A highly competitive and close matchup between South Carolina and LSU ended in disappointment for Gamecock fans, as the team fell behind LSU in the fourth quarter and lost 36-33.
Despite leading through all of the first three quarters, a series of mistakes and 13 penalties against South Carolina allowed LSU to catch up in the fourth.
"I think we were winning going into the fourth quarter, and that's what's disappointing today," Beamer said. "Our record when we score first, our record when we are leading at half-time and our record when we're leading going into the fourth quarter has been lights out around here."
Beamer said the Gamecocks had prioritized playing a clean game leading up to the matchup.
“That was the bulk of yesterday’s meeting is playing clean football and not getting into any of the post whistle stuff, which we didn’t ... And it was a clean game from that standpoint,” Beamer said. “But way too many self-inflicted mistakes.”
Though the Gamecocks started strong, scoring a touching less than three minutes into the game, difficulty gaining passing yards characterized the tight play between teams. Instead, the matchup was highlighted by four rushing touchdowns, two from redshirt freshman quarterback LaNorris Sellers and two from senior running back Raheim Sanders.
South Carolina rushed for 243 yards on Saturday, compared to last season’s average of 85.1 per game. Sanders, in particular, played a pivotal role in the highly anticipated matchup, with 19 carries and 143 yards gained.
Up 17-0 at the beginning of the second quarter, South Carolina traditionally has a strong record when leading at the beginning of the game.
Despite these heavy strides in the offensive quadrant, penalties slowed any pace for the Gamecocks gained during these long runs.
“You can’t have those mistakes,” redshirt senior quarterback Robby Ashford said. “Some calls were definitely iffy like the one (to) D Camp, Mazeo was running a route, and they said he was blocking, and that took away what was maybe a forty yard gain, and those killed drives, because we had so much momentum.”
Ashford referred to the South Carolina drive when he completed a pass deep right to sixth-year wide receiver Dalevon Campbell, but a pass interference was called on freshman wide receiver Mazeo Bennett, Jr, resulting in a 10-yard penalty for the Gamecocks.
Another notable penalty was called later in the fourth with about six minutes left for unnecessary roughness on fifth-year edge Kyle Kennard. Junior defensive back Nick Emmanwori intercepted a pass from LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier in the Carolina end zone, running it down the length of the field to the LSU line.
Though Emmanwori had returned the interception for a touchdown, flags were thrown, only leaving the Gamecocks with a first down. The defensive back completed the pick 6 not realizing play had been called.
“When I had turned around, I (could) see that the whole defense was still down there, and I (had) seen those two flags — and that was just kind of like a killer,” Emmanwori said postgame. “I was just so happy with it. I was giving everything I had.”
Though the interception stood, this was the second of two penalties called on Kennard that cost South Carolina a pair of defensive touchdowns.
“It’s hard to get that back, that’s points off the board — that’s 14 points off the board right there off of two pick 6s. Disappointing,” redshirt senior left back Debo Williams said.
Williams completed a 12-yard punt return to gain territory back for the Gamecocks, and he received an offsides penalty seconds before LSU scored the final touchdown of the game.
The Gamecocks ended the game losing 123 yards across the 13 penalties, more than double the average of penalty yardage for the Gamecocks in the 2023 season, at 55 yards a game.
Cleaning up penalties will be the focus for the Gamecocks before the upcoming game against Akron, Beamer said. Though some plays were unavoidable, the team needs to practice and clean up their play, he said.
“We've got to ... do an even more of a job emphasizing it," Beamer said. "We’ve been pretty good around here about penalties and not having a lot of them, and we weren’t today.”