Slowly bleeding out towards one of the most humiliating losses in program history, a man who has been in said program all of one game found a band-aid.

Dylan Stewart, the five-star true freshman defensive end and the program’s highest-rated defensive recruit since Jadeveon Clowney, forced a fumble on Old Dominion quarterback Grant Wilson with 6:48 on the clock and the Gamecocks trailing the Sun Belt program by three.

DeAndre Jules recovered the fumble at the 6-yard-line, LaNorris Sellers scored two plays later and South Carolina survived the nerviest of openers 23-19 at Williams-Brice Stadium.

It was the third time South Carolina’s (1-0) defense had forced a turnover in a critical spot, and it needed every bit of it to survive a day where the offense was anemic and at times overmatched up front.

Transfer defensive end Kyle Kennard forced a fumble on Old Dominion’s (0-1) second play from scrimmage to set the Gamecocks up at the 3-yard-line and tee up Rocket Sanders for his first touchdown in a Gamecock uniform. At that point it was already 7-0 South Carolina after less than two minutes, and anyone could have been forgiven for thinking the 21.5-point favorites were well on their way to a comfortable opener.

Where did it all go wrong?

Almost immediately after the touchdown, when Wilson connected with Isiah Paige for a 72-yard touchdown. The senior wide receiver cut right through South Carolina’s junior tandem of DQ Smith and Nick Emmanwori, surely sending some shivers down Gamecock spines as last year’s porous secondary gave up another chunk play.

And after the initial score, it took South Carolina over 52 minutes of game time to find the end zone again. In between there were flashes from Sellers, Sanders and the rest of the offense, but also unavoidable inconsistency. The offensive line struggled to protect both in the passing game and on the ground, the culprit of three drives stalling out in scoring range for field goals. There were dropped passes, critical pre-snap penalties and all kinds of missed assignments as the offense failed to deliver anything resembling a knockout punch.

And eventually, the Monarchs got off the deck. Wilson’s 36-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-6 through a vacant hole at linebacker was a warning shot, and two more field goal drives put the visitors on top 19-16 in the fourth quarter.

The unthinkable was happening. After shipping a $1,500,000 check up to Norfolk to schedule this game, was South Carolina seriously going to lose this opener? With that SEC gauntlet looming?

Stewart said no, forcing the game-saving fumble to set up the game-winning touchdown. And when Jalon Kilgore secured the fourth and final takeaway for the defense with an interception in the final two minutes, the landmine was officially sidestepped.

South Carolina survived, with a heavy emphasis on the term. Now can it brush aside the miscues before a dangerous trip to Lexington next week?

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