I'm talking about all the way to the top, yeah. Unjustifiably in a position that I'd rather not be in. But the cream will rise to the top, ooh yeah. - Randy Savage

You can't draw a start up any better than the one the Gamecocks had in their first ever win over Texas A&M. Xavier Leggett took the opening kickoff back 100 yards for a score, losing a cleat in the process. Texas A&M's first possession ended with a 59-yard Darius Rush interception. The Gamecock offense would stall and kick a field goal following the near pick-six. On the next Aggie possession, A&M's center inadvertently snapped the ball into quarterback Haynes King. The ball ricocheted into the arms of Tonka Hemingway. The Gamecocks would capitalize this time on Christian Beal-Smith touchdown run. It was 17-0 after 5:09 of game time.

From that point on, the remainder of the first half was dominated by the Aggies. They had closed the score to 17-14 at the half and received the ball first. Carolina's offensive finally broke through with a scoring driver late in the third quarter after departed tailback MarShawn Lloyd scored from 18-yards out. A Spencer Rattler fumble would set the Aggies up for a short-field touchdown to again cut the lead to three. The Gamecock defense held from that point on. Lloyd put the Gamecocks up two scores with his second touchdown with a little over three minutes remaining. Some uncharacteristic poor play on special teams, allowing A&M to recover an onside kick and a blocked extra point, had the Aggies in position to throw a Hail Mary for the win. Luckily, the Aggie prayers went unanswered, (I wouldn't expect God to do Jimbo many more favors), and the Gamecocks celebrated a first in program history and improved its' record to 5-2.

“A month ago, I was asked if this team quit. That look like this team has quit?" South Carolina coach Shane Beamer said.

In many ways Alan Cole was the heartbeat of Gamecock Scoop. He came onto the scene in the summer of 2022 and covered South Carolina football, basketball, women's basketball, baseball, softball, board meetings, coaches pressers and virtually everything else around Columbia. Alan didn't quite make it to the end of Gamecock Scoop, exiting after softball and baseball wrapped up with the merger on the horizon. But his words should appear in the final article published on this website. Below is Alan's story he wrote immediately after our #5 game.

The best rushing performance of the Shane Beamer era.

That, more than anything else, is what Saturday night was.

South Carolina football upset No. 10 Texas A&M 44-20 at Williams-Brice Stadium behind a whopping 275 yards on the ground, the highest rushing total in SEC play of the Beamer era. Between the ground game dominance and a second half shutout from the defense, South Carolina muscled its away to its fifth win of the season and might have vault itself into the national rankings next week. It totaled 530 yards of offense, trailing only the legendary 2022 win over Tennessee for the highest SEC yardage total of the Beamer era.

South Carolina (5-3, 3-3 SEC) rode the momentum of a fervent home crowd early, busting out of the gates with the first 14 points in a similar scoring flurry to the 17-0 start it had on Texas A&M’s (7-2, 5-1 SEC) last trip to Columbia in 2022.

A perfect opening drive script resulted in a 23-yard LaNorris Sellers run off left tackle, and four plays later South Carolina got the ball back when Debo Williams flew into the back field and blew up a fourth-and-1 hand-off behind the line of scrimmage.

One quarterback rushing touchdown, one forceful stop in the backfield, two plays which set the tone for the rest of South Carolina’s blunt force object performance all night. The Gamecocks took a sledgehammer to Texas A&M’s notoriously physical fronts, wearing down the Aggies one run at a time.

Sellers connected with Joshua Simon to make it 14-0 and even once the game settled into something more resembling a normal script as opposed to the early energy free-for-all of the initial moments, South Carolina’s offensive line still spent the game pushing bodies and moving the chains.

The defense had its lapses, for sure. Texas A&M put up two lengthy field goal drives, and found one crease up front when back-up running back Amari Daniels scored on a 56-yard run. The visitors even took the lead just before halftime with a 60-yard touchdown drive, marking the first time the Gamecocks have allowed 20 points in a half since the Ole Miss game nearly a month ago.

And after that, no more.

Alex Herrera’s 44-yard field goal capped off a game-tying drive just before halftime, and Sanders galloped to the end zone for the second time in the game from 52 yards out to break the second half scoring seal.

Texas A&M failed to score on its next eight possessions after taking the lead, headlined by another fourth-and-1 Williams stop when he pounced in a gap and met Daniels in the backfield. The defense eventually forced its trademark turnovers as well, thanks to an O’Donnell Fortune interception and a Kyle Kennard fumble recovery in the fourth quarter.

In a nutshell, South Carolina beat Texas A&M at its own game. In front of a sold out crowd, facing a top-10 opponent known for its physicality in the running game, the Gamecocks took the fight to the Aggies all night.

And when Sellers connected with Simon for the second touchdown of the night — a back-breaking 57-yarder with under four minutes to go — it officially slammed the door on a game South Carolina completely dominated in the second half.

Slammed the door, and maybe kicked it down in the process.

We mentioned in the prior installment that South Carolina was not going to join the upper echelon of the SEC losing to Kentucky. The same can be said for Missouri. The Columbia Tigers have put together two strong seasons in 2023 and 2024 but before this game, Missouri had won five-in-a-row in the Mayor's Cup. The first four years of that streak, Missouri didn't even finish the season with a winning record. The 2022 Gamecocks let Missouri come into Williams-Brice and halt the program's momentum. For much of the fourth quarter, it looked 2024 was going to repeat itself.

LaNorris Sellers was special this game. He completed 21-of-30 passes for 353 yards and five touchdowns. He connected with nine different receivers on the day. None bigger or louder than when Sellers found Rocket Sanders on a shovel pass at the 15-yard line. Sanders broke through several attempted tackles and bulldozed his way into the end zone. A nearby seismograph actually picked up a reading at the moment Sanders punched his way to paydirt with 15 seconds remaining. The touchdown and extra point would put the Gamecocks up four after Missouri had retaken the lead with 1:10 remaining. “It's about staying calm, not budging, not flinching,” said Sellers. “Taking one play at a not and not worrying about the outcome.”

Jalon Kilgore would intercept Missouri QB Brady Cook on the ensuing position, extending the Gamecock winning streak to four games.

The rival Clemson Tigers had won two National Championships, played for two more, and dominated the Gamecocks during six of their series-tying seven consecutive wins in the Palmetto Bowl. The Tigers also were ridding a 40-game home winning streak dating back to 2016. The Gamecocks had never beaten teams ranked inside the top 10 in two consecutive weeks. Clemson was a two touchdown favorite and led this game by as many as 14 points in the first half.

The final score was 31-30, but the game shouldn't have been that close. South Carolina threw a pick-six, dropped one of their own and was intercepted in the Clemson endzone. Outside of those two aforementioned interceptions, Spencer Rattler was nearly perfect throwing for 360 yards and two touchdowns, despite having no ground support. Carolina only rushed for 55 yards for an average of 1.8 yards a carry. Clemson's vastly overrated secondary, (they are overrated this year well), could not stop Juice Wells. The junior had nine catches for 131 yards and two touchdowns.

The Tigers played scared on special teams all day. They seldom tried to even return a Gamecock punt due to playing almost a base defense in fear of a Pete Lembo fake punt. The one time they did, freshman wide out Antonio Williams fumbled the football and set the Gamecocks up to run out the clock. Clemson also attempted one of the worst "trick play" kickoff returns in the history of football. Yet still the Tigers had plenty of chances in the fourth quarter to extend their streak to a record eight-straight over the Gamecocks, but the Gamecock defense played their best quarter of football on the season and knocked Tiger QB DJU all the way to Corvallis, Oregon.

“We wanted more. We knew this was the biggest game of the season for us,” said Rattler, who passed for 360 yards and two touchdowns. “These last two games will change the narrative for program history.”

Time will tell if Rattler was correct it certainly feels that way right now.

Right off the bat, let's correct our friends at the four-letter network, the Tennessee band was barely audible all night let alone while Sandstorm was blaring across Williams-Brice. This was the loudest Columbia crowd since Georgia in 2012. The Gamecocks entered this game against Tennessee having been embarrassed 38-6 the week before in Gainesville. Tennessee's only loss was a hard fought 27-13 loss between the hedges to a team that no one was going to defeat all season. The Volunteers were 22.5-point road favorites, outside of Georgia, no one had slowed them down.

The Tennessee offense had success in this game. They had over 500 yards and scored 38 points, but the Volunteer defense looked lost. Spencer Rattler torched the Vols for 438 yards and six touchdowns. Virtually ever pass Rattler threw all night was right where it needed to be. For one Saturday, he was the best quarterback in college football. Juice Wells was his primary target with 177 receiving yards but Rattler found 11 different receivers and even caught a pass himself. South Carolina would only punt the ball one time and would not attempt a field goal all night. Josh Vann would also catch two touchdowns.

“That was probably the best I've ever felt in a game. I felt unstoppable,” said Rattler, adding he thought it was one of the best wins in college football history. “He was on. You talk about players and being in the zone," coach Shane Beamer said.

The 63 points were the most the Vols have ever allowed in an SEC game, eclipsing the 62-37 loss to Steve Spurrier's Florida Gators in 1995.

This one had to go to number one due the possible playoff implications. We all know now that the outcome didn't matter, Clemson got in by virtual of being in the ACC and South Carolina was left out for others with strength of schedules 60 spots lower. It really doesn't matter or diminish this game. LaNorris Sellers unlocked legend status in Death Valley last November. He was simply unstoppable throwing for 164 yards, rushing for 166 yards and two touchdowns and evading Clemson defenders all day. It was the greatest individual performance for a Gamecock since Spencer Rattler in our #2 game. Sellers had about 10 highlight real plays, but the one that live forever in the rivalry is the 3rd and 16 touchdown score to give South Carolina its' first lead of the game with only 68 seconds remaining in the game.

“He's a magician, man,” Gamecocks linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. said. “LeMagic, LeComeback, whatever you want to call him.”

South Carolina's stout defense bent all day but never broke. Knight had some magic in him and he played the defensive hero for the Gamecocks with ten tackles and the game-sealing interception deep in Gamecock territory on the Tigers final drive. Earlier in the game Knight and teammate Jalon Kilgore had stuffed Clemson on a 4&1 inside the Gamecock red zone.

Thank you all for reading our work these last three years! We tried to do think a little differently over here and we appreciate those of you who stuck with us. Now I can finally get back to the day job.

As you from crimes would pardoned be,

Let your indulgence set me free.