‘It rained for 24 straight hours’: The story of USC’s dramatic last win over LSU
What folks seem to remember first about that night in Baton Rouge, Louisiana: the buckets and buckets and buckets of water coming down on the South Carolina Gamecocks.
“It was a night game at LSU and it was their homecoming,” USC quarterback Steve Taneyhill said. “And it rained, I think, for 24 straight hours, so there wasn’t many fans there ... it rained and rained during that game.”
Todd Ellis had double duty Oct. 1, 1994, working the sidelines for the Gamecocks radio broadcast and the TV broadcast.
“I hadn’t been there since my recruiting trip,” said Ellis, who early in the TV broadcast looked plenty soaked. “I remember the weather reports coming in. And I’m going, ‘Oh, I better find (some) cover.”
More than two and a half decades have passed since that game. The Gamecocks and Tigers have met seven times since, four times in Louisiana. LSU has usually had a more highly regarded team and won the past six meetings following a 1995 tie.
This week, the Gamecocks head back for the first time since S.C. floods moved the game to Baton Rouge in 2015. This year’s game doesn’t have quite the forecast. Saturday’s Baton Rouge weather will be a warm and dry fall evening.
But on that waterlogged evening in 1994, the Gamecocks got their last victory against LSU in a dramatic grinder of a game.
Starting strong in the Brad Scott era
Neither Taneyhill nor Ellis remember a great deal of fanfare beforehand. A night game in Death Valley is always big, Taneyhill said, but the Tigers were scuffling at the time, 1-2 on the year, on the way to 4-7 in Curley Hallman’s final year as coach.
The Gamecocks showed some life during a 3-1 start to the season. They were in Year 1 with Brad Scott, installing a new pass-happy offense with a decorated junior quarterback.
But in a game where the rain was coming down, the new staff had inherited a duo that proved most valuable: running backs Brandon Bennett and Stanley Pritchett.
“That helps,” Taneyhill said, “I promise you. Two guys that would go on to play eight, nine years in the NFL. Stanley and I came in together. He was a fullback, but he could play tailback, great hands. And obviously Brandon Bennett is one of the best to ever put the uniform on at South Carolina.”
The game had the feel of old-school football, pounding runs and hard hitting in the elements. Taneyhill ended up 23-for-30 passing, but only had 157 yards and was sacked three times.
He also remembered an unusual part of the atmosphere.
“I’ll tell you one thing, when you come out of the locker room back then, they had that live Tiger right there in the cage,” Taneyhill said, “like right beside where you come in and out. It’s kind of impressive. I mean, I understand he’s in a cage but it’s a giant, live tiger. And when you come out for warmups and go back in, you go right by him. It was just one of those things you don’t know that he’s there, and then you come out, woah.”
The Tigers ground out a touchdown drive on their first possession, aided by a big punt return. Early in the second quarter, the Gamecocks recovered an LSU fumble and then used a little trickery to seal the deal.
The staff put backup Blake Williamson in and things started with a Pritchett breaking an inside run on a trap play to get the Gamecocks into Tiger territory. Facing third and 6, Williamson lofted a pass to Toby Cates on a corner route for 29 yards, the only pass he threw and the longest completion for USC on the night.
A play later, facing second and goal, Williamson pitched the ball to Bennett, and then the QB took off downfield. Bennett quickly turned and fired the ball over a defender to a wide-open Williamson, who caught it in the end zone, lifted it aloft and then pitched it to the ref in one fluid motion.
“The quarterback throwback pass is a great moment in Carolina history,” Ellis said, “at least on the road with regard to big game stuff, environments.”
Following a mishandled snap on the extra point, the Tigers answered with a four runs from Jermaine Sharp that combined with a Gamecock penalty to take the hosts 72 yards for a 14-7 lead. The Gamecocks had Sharp stopped up on the last run, but he bounced outside and raced 36 yards to the end zone.
The teams traded possessions after that, with USC keeping the Tigers pinned but unable to take advantage of the field possession.
But the slick ball again bounced South Carolina’s way.
Stanley Pritchett with the winning touchdown
With just over a minute left in the half, LSU’s Jamie Howard fumbled. After a few passes, Taneyhill stepped away from pressure and found Cates on the corner route for the 24-yard touchdown to pull the Gamecocks within two.
Cates was a go-to receiver for that team, a former corner who the staff allowed to feast on matchups in a way that’s become common in the sport.
“He played in the slot a lot and we got him a lot of good matchups,” Taneyhill said. “When I first got to Carolina as a freshman, Toby and I became buddies because we would play a lot of basketball, same with Brandon.
“He was just that guy in a slot that knew how to make the catches. We ran a lot of stuff over the middle when coach Scott came, and Toby was that guy to go over there to get it.”
He and Cates made a living on that corner route, working safeties who couldn’t keep up. Cates finished the night with only those two catches of 24 and 29 yards. Only one other Gamecock has a catch longer than 12 (and that one went for 17).
The second half was mostly dominated by the defenses, with a series of short drives. LSU tacked on a field goal after South Carolina’s punter shanked a kick for 9 yards. The Tigers lost a yard on the drive, but since it started on the USC 26, kicker Andre Lafleur nailed the 44-yarder.
Down 17-12, the Gamecocks managed to dig out of a hole in their next possession and pin the Tigers inside their 15 with a punt.
That field position paid off as LSU lost yards (Stacy Evans delivered a key sack), had to punt from inside its 10 a return set up the Gamecocks on the LSU 26.
On the night, Bennett was a key part of the passing game. Despite ending up as the No. 3 rusher in school history, he only had 17 yards on 10 carries against LSU. Instead it was Pritchett who led the team with 90 yards.
Passes to Bennett and Kurt Fredrick got USC to the goal line. Pritchett couldn’t score on first or second down, and Taneyhill couldn’t sneak it in on third down. Scott didn’t hesitate: Pritchett dove in for the touchdown and the lead.
The Tigers managed one more good drive, getting just into USC territory, but the USC defense shut the door. LSU gained 18 yards on its final three possessions and Terry Cousin picked off passes to end two of them.
“We were coming off a season where we won four games,” Taneyhill said, with a ”new coach, and man it was a fun win. Sloppy, but again when you go on the road and win at LSU, it’s a win at LSU. It’s a big win.”
A happy Gamecocks locker room
The win helped the Gamecocks to eventually get to the Carquest Bowl and earn the program’s first-ever bowl win. (It also was USC’s lone bowl trip between 1989 and 1999.) The game sent LSU toward hiring Gerry DiNardo, who quickly burned bright and then burned out, giving way to Nick Saban.
Ellis was still wet when the team landed back in Columbia after the 1994 game. The tie he was wearing had to be thrown away, he said.
Taneyhill remembered the scene in the locker room, not unlike a scene for the Gamecocks recently, just before another trip to Baton Rouge, aiming for the first win against the hosts since that rainy night.
“When I watched the celebration of the Carolina guys this week in the locker room, after beating Auburn, it reminded me so much of kind of our celebration in the LSU locker room,” Taneyhill said. “It was just a fun way to win and it came down to the end and you battle, battle, battle. And that’s what happened with the guys against Auburn.
“Then coach gets in there and he applauds you, and then everybody’s just kind of jumping around dancing around and it’s just fun. ... If Carolina can get the win this week, it’ll kind of be the same feeling in the locker room for sure. I know it was for us.”
