The 3-2-1: Three key plays, two game balls, one burning question from South Carolina's loss to Texas A&M

South Carolina dropped a brutal 31-30 game at Texas A&M. Here are the key plays, game balls, and burning questions from the shocking loss.

Three Key Plays

1. Dropped interception

Marcel Reed threw late on an out route. Jalon Kilgore jumped the route and had a clean play on the ball with lots of room to run. But he didn’t make the interception. South Carolina picked off Marcel Reed twice in the first half, both by Vicari Swain, and had a strip sack for a touchdown, but the Gamecocks dropped another three interceptions. South Carolina has struggled to get turnovers all season, although it didn’t seem like it would matter when the Gamecocks took a 30-3 halftime lead. But those missed opportunities to get more points came back to haunt them.

3. Nyck Harbor to the house

After another failed red zone possession by Texas A&M, this time a Vicari Swain interception in the end zone, South Carolina needed just one play to basically end the game. Sellers bought time and found Harbor sitting in an open spot of the Aggie zone. Sellers hit Harbor, who turned up field. Nobody tackled him right away, and once Harbor got going, nobody was going to catch him. Harbor went 80 yards for the touchdown, and South Carolina was routing Texas A&M so badly that even the state troopers were throwing tantrums.

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3. Marcel Reed scrambles

Trailing 30-3, Texas A&M had no choice but to go for it on fourth and 12. Nobody was open, and the pocket collapsed, forcing Reed to scramble. He broke a tackle and picked up 16 yards to keep the drive alive. After a Gamecock penalty, Reed found Izaiah Williams open on busted coverage for a touchdown, and the comeback was on.

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Two Game Balls

Vicari Swain

Swain picked off a pass in the end zone to end one Texas A&M drive. Nyck Harbor scored on the next play for the Gamecocks. Moments later, Swain picked off another pass near midfield and returned it 25 yards to set up a field goal before halftime.

Nyck Harbor

Harbor had three receptions for 102 yards, plus a 33-yard kick return. He had an 80-yard touchdown catch shortly before halftime, but his best catch was a leaping 18-yard grab on fourth and six in the fourth quarter. Harbor was less than 100% all game; he was grabbing his hamstring after the touchdown, later collided with an equipment cabinet and was in obvious pain, and finally left the game for good after the fourth down catch. 

One Burning Question

How did that happen?

Since 2004, SEC teams were 0-286 when trailing by 27 or more points at halftime. Texas A&M made it 1-286. How could South Carolina pull off one of the worst collapses in modern football history? The easiest answer is that the first half was fool’s gold. The offensive numbers were pretty, but if you take away LaNorris Sellers’ two touchdown passes of 50 and 80 yards, he was 13-28 for 116 yards and a brutal interception. And if you take out Rahsul Faison’s 22-yard run, South Carolina averaged just 3.1 yards per rush. The explosive plays masked the fact that South Carolina’s offense still couldn’t actually sustain drives. Defensively, once Marcel Reed started passing to the right team, and his receivers stopped dropping wide-open catches, South Carolina had no chance.

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