Junior quarterback shines with 20 consecutive completions 
Though the touchdown run was rendered meaningless with a yellow flag, the sight of South Carolina junior quarterback Connor Shaw running 80 yards from the line of scrimmage could not be erased.
It was the return of vintage Shaw, diving across the goal line with a defender on his tail, his strength running the ball with the zone read. Since suffering a hairline fracture in his right shoulder, Shaw had at times looked tentative, sliding to avoid being tackled, but on the run and subsequent dive, there was no apparent writhing in pain like there had been for the last three weeks.
Fittingly, Shaw’s run, negated by a clipping penalty, didn’t propel the Gamecocks to a 31-10 win over Missouri, as it wasn’t his legs that made the difference in the game.
Shaw’s command of the short passing game, going 20-of-21 with 20 straight completions, none longer than 36 yards, exploiting Missouri’s defensive scheme, gave the Gamecocks their second conference win.
“Well, he got off to a slow start. He missed the first one, I think,” said USC coach Steve Spurrier with a grin.
“I wasn’t even thinking about it until I saw 16-of-17 on the scoreboard,” said tailback Marcus Lattimore. “That was crazy. I’ve never seen that. He just kept going and just kept completing passes.”
Shaw finished with 249 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. He set a school record in completion percentage, with .952, and Shaw’s 20 consecutive completions tied him for second in SEC behind Tennessee’s Tee Martin, who had 23 straight.
Any doubt over how Shaw would return from injury against an SEC-defense was wiped out with his 80-yard run.
“The shoulder felt fine,” Shaw said. “I’m sure it’ll be sore tomorrow, but throughout the game, it was fine.”
The Tigers used mostly a Cover-2 defense, which is a zone defense with no man-to-man coverage out of a 4-3 set, defending primarily the deep play. Shaw combated the scheme by alternating handoffs to Lattimore and short passes in the middle of the field.
After Shaw’s 80-yard run was called back with 6:58 left in the first quarter, the Gamecocks began a drive that finished at the start of the second quarter, running the ball six times and passing it for short gains seven times.
“We had a pretty good idea they were going to run a cover-two,” Shaw said. “They have against other teams. That’s why I kept hitting Marcus (Lattimore) and (tight end) Justice (Cunningham) underneath. They were going to dare us to throw short and run the ball, so that’s what we did.”
At the 1-yard-line facing a third down, Shaw tried to run it in himself twice, but was denied and turned the ball over on downs to Missouri on the 2-yard-line. USC’s defense forced a three-and-out and a 49-yard punt return by junior wide receiver Ace Sanders put the Gamecocks right back on the Missouri 4-yard-line.
Lattimore got both carries in USC’s second trip in the red zone, scoring on a 2-yard touchdown run that gave him the school-record for career rushing touchdowns. Twenty-two seconds later, USC defensive end Devin Taylor recovered a Missouri fumble, giving the offense the ball in Missouri territory again.
Shaw found wide receiver Nick Jones on the next play with a 36-yard completion, his longest of the game, to put the Gamecocks on the 1-yard-line again. Lattimore ran in the touchdown from there to give the Gamecocks a 14-0 lead, tallying two touchdowns less than a minute apart.
The Gamecocks added another touchdown before the half on a 23-yard touchdown pass from Shaw to Sanders to take a comfortable 21-3 lead into halftime. The Gamecocks extended it to 31-3 before Missouri found the end zone in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter.
By that point, Shaw was on the sideline, as Dylan Thompson quarterbacked the final two USC possessions. This time, he wasn’t there because of injury, but because the game was securely in hand.
“You can’t really ask for a much better game than that,” Sanders said of Shaw’s performance. “He was calm back there, kept his poise, ran the offense like we expect him to do and I was just real proud of his play coming back off those injuries.”
“He’s had a lot of great games, so it’s hard to say it was his best game,” Lattimore said. “But he was 20-of-21. That’s unheard of in the SEC. He just does the same thing every time he goes out. He’s our leader, he’s consistent and he stays in the pocket when he has to and he runs when he has to — he’s a complete quarterback.”