It turned out there was a little magic left within the walls of Williams-Brice Stadium.
No. 24 South Carolina was left for dead after a crushing week one loss at home, but on Sept. 13, 2014, the Gamecocks did the unthinkable.
The Gamecocks toppled the No. 6 Georgia Bulldogs 38-35.
From the very beginning of the game, it certainly looked like the Gamecocks were destined to pull off the upset. After receiving the opening kick-off, redshirt senior quarterback Dylan Thompson led South Carolina down the field on a nine-play, 75-yard drive that resulted in a Shaq Roland touchdown grab.
Once the Bulldogs got their first shot on offense, it took them all of two plays to go 69 yards for a score of their own.
That set the tone for the rest of the contest as both teams traded blows until the clock reached zero, and South Carolina had its final three-point advantage.
Juniors Brandon Wilds and Mike Davis combined for 159 yards and a touchdown on the day, and proved that the hype surrounding South Carolina’s backfield in the offseason was well-warranted.
“We feed off each other pretty well, and I’d say it was a great effort by both of us,” Davis said. “We had a great game.”
Davis, a Georgia native, said the win meant more to him than many in his South Carolina career, a sentiment shared by a large portion of the team.
The Gamecock roster features 27 players from Georgia, the most of any state other than South Carolina. But according to Wilds, you didn't have to hail from the Peach State to want to stick it to the Bulldogs.
“It was a personal game to all of us, knowing that we've got a lot of players from Georgia,” Wilds said. “Knowing it was a rivalry game, we just had to keep pushing.”
With less than two minutes to go in the game, South Carolina faced a fourth-and-one and opted to forgo the punt in an attempt to get the first down. And by a matter of centimeters, Thompson plunged forward and put the game out of reach for Georgia.
On a young defense that spent Saturday proving it belonged in the stacked SEC, Skai Moore made the biggest impression. The sophomore finished with a team-leading 10 tackles.
“When our back’s against the wall, our mindset is just to gut up,” he said. “Who wants it more is going to get it ... We preached that to everybody on the field, just let them know that we've got to gut up and make a play."
Read the full version of this story, published in 2014.