JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In the highest-scoring Gator Bowl ever, South Carolina finally ran out of gas.
The No. 19 Gamecocks and No. 21 Notre Dame traded blows all game in a shootout for the ages at TIAA Bank Field, but the Fighting Irish prevailed 45-38.
Fighting Irish quarterback Tyler Buchner completed a 16-yard touchdown pass to tight end Mitchell Evans on a third-and-7 play with 1:38 to go to cap off the possession. A last-ditch possession actually made it all the way to the Notre Dame 34-yard-line after a big Spencer Rattler scramble, but Notre Dame’s defense managed to get home on Rattler and force him into a crippling intentional grounding penalty with 38 seconds remaining.
Notre Dame put up 356 yards of offense in the second half and controlled the ball for more than 21 of the 30 minutes as a depleted, undermanned South Carolina defense slowly ran out of steam.
The Gamecocks tied the game at 38-38 on a 100-yard interception return by O’Donnell Fortune with 7:42 remaining — but Notre Dame’s powerful running game immediately went right back to work and continued chipping away.
Notre Dame (9-4) went on a 12-play, 80-yard drive that elapsed more than six minutes off the clock to secure the game-winning points and deal South Carolina (8-5) a gut-wrenching loss to cap off Shane Beamer’s second season as head coach. The last drive was a microcosm of the entire game; the Fighting Irish rushed for 50 out of their 80 yards on the drive, and went for 265 total rushing yards on 45 carries.
But long before the final punch, it looked like it would be a memorable afternoon for the Gamecocks.
South Carolina immediately stormed out to a 14-point lead before the first quarter ended thanks to one touchdown from each phase of the game. Beamer elected to take the ball first after winning the coin toss, and his unit rewarded the faith. Even without a definite play caller — although analyst Freddie Kitchens was wearing a headset and holding a playsheet on the sideline — the Gamecocks marched 75 yards down the field on 10 plays and put up the game’s first score when Rattler connected with Xavier Legette on a 13-yard pass.
After Notre Dame tied the game on a 15-yard touchdown run by Buchner, the rest of South Carolina’s roster took over. Punter Kai Kroeger kept his perfect passing career alive by completing his fourth pass of 2022 and sixth overall on a strike to long-snapper Hunter Rogers, a 23-yard touchdown. Less than two minutes later Smith took his pick six back to double the lead and send a heavy garnet and black crowd into a frenzy.
But after an exchange of field goals, momentum shifted into the blue and gold corner.
The Fighting Irish scored the next 14 points with one touchdown coming on each side of halftime. Buchner completed the longest pass by any Notre Dame quarterback all season when he found Logan Diggs on a 75-yard touchdown, and then he added his second rushing score of the game to bring things back to square one.
A South Carolina defense dealing with a lot of attrition both in terms of injuries and opt-outs battled hard, but visibly started running out of gas. Cornerback Keenan Nelson Jr. made the first start of his career, and there was frequent rotation with freshmen all day just in a desperate attempt to keep bodies fresh. But the problems stopping quarterback runs from earlier in the season persisted.
Buchner scored his second rushing score of the game and was a consistent threat with his legs the entire second half. Even after his pick-six briefly cost his team all of the momentum, he settled back in and led the team down the field on the game-winning drive.
A pair of crushing South Carolina penalties on the final drive — an intentional grounding penalty and an unsportsmanlike conduct call — forced the Gamecocks all the way into a fourth-and-36 situation and Rattler’s last-ditch hail mary hit the turf.
