By Joe Rexrode, Grace Raynor and Seth Emerson
Is Week 3 too early for a season-saving win in the new 12-team College Football Playoff era?
No. 16 LSU rallied from a 17-0 deficit in the first half and from four points down in the fourth quarter to outlast South Carolina 36-33 in Columbia. The Tigers, who lost in the final moments to USC in Las Vegas in a Week 1 thriller, are now 2-1 and still alive in the Playoff race. They entered the week with a 27 chance to make the CFP, per The Athletic’s model. South Carolina, which handled Kentucky with ease on the road in its SEC opener last week, is 2-1 overall and 1-1 in the SEC.
After LSU took the lead with 1:12 left, South Carolina had an opportunity to send the game into overtime, but Alex Herrera’s 49-yard field goal attempt sailed just left of the upright as time expired.
18 In For The Score
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Here are some takeaways from one of the best games to date of the 2024 season:
Will LSU’s comeback impact the SEC race?
As fun — and very long — as this game was, it doesn’t feel like anything shifted the ground underneath the SEC. It was a back-and-forth sloppy game between two teams trying to find their identities.
If anything, the takeaway was better for the losing team: South Carolina committed so many mistakes but can argue it would have won if its starting quarterback hadn’t been hurt. It is a bitter loss for the Gamecocks because this would have been a great chance to generate buzz about where Shane Beamer has the program. But coming a week after a convincing win at Kentucky, this reinforced that the Gamecocks can be a tough out and some good things are happening in Columbia.
LSU, meanwhile, again showed it has a lot of work to do. The defense is only slightly better than last year, and it needed to be much better. The offense can move the ball but made some mistakes, bailed out twice by penalties that would have been South Carolina pick sixes. Still, the Tigers escaped with the win, and their conference schedule is manageable. Tigers fans likely don’t come away more optimistic about things trending right in the third year of the Kelly era. But a loss would’ve meant LSU was clearly trending in the wrong direction, and the Tigers avoided that. — Emerson
Nussmeier giving off star vibes for LSU
LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier wasn’t perfect. He read a coverage wrong and threw an interception in the end zone to kill a scoring opportunity, and later he almost gave it away in the same end zone by throwing late and across his body.
But LSU doesn’t have an opportunity to come back in this game without his poise and overall excellence: 24-for-40, 285 yards and two touchdowns, spreading the ball around to seven different receivers. With freshman tailback Caden Durham busting out for 98 yards and two touchdowns rushing, this LSU offense took an important step forward and eased some early-season pressure on Kelly, avoiding what would have been a rough 1-2 start. — Rexrode
LSU’s D looks like it will be an issue again
Meanwhile, LSU’s defense did not take a step forward — and might have been stepping in it all day if not for the first-half ankle injury suffered by South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers. Sellers at that point had 113 yards passing, with a pick to kill a scoring drive, and 88 yards and two touchdowns rushing — one of them an untouched 75-yard sprint. South Carolina had 24 points and 265 total yards. The Tigers had few answers.
With backup quarterback Robby Ashford in for the second half — other than one possession of Sellers unsuccessfully testing the ankle — the Gamecocks managed 133 yards and nine points. Six of those points and 66 yards came on one Raheim Sanders run. Credit to the Tigers for making some key plays on that side of the ball in the second half, and to Bradyn Swinson for collecting three of LSU’s five sacks. But a lot of doubt about defensive growth lingers. — Rexrode
A heartbreaker for South Carolina
The Gamecocks entered Saturday on a high, having knocked off Kentucky on the road last week, and quickly had LSU on the ropes. South Carolina took a 17-0 lead early into the second quarter and looked prime to pull off the type of upset that would go down as a signature win for Beamer.
But the lasting image out of Columbia will be the heartbroken players — almost in disbelief — after Herrera’s field goal attempt just missed. What stings even more: This won’t be a loss that Beamer and his team will get over easily. It’ll linger, probably for a while. And what Beamer sounded an alarm about at halftime in an interview with ABC ended up being a large part of the difference: “self-inflicted mistakes.”
The Gamecocks racked up 13 penalties for 123 yards, including an unnecessary roughness penalty that negated a pick six. They gave up five sacks and went just 3-of-12 on third down. LSU may still be figuring out its own identity, but this is the type of team that South Carolina didn’t have a large margin for error against. The missed kick might have just been icing on the cake in that regard. — Raynor
Can South Carolina take away any positives?
Senior running back Raheim Sanders, the transfer from Arkansas, is the real deal. Sanders ran for 143 yards and two touchdowns on 19 carries, averaging 7.5 yards per rush. Although Sellers went just 9-of-16 passing for 113 yards and a pick before his injury, the Gamecocks seem to have some real momentum behind their new quarterback, who provided a big spark on the ground too.
Unfortunately for Beamer, the SEC is maybe the most unforgiving league in the country. But don’t count the Gamecocks out. They play Akron next week before an idle week ahead of October matchups with Ole Miss, Alabama and Oklahoma. If they can get out of their own way, there’s still some time for the Gamecocks to play spoiler as the season progresses. — Raynor
(Photo of Zavion Thomas: Isaiah Vazquez / Getty Images)
