South Carolina Stuns No. 11 Tennessee 27-24 on Malik Orsan's 48-Yard Walk-Off Field Goal

Three weeks ago, South Carolina was the team that could not hold a lead. Two home losses after being up 16 and 17 points, a blowout at Alabama, a three-game skid and a head coach whose name kept showing up on hot seat lists. The Gamecocks had become a punchline with a nice stadium.

Funny how fast a punchline can turn into a problem for everybody else.

On Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium, Malik Orsan drilled a 48-yard field goal with no time left, and South Carolina beat No. 11 Tennessee 27-24. Fans poured onto the field, Shane Beamer got to hug his father on the night after Frank Beamer's 80th birthday, and a season that looked finished in early October now has a pulse. South Carolina is 4-3 and 2-3 in the SEC with two straight wins over ranked teams. Tennessee falls to 6-2 and 3-2.

A fast start, then the old script

For one quarter, South Carolina looked like a team that had fixed everything. LaNorris Sellers opened the scoring with a 17-yard touchdown pass to Mazeo Bennett Jr. to cap a 10-play, 75-yard drive. Two plays into the next possession, Sellers took off up the middle for a 31-yard touchdown run. It was 14-0 with 8:17 left in the first quarter, and Williams-Brice was rocking.

Then the Gamecocks did the thing they have done all year. Tennessee answered with an 18-play, 75-yard march that ate more than nine minutes and ended with a DeSean Bishop 1-yard plunge early in the second quarter. On South Carolina's next series, TJ Metcalf picked off Sellers, and the Vols cashed it in when tight end DaSaahn Brame punched in a 1-yard run on fourth-and-goal to tie it at 14.

Orsan's 22-yard field goal put South Carolina back in front with 1:44 left in the half, but 1:20 was plenty for Tennessee. Mike Matthews finished a seven-play, 75-yard drive with an 8-yard touchdown run with 24 seconds to go, and the Vols took a 21-17 lead into the locker room. Tennessee scored 21 points in the second quarter. If you had watched the last month of Gamecocks football, you had seen this movie before.

The flags that changed everything

Here is the thing about that Tennessee comeback: it could have been a lot worse. The Vols had touchdowns taken off the board by their own penalties. In the second quarter, George MacIntyre hit Brame for what looked like a 35-yard score, but an illegal shift wiped it out. Early in the fourth quarter, MacIntyre found Braylon Staley in the end zone on third-and-12 from the 18. Holding. No touchdown. Tennessee had to settle for a 37-yard Cooper Ranvier field goal for a 24-17 lead with 11:46 left.

Tennessee finished with 12 penalties for 90 yards. MacIntyre did the math afterward and did not like the answer. "That's 21 points off the board," he said. "I think we all know how different this game would have looked if we didn't have those penalties."

Beamer, for his part, was not apologizing for anybody's flags. "They were penalties, so those were good calls," he said.

Fourth-and-1

The game really turned with 3:37 left. Tennessee had the ball at the South Carolina 38, nursing a seven-point lead, after a nine-play drive that had chewed up nearly five minutes. Bishop, who had been grinding the Gamecocks down all day, got hurt on third down. Josh Heupel left the offense on the field for fourth-and-1.

MacIntyre kept it and was dropped for a 1-yard loss. Turnover on downs. Afterward, the quarterback called it "just simple miscommunication," and Heupel did not dress it up either. "Just missteps by George on that one," he said.

Sellers took it from there. A 14-yard completion to DJ Black came with a face mask penalty tacked on, and Sellers then ripped off a 22-yard run to the Tennessee 10. On third-and-goal from the 4, he took shots from two defenders, fought through both and stretched the ball to the pylon. The automatic review held up the touchdown, Orsan's kick tied it at 24, and 1:17 remained.

The strip, the kick, the field

Overtime felt inevitable for about 40 seconds. Then Dylan Stewart came off the edge, got to MacIntyre on first down at the Tennessee 38 and knocked the ball loose. Tomiwa Durojaiye fell on it at the Tennessee 34 with 33 seconds left. Tennessee challenged. The call stood.

South Carolina did not get greedy. Two incompletions and a false start later, Sellers scrambled 9 yards to the Tennessee 30, Beamer burned a timeout with three seconds left, and Orsan's 48-yarder was dead center. Ballgame.

It was the kind of finish that gets replayed for a decade, and the kind that makes a fan base forget what it was yelling about in September.

Sellers carried the whole thing

The final line for Sellers was 18-of-32 for 210 yards, one touchdown and one interception through the air, plus 96 rushing yards and two more scores on 18 carries. He was sacked five times. He also made the two biggest offensive plays of the night, the 22-yard run and the pylon reach, with the season more or less on the line.

He was not interested in style points. "It wasn't pretty by any means, but that's the way it is in the SEC," Sellers said. He also had a simpler explanation for the finish. "We really knew who wanted it more."

Bennett was his best target with six catches for 88 yards, including a 39-yarder on third-and-5 from the South Carolina 13 that flipped the field late in the third quarter. On defense, Durojaiye had a sack and the fumble recovery, and Stewart's lone sack was the only one that mattered.

The numbers that tell the story

On paper, Tennessee did enough. The Vols outrushed South Carolina 184-134, ran 73 plays to 63 and held the ball for 34:12. Bishop carried 32 times for 120 yards and a score. MacIntyre was efficient, if quiet, at 16-of-23 for 136 yards. Tennessee was 4-for-4 in the red zone.

The problem was everything around those numbers. Twelve flags, two erased touchdowns, a failed fourth down and a lost fumble in the final minute. South Carolina won the total yardage battle 344-320 and turned Tennessee's late mistakes into 10 points in the last 1:17. The full numbers are in South Carolina's official box score (opens in a new tab).

What it means

For South Carolina, this is a different season than it was three weeks ago. Wins over then-No. 16 Florida in the Swamp and now No. 11 Tennessee give the Gamecocks real resumé material, and bowl eligibility is suddenly a realistic target instead of a wish. The school's own game recap (opens in a new tab) leans into the second straight ranked win, and it should. Next on the schedule was a trip to Oklahoma on Oct. 31.

For Tennessee, it stings in a specific way. A week after beating Alabama 26-10, the Vols lost a game they controlled for most of the second half, and it was their second straight loss at Williams-Brice. They get an open week to stew on it before hosting No. 12 Kentucky on Nov. 7 at Neyland Stadium. Two SEC losses do not end anything, but they do shrink the margin for every Saturday that is left.

The last word

MacIntyre summed up Tennessee's night better than any stat sheet. "It was one of the most frustrating games I've ever played," he said.

Beamer had the better evening. His dad turned 80 on Friday, and Saturday ended with a crowd of 79,193 and a field full of fans. "That was a heck of a birthday present," Beamer said.

Nobody in Columbia is calling South Carolina a punchline this week.

Sources: South Carolina Athletics recap and official box score, The Associated Press, FOX Carolina, Saturday Down South, ClutchPoints and A to Z Sports. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: IMAGN Images.