USC scores 31 unanswered points after falling behind by 10 in first half
A dropped touchdown pass, failing to score twice from the 1-yard line and a high snap — everything that could go wrong for South Carolina did in the first half against Kentucky.
But finally, with 17 seconds left in the first half, cornerback Victor Hampton did something right, stopping the Wildcats from scoring on their last drive before halftime. That play paved the way for a pivotal second-half comeback that gave the No. 6 Gamecocks a 38-17 win after they trailed by 10 at the half.
But before the USC offense, which was held to 108 total yards in the first half, was resurrected in the third and fourth quarters, there was Hampton to stop the bleeding.
“I’m sort of glad they didn’t get that one right there at the end of the first half,” said USC coach Steve Spurrier.
After quarterback Connor Shaw slid short of a first down on the Gamecocks’ 34-yard line, with just over a minute to play before halftime, Spurrier elected to go for it on fourth down.
But center T.J. Johnson’s snap out of the shotgun formation was high, and Kentucky recovered on the USC 10-yard line.
Just as the Wildcats looked poised to score, defensive lineman Aldrick Fordham forced Kentucky quarterback Jalen Whitlow to fumble. Wildcats wide receiver Demarco Robinson recovered the fumble, but Hampton tackled Robinson short of the goal line.
Out of timeouts, Kentucky was unable to add to its 17-7 lead, as the half expired before the Wildcats could get off another snap.
“It’s really important any time we can stop them,” said senior linebacker Shaq Wilson. “We had to get a big stop right before the half so they could not put more points on the board.”
South Carolina’s offense struggled from the beginning, making the defense’s contributions even more critical. On the Gamecocks’ first drive of the game, Shaw found wide receiver
D.L. Moore in the endzone, but Moore dropped the pass. The Gamecocks got to the 1-yard line and were unable to score on two quarterback keepers, returning possession to UK on downs.
But after halftime, the Gamecocks dominated the game offensively and defensively, holding the Wildcats scoreless while scoring four touchdowns and a field goal.
“Our guys really had a good look in their eyes that they wanted to play the second half,” Spurrier said. “There wasn’t any moping, nobody was pouting, nobody was pointing fingers.
We were all bad, so there weren’t any fingers to point except all at ourselves.”
After what Shaw described as an emotional halftime, he connected with wide receiver Damiere Byrd on a 30-yard touchdown that was the same play as the one Moore dropped, cutting Kentucky’s lead to a field goal.
“[The safety] ended up choosing to jump the shorter route,” Byrd said. “I was able to get open and catch the ball.”
Trailing by just 10 points at the half allowed the offense to find rhythm in the ground game, not feeling as much pressure to score quickly by passing, but dominating the time of possession in the fourth quarter, 10:04 to 4:56.
Junior tailback Marcus Lattimore had 108 second-half rushing yards. He had 12 rushing yards and five carries in the first half. Senior tailback Kenny Miles added a 17-yard rushing touchdown in the third quarter.
“I just think we knew what we had to do and that was get back to our bread and butter,” Shaw said. “That’s what we’ve been doing all of last season. We had to get Marcus involved and that’s what we did in the second half.”
Though USC’s 31 unanswered second-half points were enough to get it past a 1-4 Kentucky team, the focus quickly shifted to the next opponent, No. 5 Georgia. With College GameDay announcing Columbia as its stop for next week, all of the attention will be on the Gamecocks in the division matchup of undefeated teams.
Defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward said Spurrier has a 24-hour policy where the team celebrates a win before moving on to the next game. But after a first half where nothing went right for USC, even Ward will cut the 24 hours short, saying he would start thinking about Georgia after church in the morning.
Shaw said there was already talk about UGA after the game.
“We just said we can’t start off sluggish in the first half against a team like Georgia,” Shaw said.