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USC Wins in Dramatic Fashion
Columbia, SC-- The South Carolina Gamecocks and Stanford Cardinal were both looking to maintain their perfect records in a sunny day at William-Brice Stadium. Stanford will get the ball to start the game off and quickly get down the field but were held to a fourth-and-four at the 40 and decided to go for it. A quick pass to the TE got them a first down and they scored a few plays later. USC would come right back but once they got to just outside the redzone Lattimore made a mistake as he fumbled the ball, and Staford returned it 80 yards for a 14-0 lead. He appeared to be down at first glance but the booth decided not to review the play. USC would then score and then the teams would exchange a pair of TDs. With the lead cut to 21-14 the Gamecocks would kickoff and Owusu would take it back for another Stanford touchdown. Neither team would score until under one minute to go in the half when Lattimore would bang it in from 15 yards out. Stanford would come back down and kick a field goal
The third quarter would go from bad to worse for South Carolina as a fumble and 1 points for Stanford would extend the lead to 41-21 with 1:19 to go in the third quarter and all seemed to be lost. USC would strike quickly to cut into the lead before the fourth quarter, but Stanford still had to feel confident that their lead would hold up. A stop by the USC defense would give the offense the ball back and they would quickly score again and all of a sudden the lead was six points with 3:45 still to go in the game. On the very next play Luck dropped back to pass and threw a slant but CB Chris Culliver jumped inside of it and picked it off. "I knew that they were going to go back to the slant, they had been running it all day, and I just jumped the pass and made a play," said Culliver about his huge interception. South Carolina would not waste the opportunity as they would score a few plays later and suddenly they had their first lead of the game. Stanford knew they still had a great chance to win as all they had to do was use up the 3 minutes left and kick a game winning field goal and they almost managed to do just that. They drove down the field swiftly and had themselves a first down inside the 20 yard line. Trying to run out the clock the Cardinal tried three straight runs and settled for a field goal. The chip shot went through and Stanford regained the lead with 59 seconds to go. South Carolina now knew all they would need was to get to about the 33 yard line for kicker Spencer Lanning to have a chance and they had one timeout at their disposal. Moving quickly USC found themselves nearing the edge of Lanning's field goal range but the clock was ticking away. A draw got the ball down to the 24 a few steps inside the left hash and USC used its last timeout to stop the clock and set up the kick. Stanford tried to ice Lanning, but he stepped up and nailed the kick right down the middle and the Gamecock sideline erupted. It was the biggest fourth quarter comeback in school history and it helped USC move to 4-0 on the season. Next week the Gamecocks will try not to have a let down as they face Colorado.
