Mizzou's defensive grit at South Carolina showed Indiana was the exception, not the rule
Payback's a female dog.
There are other, less couth, ways of putting Missouri 21, South Carolina 20 into context, but Twitter already has most of those covered. Besides, here's your bottom-line takeaway:
Everything, more or less, is back on the table -- not that it ever formally left.
Defense of that SEC East crown. A shot right back into the polls, and an express lane right onto to the national radar. Saturday night in Columbia East did not completely absolve a four-point home loss to Indiana, nor does it completely remove the smell of the burning sack of you-know-what that that particular tilt left on Gary Pinkel's front porch.
But what it did prove was that Hoosier Hell was the aberration, the unfathomable exception, and not the norm.
South Carolina is not last year's South Carolina, nor is it likely to be confused with Oregon, Auburn, Texas A&M or any of the other members of the point-a-minute club. But at Williams-Brice Stadium, before a national, prime-time television audience, the Tigers (4-1, 1-0 in Southeastern Conference play) held the No. 13 Gamecocks (3-2, 2-2 SEC) to 119 rushing yards on 42 attempts and sacked quarterback Dylan Thompson three times.
More specifically, they did what Georgia could not: Take out the Ol' Ballcoach in his own back nine. And if Missouri fans learned anything from last year, it's that you never know when a road win in your back pocket from September or October will turn into a tiebreaker in late November.
That, and to never, ever presume anything in this league until the clock runs out. Take Mizzou Homecoming 2013 (go ahead, take it): The Tigers dominated the visiting Gamecocks for most of the starry night at Columbia West until Connor Shaw came off the bench and did his Baby John Unitas bit, rallying the guests for a soul-crushing, 27-24, double-overtime victory.
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With 7:26 left in the contest, the Tigers were down 20-7, burnt toast. Thirty-six seconds and two Maty Mauk passes later, South Carolina was hanging on by a proverbial talon.
"It says we've got a lot of guts," Pinkel told ESPN after the contest.
That and trust. Mauk threw for 57 yards in the first half. He amassed 70 in the last 7:25, including a 41-yard toss to Bud Sasser and a 26-yarder to Wesley Leftwich that set up a 1-yard Russell Hansbrough touchdown, capped a three-play, 68-yard touchdown drive and shaved the hosts' cushion to 20-14 in a blink.
But probably the single biggest throw of the evening was a comparatively simple one: With 4:05 left in the contest, a Marcus Murphy punt return had given the Tigers the ball at midfield. On fourth-and-1 at the South Carolina 42, Mauk bootlegged left and waited for one of his edge blockers, tight end Sean Culkin, to slip behind a defender and find space near the marker. Culkin squirted free, Mauk pitched a smart, catchable lollipop where only his receiver could corral it -- a bit like a first baseman's toss back to the pitcher on a grounder up the line -- and the 3-yard gain gave the drive (and game) life again. Six plays after that, it was Hansbrough again, up the middle for another 1-yard plunge through the pile and a tie score.
It was a remarkable turn of events, given the site and stakes, made even more astounding by the fact that Mauk spent the first 53 minutes pulling the cord of a lawnmower that refused to start. A reshuffled offensive line leaked constantly, leaving the Tigers with six third-and-8-or-longers in the first half. No surprise, they converted just one -- thanks to a pass-interference penalty -- while averaging 5.0 yards per play in those circumstances, and 3.0 if you chucked out the interference call.
Compared to the Indiana debacle, the snaps were better. It was everything else in Mauk's world that went to hell in two handbaskets.
In the first quarter, a South Carolina pick at its own 1-yard-line was wiped out by a Gamecock penalty; another near pick on a stop route outside was dropped a few minutes later. After completing two of his first three tries, Mauk misfired on 14 of his next 20.
And yet a rotten egg of a stat line -- 132 passing yards, zero scores -- turned into the sweetest 12-for-34 evening on the planet. Mauk, down one of his best blockers in Anthony Gatti and two of his favorite targets in Jimmie Hunt and Darius White, somehow managed, over three hours of awful, to also be turnover-free.
The defense, meanwhile, balled and balled and bailed and bailed, keeping the Tigers within arm's reach until the engine turned over. For all its advantage in terms of possession, South Carolina averaged just 2.6 yards per first-down play in the third quarter. Defense and the run game travel well -- as long as Hansbrough and defensive ends Markus Golden and Shane Ray are upright, the Tigers will be a tough out anywhere.
Even in the Palmetto State, even with bragging rights and pole position for The Run to Atlanta on the table. The pundits, of course, will accuse South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier of taking his foot off the gas, but it was more a case of Mizzou finding the blasted pedal. And just in time.
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter at @SeanKeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.
