how the chapter ends. Well, no you don’t. I know what that team is about in that locker room.”

One week later, after a win that had his fingerprints all over it, it is hard to argue with it.

There was Rattler, the quarterback he worked with at Oklahoma and was instrumental in bringing to Columbia via the transfer portal. There was Wells, another of Beamer’s transfer portal acquisitions who caught two touchdowns from Rattler including a 72-yard strike late in the third quarter just as momentum was slipping away.

Nate Adkins, who came into the program from FCS East Tennessee State and was used sparingly for most of the season, caught four passes for 62 yards and punched the ball away from Clemson’s Antonio Williams on the game-clinching fumble. Who was there to recover it but Nick Emmanwori, the true freshman safety who did not have so much as a college offer from anyone other than South Carolina.

“We knew this was the biggest game of the season for us and these last two games would change the narrative for program history,” Rattler said. “We prepared that way, and we came out and played at a high level.”

When Beamer arrived in 2020, the gap between Clemson and South Carolina was maybe as large as it ever has been. The Tigers, coming off an undefeated regular season and heading to the College Football Playoff for the sixth season in a row. The Gamecocks, a smoking crater of a program just off the back of a 2-8 regular season without a win in the rivalry game since 2013.

Whether the gap has actually been closed or what it means long term is a conversation down the line. It is offseason fodder for the other 364 days in this year-round rivalry, days South Carolina fans will finally be able to enjoy.

For one afternoon, in a building Clemson had not lost a game in over 2,205 days, everything changed. The tenor around the program – one that looked destined for an underwhelming 6-6 year just eight days ago — changed. The tenor of the rivalry changed. The optimism around South Carolina football heading into a bowl game and 2023 changed.

The narrative changed.

“I think it definitely changes a lot,” Kroeger said. “Just like the A&M game and obviously the big game last week against Tennessee. It shows everyone that we’re here. We’re not this scrub program that everyone liked to say we were. I couldn’t be prouder of our guys and where we are right now, and I can’t wait for the future.”