Shane Beamer talks South Carolina special teams decisions from Saturday

South Carolina wasn’t going to limit itself. If it felt it had a good play call on hand, it would go for it.

With less than a minute to go before halftime, Dakereon Joyner scored a go-ahead touchdown to give the Gamecocks a 20-14 lead over Mississippi State. Instead of lining up for the extra point, they chose to go for two.

It had worked in the past. South Carolina was pretty good in these situations last year.

“I think we hit on every single one of them. We tried one against Florida but didn’t get it. We’ve run a bunch of those to Tonka (Hemingway) and Trae Kenion last year,” Shane Beamer said.

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Kai Kroeger, normally the holder, lined up in the shotgun. Mitch Jeter, the kicker, lined up next to him almost as a running back. The play was simple: roll out to the right and find an open receiver the other way.

For a moment, it looked like it would work. Kroeger took the snap and ran to his right. His only targets on the right side were Hemingway and long snapper Hunter Rogers. But both were covered heavily.

That’s where the trickery came into play. Kroeger quickly turned the other way and lobbed a pass up to a wide-open TJ Sanders. He had done it before, going 6-for-6 with three touchdowns in these spots.

“Those are things that we practice and if we feel like we have a chance to hit it we’ll call it,” Beamer said. “It wasn’t like, okay, we need to go for two here. It was something that we felt was sound and was going to work. Tried to get the ball to TJ Sanders, and TJ Sanders came wide-open. I mean, we had it.”

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It felt like Kroeger’s pass stayed in the air for an eternity, which gave Mississippi State enough time to hustle over and try to make a play. The ball was going to fall shorter than expected, so Sanders dropped to his knees in a last ditch effort. But it was batted away at the last second.

“We’ve been pretty successful in those muddle huddles, where we go for two essentially until this year,” Beamer said. “We’re now 0-for-2. We tried one against Furman and we got stopped. Then, we tried one tonight and we weren’t able to connect.”

On the very next drive, South Carolina’s special teams would be in another tricky situation. This time, Bulldogs kicker Kyle Ferrie lined up to try a 54-yard field goal with one second left before the break. Ferrie, a freshman, had only missed one field goal this year. His longest was 49 yards.

Ferrie’s kick fell well short. It didn’t even come close to the goalpost. But then, a flag was thrown on the field. Illegal formation called on the Gamecocks.

“There’s a big point of emphasis on taking care of the snappers,” Beamer said. “I think Boogie (Huntley) was in left A gap as the defense looks at it. He slides over to the opposite side A gap just trying to generate a block and scheme a block up.

“When you do that, there’s no part of their body that can be touching their shading the other team’s snapper. (The referees) told me that the edge of his shoulder pad was on the snapper.”

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With another shot to kick a field goal, this time from 49 yards, Ferrie nailed it. He cut the deficit to three points going into the half.

This could’ve been where a mistake cost South Carolina. But it didn’t fold and played some of its best football in the second half. The Gamecocks went on to win 37-30 to move back to .500.

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