With just under two minutes to go in the first half, South Carolina was given one of those Willy Wonka-sized golden tickets.

After finding itself tied with Ole Miss late in the first half, the Gamecock defense forced a red zone turnover, giving the ball back to the offense at the Gamecock eight-yard line with 101 seconds left in the half.

Knowing Ole Miss—which had scored on three of its four previous drives—would get the ball to start the third quarter, the choices were simple: be aggressive and try to get points, taking a lead into the locker room or be conservative and hope nothing bad happens.

They chose the latter, and unsurprisingly it backfired.

“When you’re backed up like that before the half you just want to see if you can get something going, pop a run or something like that and then go up-tempo,” Collin Hill said. “We didn’t do that.”

Also see: Instant analysis from Saturday's loss

The three play sequence looks like this in the box score:

1-10 (SC 8): Kevin Harris rush for no gain to the SC 8

2-10 (SC 8): 2-10 SC 08 Kevin Harris rush for loss of 2 yards to the SC 6

3-12 (SC 6): Collin Hill pass complete to Jalen Brooks for 7 yards to the SC 13

The kicker for South Carolina is Ole Miss had three timeouts left, using one after second and third downs to preserve time.

In total the drive took all of 57 seconds and went five yards before Kai Kroeger was punting the ball back to the Rebels.

“Well, we felt like we wanted to get the drive started with a run then we had a answer with another run we creased them multiple times in the game and it’s a negative play,” Will Muschamp said. “I know that’s certainly going to be criticized, but it’s the same run we hit on multiple times in the game. We felt like we had a good third down. They played top heavy on the coverage, had to throw it underneath and didn’t make a play.”

Also see: What Will Muschamp said about the loss

The plan, according to Muschamp was to run a few rushing plays with Harris that were successful early in the game and see what happens.

Those didn’t work, and the Gamecocks found themselves in a precarious third down spot.

“I would have liked to get a drive started then gone to a hurry up,” Muschamp said. “That was our plan. We wanted to get the drive started first.”

It ultimately backfired with Ole Miss coming down on the ensuing drive and kicking a field goal, aided in part by a few questionable calls, before outscoring South Carolina 35-21 in the second half en route to a 59-42 win.

The biggest of those was on a ruled incompletion where it looked like quarterback Matt Corral's knee was down. The play was not reviewed.

“When the whistle blows, the play is over in that situation,” “It’s no different than the situation at Florida I guess two or three years ago with Jaycee. When the whistle blows, the play is over. We had one on our sideline that was for us in a fumble situation where the whistle had blown. It may or may not have been a fumble. Once the whistle blows, it’s not a reviewable situation.”