COLUMBIA — Hunter Beamer, son of the head coach and a future head coach himself, walked into the media room holding aloft the Mayor’s Cup, a trophy for the South Carolina-Missouri rivalry that two politicos decided to make back when it seemed a cute idea to create a rivalry. It’s one of those where a team makes somewhat of a big deal of it when it has it and scoffs when it doesn’t …
… although, naturally, when the team that didn’t have it retakes it, it’s going to chide the other team for losing it.
The trophy doesn’t mean much. No one had the heart to tell Beamer that even when the Gamecocks habitually won it, they never put it in any place of honor (the coach was clueless about where it was supposed to go now that he had it, excusable since neither he nor anyone on his team had ever had their hands on it).
But the trophy, this year, this time, represents so much more. Long seeking to get around that corner and never look back, perhaps Saturday’s 34-30 comeback win was that elusive step.
Takeaways from South Carolina’s memorable, slump-busting, inspiring comeback win over Missouri:
St. Nyckoles
Nyck Harbor, he of the five-star, video-game fame, has been learning how to play receiver for nearly two full seasons. His speed has never been in question; his ability to catch and track the ball has, despite, well … him catching most everything thrown to him.
Art has imitated life for two seasons. On Saturday, life became art.
The safety didn’t hear the corner releasing Harbor to him. Or else he decided to let that guy take the heat since he knew he couldn’t cover Harbor.
Harbor caught the ball in the end zone for one of the easiest touchdowns you’ll ever see, then hauled in a 43-yard pass that could have been another TD. As it was, it set up another score.
Every game, more and more possibilities open about how to use the big man. And they’re all working.
Telegraph
Perhaps they were just due. Or maybe it’s Missouri’s offense and outside-zone scheme was the perfect foil for the Gamecocks’ fistful of steel defensive front.
Nate Noel rushed for 150 yards, the first man to break 100 vs. USC all year. The system blasted so many holes and lanes it could have qualified for South Carolina Department of Transportation benefits.
Can’t get home on the pass-rush if the quarterback has wisely decided not to test his tender ankle and wrist by holding onto the ball. Brady Cook flicked screen passes and waited until he drew the defense to him before passing over it. Cook beat USC on Saturday, but his own defense let him down.
The Gamecocks’ defense this year has been a revelation, a group of bloodthirsty bandits who, nickname-less though they are, are rekindling memories of the 1984 Fire Ants — or at least the 2022 team and its colorful but unprintable motto.
Saturday could have been the game it was exposed, i.e., future opponents saying, “Look, our quarterback does not need to be turned into hash. Look at that Mizzou film.”
USC has to make sure that Saturday was the one apple in the barrel with a worm in it and get back to playing winning wrecking-ball football.
Sweet 16
We all expected growth. A redshirt freshman quarterback being handed the ball and told, “Your team, son” was invariably gonna have some times where he left his bike in the driveway for it to get run over by your brand-new Jeep Cherokee and in other times, require you to rent a steam shovel to get your jaw off the floor.
But this much growth, so quickly and in every successive game …
It’s so easy to tag and misapply “special,” especially when it comes to quarterbacks. Especially here, where many of the greats in school history often had sizable warts — Taneyhill only had one winning season, Ellis and his interceptions, Shaw and the one off-game per year that kept an SEC title off the table, Garcia … being Garcia.
But LaNorris Sellers is certainly trending toward “special.” And he still has so much room before he hits a ceiling, if there’s ever one to hit.
He was getting nothing from his receivers, and his trusty tight ends were rotating through the medical tent. Rocket Sanders was getting stood up at the line, and Sellers’ runs weren’t going much better.
Yet he went in there, twice engineering go-ahead touchdown drives when the situation looked the most bleak. Cooler than a penguin’s tuxedo, Sellers directed his team, didn’t turn it over and flawlessly executed the winning play — on a shovel pass! — to get the win.
He’s done so much and will have a chance in two weeks to truly etch his name among the greats. Fair or not (and it isn’t), it’s always the quarterback that gets the win or the loss, and there have only been a handful of those here who have a seat at the head table, reserved for the fabled C.K.s.
