South Carolina was down 7 points in game’s final minutes. Why kick a field goal?
South Carolina appeared to be in a good spot to possibly tie Tennessee late in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s season opener against the Vols.
The Gamecocks had scored points on four of their first six second-half possessions, and new starting quarterback Collin Hill was in a rhythm. USC had a first-and-10 at the Tennessee 26 with about five minutes remaining, trailing 31-24.
Unfortunately for USC, just about everything that could go wrong over the next several minutes did.
It started with South Carolina receiver Xavier Legette jumping offsides on first down to put USC behind the chains, giving the Gamecocks a first-and-15 from the Tennessee 31.
After a screen pass that was well covered fell incomplete, Hill had tight end Nick Muse open over the middle for what would have been at least a 17-yard gain and given South Carolina the ball inside Tennessee’s 15. Instead, the ball went off Muse’s hands and fell incomplete.
The catch was a tough one to make for Muse, who finished with four catches for 50 yards. .
“When you’re going to be in these tight ball games it comes down to those three, four, five plays in the game where you’ve got an opportunity to get a first down to move the chains, to get closer in the red zone,” USC coach Will Muschamp said. “We’ve got to come up with a little better throw, little better catch in those situations.”
South Carolina tossed a swing pass to Deshaun Fenwick on the next play — a third-and-15 call — but managed only a few yards on the play. Ultimately, the Gamecocks faced a fourth-and-12 from the Tennessee 28 with about 3:20 remaining. Muschamp opted to kick a field goal to cut Tennessee’s lead to four, rather than risking it on fourth down and pushing for the tie.
South Carolina’s offense would never get back on the field the rest of the game. The Gamecocks suffered a 31-27 defeat.
“If it would’ve been less than fourth-and-12, I probably would’ve (gone for it), but in that situation I’ve got Parker (White). He’s gonna kick the ball. … We’ve got three timeouts,” Muschamp said. “We’ve got the ball back with 1:29 and our offense and I felt very comfortable with that.”
Only South Carolina never got the ball back.
Reserve defensive back Cam Smith, who played critical minutes in the second half with Israel Mukuamu banged up, had the ball go off his leg as he was blocking for the punt with about one-and-a-half minutes remaining.
Tennessee was able to line up in the victory formation and leave Columbia with the win.
“We put ourselves in a position to win the game and we didn’t get it done,” Muschamp said. “I told our team … we’re gonna have seven or eight one-score games. We’ve got to make great decisions as coaches and as players at the end of the game. They made the right plays at the right time and we didn’t.”
South Carolina apparently called out “poison” on the play, a signal players on a return team yell to each other to get away from the ball. But Smith didn’t hear it, teammates said, which proved to be a costly mistake.
“It’s hard. When it’s a rugby situation, which it was, that ball bounces around. It’s an unfortunate bounce for us,” Muschamp said. “We’ve gotta get it communicated better. We’ve gotta coach it better. It’s something we have worked on in camp but obviously not enough, so we’ll go back and look at it.”
