Sports / Columbia, South Carolina — The South Carolina Tennessee final score turned on the last 3 minutes and 35 seconds. Down 24-17, South Carolina stopped No. 11 Tennessee on fourth-and-1, drove 61 yards for LaNorris Sellers' tying touchdown run with 1:17 left, strip-sacked George MacIntyre 40 seconds later, and won it 27-24 when Malik Orsan drilled a 48-yard field goal as time expired at Williams-Brice Stadium — the Gamecocks' first home SEC win in more than a year.
The South Carolina Tennessee final score — South Carolina 27, Tennessee 24 — was really three games in one. The Gamecocks (4-3, 2-3 SEC) sprinted to a 14-0 lead in the first seven minutes. Tennessee (6-2, 3-2 SEC) answered with a 21-3 second quarter and led 24-17 deep into the fourth, even after having three apparent touchdowns wiped off by penalties. Then, in the space of about two minutes of game clock, South Carolina produced the stop, the drive, the takeaway and the kick that turned a familiar story — another blown lead, another home SEC defeat — into Shane Beamer's ninth top-25 win in six seasons in Columbia.
14-0 in seven minutes, then the lead was gone
South Carolina's opening could hardly have been scripted better. The Gamecocks took the opening kickoff 75 yards in 10 plays, Sellers finding Mazeo Bennett Jr. for a 17-yard touchdown five minutes in. Tennessee went three-and-out, and two plays and 58 yards later Sellers kept the ball and ran 31 yards through the defense for 14-0 with 8:17 left in the first quarter — Tennessee's largest deficit of the season. The Vols' response was methodical and, for a while, decisive. DeSean Bishop capped an 18-play, 75-yard drive — the most plays on a Tennessee drive since Josh Heupel arrived in 2021 — with a 1-yard touchdown run early in the second quarter. Sellers' first interception since September 26, picked off by TJ Metcalf, then set up a fourth-and-goal conversion: tight end DaSaahn Brame's 1-yard rushing touchdown for 14-14. Orsan's 22-yard field goal at the end of a 17-play drive briefly restored the lead, but Mike Matthews took a direct snap eight yards for a touchdown with 24 seconds left in the half, and Tennessee went in 21-17 up, having outscored the hosts 21-3 in the quarter.
Three Tennessee touchdowns that never counted
The strangest thread of the afternoon is that Tennessee should have been out of sight. A long MacIntyre touchdown pass to Matthews in the third quarter was erased by an ineligible-receiver-downfield penalty on freshman Tyreek King. In the fourth, MacIntyre found Braylon Staley in the end zone — wiped out by a holding call, the third Vol touchdown negated on the day — and Tennessee settled for Cooper Ranvier's 37-yard field goal and a 24-17 lead with 11:46 to play. In between, the game ground down: a scoreless third quarter of 40 Tennessee yards and 50 South Carolina yards, a failed South Carolina fourth-and-3, and Dylan Stewart, the Gamecocks' star edge rusher, shaken up and helped off before returning to the defensive rotation. Bishop kept moving the chains — he finished with 32 carries for 120 yards and a touchdown — but every time Tennessee reached for the knockout, a flag, a stop or its own discipline pulled the punch.
The stop, the drive, the strip-sack and the kick
Tennessee still had the game in its hands with under four minutes left, and chose aggression: fourth-and-1 at the South Carolina 38, offense staying on the field. MacIntyre was tackled for a loss — by Knox News' account the play broke down in confusion in a jumbo package even after a timeout — and South Carolina took over at its own 39 with 3:35 remaining, down seven. Six plays, 61 yards: Sellers, who looked stopped short of the goal line, muscled forward across it for a 4-yard touchdown run, and with 1:17 to play it was 24-24. Tennessee's chance to answer lasted barely half a minute. Stewart strip-sacked MacIntyre and the Gamecocks recovered at the Tennessee 34 with 33 seconds left. A Sellers scramble moved the ball deeper, and Orsan — who had already made a 22-yarder in the second quarter — hit the 48-yard field goal as time expired. Sellers finished with 210 passing yards, a touchdown pass and an interception, and a team-high 96 rushing yards with two rushing touchdowns. MacIntyre finished 16-of-23 for 136 yards, with the late fumble the game's defining turnover.
Why this matters
Start with the pattern this result breaks. Greenville News noted at half-time that South Carolina had already blown a 17-point lead on October 3 and a 16-point lead on September 19 this season, and at 21-17 down after leading 14-0, a third collapse was the obvious script — in a building where the Gamecocks had not won an SEC game in over a year. Instead they won the last four minutes in every phase: a fourth-down stop, a 61-yard tying drive, a strip-sack and a 48-yard walk-off kick. For Beamer, beating the then-No. 15 Florida team on October 10 and No. 11 Tennessee two weeks later is a genuine mid-season turn: two top-25 wins, a 4-3 record, and evidence his team can finish the games it was losing a month ago. For Tennessee the arithmetic is harsher. The Vols were unranked-favoured visitors in name only — Knox News noted unranked South Carolina was actually the betting favourite — but a second SEC loss, at 6-2 and 3-2, badly damages a playoff case that could not afford a defeat here, and the manner of it will linger: three touchdowns erased by penalties, a failed fourth-and-1 with the game there to close, and a fumble by a young quarterback asked to win it late. Heupel had shown his players a photograph of the 2022 field-storming in this stadium, when a 63-38 South Carolina win wrecked Tennessee's best title shot of the century. The warning did not take. Williams-Brice has now produced two of the most damaging defeats of his tenure, four years apart, in eerily similar emotional registers — control, chaos, collapse.
What happens next
South Carolina's reward is a trip to Oklahoma on October 31 (4:15 p.m. ET, SEC Network), with Texas A&M, Arkansas, Georgia and Clemson still on the schedule — a brutal run-in that will test whether this finish was a turning point or a one-night surge. Sellers' dual-threat line — 210 yards passing, 96 and two scores rushing — is the version of this offense Beamer's staff has been chasing, and Stewart's late strip-sack is a reminder of the defensive ceiling when its best player is on the field at the decisive moment. Tennessee goes into its bye week to sit with the loss, then hosts Kentucky on November 7 with no remaining margin for error in the SEC race. The Vols' questions are pointed ones: the penalty discipline that cost them three touchdowns, the end-of-game play-calling that kept the offense on the field at the 38, and how MacIntyre responds to the first crushing mistake of his tenure as starter. Saturday in Columbia answered none of those for Tennessee. It answered the only question South Carolina brought into the day: whether this team had learned how to finish. Ten points in 77 seconds says it has.
Sources
Sources: Sportradar final summary (Winner: South Carolina 27, Tennessee 24 at Williams-Brice Stadium; quarters 14-3-0-10 / 0-21-0-3); Greenville News live coverage (Orsan's 48-yard field goal as time expired; first home SEC win in over a year; the 61-yard tying drive and Sellers' 4-yard touchdown run at 1:17; the strip-sack with 40 seconds left, recovered at the Tennessee 34; Gamecocks 4-3, 2-3 SEC; Beamer's ninth top-25 win; South Carolina at Oklahoma on October 31); Knox News live coverage (No. 11 Tennessee 6-2, 3-2 SEC; led 24-17 under two minutes; MacIntyre 16-of-23 for 136 yards and the late fumble at the Tennessee 34 with 33 seconds left; Bishop 32 carries for 120 yards and a touchdown; Sellers 210 passing yards with a touchdown and an interception and a team-high 96 rushing yards; three negated Tennessee touchdowns; Tennessee next hosts Kentucky on November 7 after its bye); theScore (South Carolina scored 10 points in the final 2:00 to stun No. 11 Tennessee 27-24; Dylan Stewart's strip-sack of MacIntyre; Orsan's winning 48-yard kick). Related on Signal Post News: Texas' 20-17 win over Tennessee and Auburn's walk-off upset of No. 1 Georgia.