How Tennessee Let South Carolina Off the Hook, Drive by Drive

Columbia, S.C. Tennessee did not lose at Williams-Brice Stadium because South Carolina outplayed it for 60 minutes. It lost because it kept handing back the things it had already earned: two touchdowns, a key fourth-down conversion, a big run on the final drive and, finally, the football.

The result was South Carolina 27, No. 11 Tennessee 24 on Saturday night, decided by Malik Orsan's 48-yard field goal as time expired. Here is how it got there, possession by possession, built from ESPN's play-by-play log and the Associated Press recap.

A 14-0 hole, partly self-made

South Carolina's opening drive went 75 yards in 10 plays and ended with LaNorris Sellers hitting Mazeo Bennett Jr. for a 17-yard touchdown. That drive should have died early. Dejuan Lane intercepted Sellers on the third snap, but Xavier Gilliam was flagged for offside and the pick came off the board.

Tennessee went three-and-out. Then on the punt, a personal foul added 15 yards to the return and gave the Gamecocks the ball at their own 42. Two plays later it was 14-0: a 27-yard completion to DJ Black and a 31-yard Sellers run up the middle.

For anyone newer to the sport, that sequence is the hidden cost of penalties. Neither flag showed up as a South Carolina highlight, but each one handed an offense a free possession or free field position, and the Gamecocks turned both into points.

Tennessee's answer, and the first erased score

The Vols responded with an 18-play, 75-yard march that ate 9:05. On the fourth snap, George MacIntyre found DaSaahn Brame for a 35-yard touchdown. An illegal shift, called on Braylon Staley, wiped it out. An illegal shift means more than one player was still moving when the ball was snapped; the play stands only if everyone is set.

Tennessee kept grinding anyway. DeSean Bishop converted a fourth-and-1 at the South Carolina 33, and he finished the drive with a 1-yard plunge on the first snap of the second quarter. Even that drive carried a pre-snap flag: a false start at the 5 pushed the Vols back to the 10 before they punched it in.

The second quarter was Tennessee's best stretch. TJ Metcalf intercepted Sellers at the South Carolina 28, and on fourth-and-goal from the 1, Brame ran it in for the tying score. After Orsan's 22-yard field goal capped a 17-play South Carolina drive, the Vols went 75 yards in 80 seconds, helped by a 15-yard targeting penalty on the Gamecocks, and Mike Matthews ran 8 yards for a score with 24 seconds left. Tennessee led 21-17 at the half.

A scoreless third and a costly false start

Neither team scored in the third quarter, and one Tennessee flag explains part of that. Facing fourth-and-1 at the South Carolina 40, the Vols lined up to go for it. A false start pushed them back to fourth-and-6, and they punted instead.

The defense kept things level. Gilliam sacked Sellers on fourth-and-3 at the Tennessee 41 late in the quarter, a turnover on downs.

Tennessee converted another fourth-and-1 to open the fourth quarter, and MacIntyre hit Staley for 27 yards to the 16. On third-and-12, MacIntyre found Staley again for an 18-yard touchdown. A holding call erased it. Cooper Ranvier kicked a 37-yard field goal instead, and Tennessee led 24-17 with 11:46 left. That was a four-point swing, and four points would have decided the game.

The fourth-and-1

Pinned at its own 2 after a South Carolina punt, Tennessee put together its best clock-killing drive of the night: nine plays, 59 yards and 4:48 off the clock, mostly on Bishop runs. By then he had carried 32 times, according to ESPN's box score.

On third-and-3 from the South Carolina 40, Bishop gained 2. The play-by-play lists him as injured on that carry. On fourth-and-1 at the 38 with 3:37 left, MacIntyre kept it up the middle and was dropped for a 1-yard loss by Fred Johnson, with a teammate in on the stop.

Was going for it a bad decision? Not by itself. Tennessee had converted all three of its earlier fourth-down tries, all on the ground, and a first down there would have let the Vols run most of the remaining clock. The problem was the result. A punt would have pinned South Carolina deep. Instead the Gamecocks took over at their own 39.

Sellers' answer

South Carolina needed six plays. A 14-yard catch by Black picked up 15 more yards on a face mask penalty. An offside call on the next snap moved the ball 5 more. Sellers then broke a 22-yard run to the 10, and on third-and-goal from the 4 he fought through two defenders to reach the pylon, a touchdown upheld on review with 1:17 left. The game was tied at 24.

The fumble and the kick

Tennessee still had a chance. Staley caught a 6-yard pass, and a pass interference call moved the Vols to their own 38. Javin Gordon then ran 17 yards to the South Carolina 45, but a holding penalty brought it back to the 38.

On the next snap, Dylan Stewart beat the protection, stripped MacIntyre and Tomiwa Durojaiye recovered at the Tennessee 34 with 33 seconds left. Tennessee challenged the ruling, and it stood.

South Carolina did not try to score a touchdown. Sellers ran 9 yards up the middle on third-and-15 to the Tennessee 30, the Gamecocks called timeout with three seconds left, and Orsan's 48-yarder was good.

We all know how different this game would have looked if we didn't have those penalties.George MacIntyre, via the Associated Press

ESPN's recap counted eight Tennessee penalties for 60 yards and said three of them took touchdowns off the board. However they are tallied, the pattern on the play-by-play is plain: flags gave South Carolina a short field for one touchdown, took away two Tennessee touchdown catches and erased a 17-yard run on Tennessee's last possession.

What comes next

The loss dropped Tennessee to 6-2 and 3-2 in the SEC, and to No. 16 in Sunday's AP poll. The Vols have an open date this Saturday before No. 9 Kentucky visits Neyland Stadium on Nov. 7. Two weeks is plenty of time to fix pre-snap discipline. It is also plenty of time to settle who gets the ball on the next fourth-and-1.

Sources: ESPN, South Carolina rallies past No. 11 Tennessee on walk-off FG; ESPN, Tennessee vs. South Carolina play-by-play; ESPN, Tennessee vs. South Carolina box score; Live 5 News (AP), LaNorris Sellers has three TDs and South Carolina rallies to beat No. 11 Tennessee 27-24; ESPN, AP Top 25, Week 9