‘We felt good about it’: Beamer explains decision behind goal-line trick play
Saturday afternoon’s 45-20 South Carolina loss to Tennessee was the first time many USC football fans had seen Jordan Burch throw a pass — yes, Burch, the five-star signee who’s grown into one of the Gamecocks’ leading edge defenders.
Down 14-0 to an efficient and high-tempo Tennessee offense in the first quarter, the Gamecocks had strung together a consistent set of plays (mainly rushes) to drive them to the Volunteers’ 2-yard line. On second-and-goal, South Carolina coaches elected to run what Shane Beamer described as a scripted play.
Burch lines up at tailback. Quarterback Luke Doty tosses the ball to Burch, who throws in the end zone to tight end Nick Muse.
Beamer said the staff planned to call the Doty-Burch-Muse play the first time USC made it inside the 5-yard line in Knoxville. South Carolina executed the play perfectly at Friday’s team walk-through, with Burch hitting Muse in the back corner of the end zone.
That’s not what happened Saturday in the game.
Though Burch is a sophomore mainstay along the Gamecocks’ defensive front, he was known to moonlight on offense in high school and even threw touchdown passes when he was a senior at Columbia’s Hammond School in 2019.
His only passing attempt so far as a Gamecock fell as an interception to Tennessee defensive back Jaylen McCollough. The Vols turned their turnover into a touchdown in five plays, quickly moving what could’ve been a 14-7 game to 21-0.
Beamer said the pass had been beautiful the day before, but he believed it was under-thrown at Neyland Stadium. He also gave McCollough credit for making the play.
“If it works, it’s great. If it doesn’t, you get criticized,” Beamer said. “I get that part of it. But we had talked about it before the game. We liked the play and felt good about it.”
Confidence around the play extended past just the coaches. The players involved believed in it, too.
“We practiced it a couple times,” Doty said. “We felt good about it, which is why we ran it down there. We just have to have better execution at it, got to have a better ball.”
There was plenty of criticism bubbling from social media circles throughout the first half, and that commentary escalated following Burch’s interception.
Once South Carolina got the ball back down three touchdowns, a fumbled snap on the drive’s first play from scrimmage gave possession back to the Volunteers on the USC 24-yard line. Cue another fast touchdown, and the Gamecocks were down 28-0 in the first quarter just moments after a realistic opportunity for the score to be 14-7.
“We got to figure out why it was such a bad first quarter,” Beamer said. “We’ve got to play and coach better, and continue to put our guys in position to make plays and not get down 28-nothing before you blink.”
While the trick play fell victim to far-from-ideal execution, the play call itself generated social media criticism. The Gamecocks had pieced together a generally consistent nine-play drive to that point.
The possession, which started at the USC 25-yard line and made it to the Vols’ 2, included six rush plays. Juju McDowell set the tone with a 25-yard run followed by a pair of 3-yard runs. Doty completed a clutch 11-yard pass on third down — an area where the Gamecocks have struggled in 2021 — to tight end Traveon Kenion for his first reception as a Gamecock.
Kevin Harris broke free on three consecutive run plays of 11 yards, 9 yards and 3 yards as the Gamecocks made it to the Tennessee 1-yard line. On first-and-goal, USC snapped to Dakereon Joyner for a 1-yard loss. The next play was the Burch interception.
So why call a trick play at the goal line when when run plays account for 54 of a drive’s 76 yards?
“We were running the ball well,” Beamer said. “You know, hindsight being 20/20, you just continue to run the ball and hammer it in and make it a 14-7 game. ... But that was a play we’ve been working all week.”
Gamecocks’ third drive at a glance
USC drive starts at own 25 (6:46 to go in Q1)
- 1st and 10 on USC25: Juju McDowell 25-yard rush
- 1st and 10 on USC47: Juju McDowell 3-yard rush
- 2nd and 7 on 50: Juju McDowell 3-yard rush
- 3rd and 4 on UT47: Luke Doty 11-yard pass to Traveon Kenion
- 1st and 10 on UT36: Luke Doty 12-yard pass to Jalen Brooks
- 1st and 10 on UT24: Kevin Harris 11-yard rush
- 1st and 10 on UT13: Kevin Harris 9-yard rush
- 2nd and 1 on UT4: Kevin Harris 3-yard rush
- 1st and 1 on UT1: Dakereon Joyner 1-yard loss
- 2nd and 2 on UT2: Jordan Burch interception
This story was originally published October 9, 2021 at 6:39 PM.
