LaNorris Sellers was the main storyline coming in after his 5 touchdowns at Oklahoma, and he did not have that kind of day. ESPN's box score showed him 11-of-18 for 169 yards, 1 touchdown and no interceptions with 5:20 left in the 3rd quarter, at a moment when South Carolina trailed 9-7. That is efficient, but it is not a takeover. With Josiah Thompson, Dayne Arnett and Seth Smith all out up front, the Gamecocks scored 7 points in the first 3 quarters, and the A&M defense deserves real credit for that.
A&M's offense still couldn't travel, and that ended up deciding the game. The Aggies came in having scored 6, 6 and 20 in their last 3 road games, and they added 9 in this one. They played without receivers Terry Bussey and Kelshaun Johnson, they never reached double digits, and they didn't score at all after the 3rd quarter. The preview had pointed to a South Carolina defense that gave up 35 to Kentucky and 24 to Tennessee, but A&M never got anywhere near that kind of output against it.
The 4th quarter is where the Gamecocks won it. They went from 2 points behind to 8 ahead with 10 unanswered points, while A&M's offense, rested by the open week and short on receivers, had nothing to answer with. A team with a longer injury report closed out a team that had an extra week to prepare.
The result follows patterns from earlier in the season. South Carolina goes to 6-3 and has now won 4 in a row, after beating Florida on the road, Tennessee at home and Oklahoma on the road. Texas A&M falls to 4-5 and 1-5 in the SEC, still has no road win in this stretch, and has now lost 3 straight trips to Williams-Brice in a series it otherwise dominated for most of the last decade.
Weather was not a factor: 70 and partly cloudy at kickoff, 64 and clear at the end, with almost no wind. The low score came from the 2 offenses. The teams combined for 26 points, roughly half of what the board expected. One offense was missing 3 linemen and the other was missing its top receivers, and both teams played like it.
