COLUMBIA, S.C. — They were coming.
A sea of South Carolina students surged toward the bottom of the north stands of Williams-Brice Stadium, closer and closer, ready to storm the field — no, make that “Sandstorm” the field — once their Gamecocks took out big, bad LSU. They dreamed of waving a white towel in Brian Kelly’s face or Harold Perkins’ grill or Garrett Nussmeier’s teen-idol eyes, and reveling in the biggest football win of their college careers. Something to tell the grandchildren about one day while sitting on the beach in Hilton Head or Kiawah Island.
Instead, they just hung there, stunned and speechless, practically impaled on a row of hedges as Alex Herrera’s game-tying, 49-yard field goal flashed a left-turn signal in midair and expired just outside the left upright as time ran out.
LSU had somehow survived, 36-33. They don’t come here often, but somehow the Tigers always survive when they play football in Columbia. They should have stopped at a T-shirt printer on the way back to the airport and had some souvenirs made for the lads:
“LSU Tigers: Undefeated in Columbia, S.C., since 1932.”
They could have even sent one to Dawn Staley, who naturally planted the guest pick of death on the Gamecocks during “College GameDay.”
Kelly said everyone was picking South Carolina to win. That wasn’t exactly true (Lee Corso sported the Tigers mascot headgear), though it made a flawed victory taste better going down. LSU kicked off as a 6½-point favorite, a spread that got whittled down from 8½ during the week as the smart money loaded up on the Gamecocks.
They were right, at least in a betting sense. The Gamecocks built off the “College GameDay” show’s first trip here in a decade and stacked up a 17-0 lead on LSU midway through the second quarter. “Sandstorm,” South Carolina football’s signature celebration pop song, blared on the loudspeakers, and the Tigers looked ready to be counted out.
LSU could do nothing right. The offensive line couldn’t run block and, for the first time this season, couldn’t pass block. There were nine penalties on the Tigers, though 13 on the Gamecocks. The defense got gashed for big plays, such as a 75-yard touchdown romp by quarterback LaNorris Sellers and a 66-yarder by Raheim “Rocket” Sanders, eerily similar to the 67-yard untouched TD run last Saturday by Nicholls State running back Collin Guggenheim.
When you get housed by a guy who shares his surname with a New York museum, you remember it. The rest of this season, whenever the LSU defense surrenders a big play, it should be said the Tigers got “Guggenheimed.”
Special teams had an extra point try go up in smoke because of a botched snap and gave up a blocked punt to set up another score. Kelly said he will submit video evidence to the Southeastern Conference that the Gamecocks’ Maurice Brown used illegal leverage to bring down Peyton Todd’s kick, but it won’t change anything. It still set up a short field for South Carolina to go up 17-0 on a 10-yard Sanders run with 12:19 left in the second quarter.
On the LSU sideline, there might have been stunned silence — a preview of that South Carolina student section three hours later — but no panic. The Tigers, some of them anyway, had been here before, down 17-0 in Kelly’s first season two years ago at Auburn before they rallied for a 21-17 victory.
Go back even further. This was a win former LSU coach Les Miles would have loved. Miles was the Inspector Clouseau of college football.
Clouseau would stumble and bumble around and somehow solve the case. Miles’ teams would stumble and bumble around and somehow win the game.
“Obviously we needed a score, and we had stuff to clean up,” Kelly said. “But there was no finger pointing. We knew what we needed to do.”
It started with a flint strike of hope from freshman running back Caden Dunham, who went all Dalton Hilliard on the Gamecocks with a relentless 26-yard touchdown run to make it 17-7. It ended with Josh Williams pouring through one of the few huge holes the LSU line opened Saturday for a 2-yard game-winner with 1:12 left.
“My emotions are running pretty high,” Williams said. “I knew what the situation was.”
LSU needed this one bad. Like in Charles McClendon had to beat Paul Dietzel when he returned to Tiger Stadium in 1966 for his first game as South Carolina’s coach bad.
Lose and it’s the China Syndrome of nuclear-reactor meltdowns. LSU drops to 1-2 overall and 0-1 in the SEC, and for all practical purposes can kiss the College Football Playoff goodbye. And maybe the season devolves into a litany of losses who few thought or wanted to predict before the season.
And now? Now the Tigers head home with every chance to build momentum and confidence going into the season’s next big showdown on Oct. 12 in Tiger Stadium against Ole Miss. LSU will be a heavy favorite to beat UCLA and South Alabama the next two Saturdays, making the Tigers 4-1 when their old rivals from Oxford come calling.
LSU may be far from what or where it wants to be, but at least the Tigers can still see the path.
