By james art 
Marcel Reed earned the start for the Aggies (7-2, 5-1 SEC) and finished the night 18 of 28 passing for 206 yards and one touchdown. The redshirt freshman also added 46 yards on the ground on 16 attempts. Running back Amari Daniels led the Maroon & White with 83 yards on 13 carries to go along with one score. Among the Aggie receivers, Jabre Barber registered a team-best 80 yards with seven catches and one touchdown.
Linebacker Taurus York collected a team-high eight tackles, five of them solo, while Dalton Brooks, Marcus Ratcliffe and Shemar Stewart each followed by five.
A quick start by the Gamecocks (5-3, 3-3 SEC) saw the Aggies face an early 14-0 deficit with 8:24 left in the opening quarter. Texas A&M was able to slow South Carolina’s momentum behind the leg of Randy Bondwho kicked a 52-yard field goal with 5:15 left in the period. The Maroon & White’s defense provided a spark in the final minute of the first ace Will Lee III forced to touch that BJ Mays managed to recover.
The Aggies capitalized on the turnover in the second quarter when Bond connected on a career-long 55-yard field goal attempt with 13:12 left in the half, cutting the deficit to 14-6. After a 25-yard field goal by South Carolina, Amari Daniels found a hole down the right side and broke free for a season-long 56-yard touchdown run to pull the Maroon & White within four, 17-13, with 7:29 remaining. The Aggies later took the lead when Reed found Barber for a 2-yard touchdown after a fourth-down stop by the Texas A&M defense. Bond’s extra point gave the Maroon & White a 20-17 advantage with 1:08 showing on the clock.
The two teams entered the halftime break tied 20-20 when the Gamecocks drove a 44-yard field goal through the uprights in the final seconds of the quarter.
Texas A&M gave up an early touchdown after the break and had no answer for the Gamecocks, who were able to pull away in the third quarter and score a pair of touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
The Aggies are off next week before hosting New Mexico State on Senior Day on Nov. 16.
Team notes
- Texas A&M has forced a turnover in seven of its last eight games after falling short against South Carolina.
- Maroon and White scored for the third time this season in a 50+ yard game.
- For the first time since the 2015 season, the Aggies connected on multiple field goals of over 50 yards in a game.
Individual notes
- Junior RB Amari Daniels broke off on a 56-yard touchdown run for his sixth score of the season.
- Senior WR Jabre Barber led the receiving corps for the second time in three games by catching a season-best seven passes for 80 yards and his first touchdown as an Aggie.
- Freshman QB Marcel Reed threw for a season-best 206 yards, completing 18 of his 28 passes.
- Sophomore LB Taurus York led the defense for the fifth time this season with eight tackles.
- Junior DL Shemar Stewart tied a career high with five takedowns and added a career-best two breakups.
- Sophomore DB Marcus Ratcliffe posted a season-best five tackles for the third time this year.
- Graduate K Randy Bond connected on his first 50-plus-yard field goal of the season, first sending a 52-yard field goal through the uprights in the first quarter and later registering a career-high with a 55-yard field goal in the second quarter.
- Bond made eight field goals of 50 or more yards in his career and became the first A&M player to connect two 50-yard field goals in a game since Taylor Bertolle (2012-15) made 54- and 52-yarders against Alabama in 2015
- Bond’s eight points in the game pushed his career total to 270 to tie him for seventh all-time with Rodney Thomas (1991-94) and Darren Lewis (1987-90) on A&M’s all-time scoring list.
Hats off to South Carolina. They beat us. Beat us at the line of scrimmage, on both sides of the ball. He controlled the game. Forced turnovers. I couldn’t control the ball. He couldn’t tackle, he couldn’t control the quarterback. So, you know, we didn’t do any of the things you have to do to win a football game. And that’s why we lost. We have to get better. We need to fix them. And we must never play like that again.
How frustrated were you with the fights and what do you think you guys weren’t doing or what they were doing well that led to so many of those lost fights?
Obviously, I don’t want to sit here and say it’s all of us, do I? Because you have to give them their due. I’m not going to be the coach that sits here and doesn’t give them any respect. They have a big quarterback. He weighs 240 pounds. They got a big push back. He weighs 230 pounds. And you know, we didn’t bring our legs. We didn’t handle it the way you have to handle big backs. They are big, powerful kids. And if you want to deal with big, powerful kids, you have to put your body through the wrestle. And we didn’t tonight.
On fourth downs, when you decided to pick them up in your end of the field, was that possibly a byproduct of maybe not having enough confidence in your defense to get a stop?
No. I mean, it was the fourth and a half yards, both that we picked up. And we will. I mean, it’s something we’re going to do. We haven’t been in this situation before, but, you know, we should be able to get half a yard.
Do you feel like the penalties are the parts of the season that you all skated through and today they came back to bite you?
For sure. Yes, I told them, in several areas. I think the struggles that are missed grow and grow and you know sometimes the hardest thing to do is to learn in victory because it gets covered up and masked. So I think some of the things that were behind the scenes that we were playing through and winning certainly came out tonight in a really bad way. And that’s up to me. That’s my job as a coach is to get them to understand that to the level they need to understand and fix it. I didn’t either. And that’s up to me.
After the way it started, did you feel like you got a little bit of control and some momentum going into the half?
I don’t know if I ever thought we were in control. I thought we should have gone into the dressing room with the lead. The two penalties on the two-minute drive, you know, we just gave them the three points to tie the game. To some extent, this gave them back their momentum. We had stormed back. We were in the lead. I thought we did a really good job of running the clock at the end of the first half and giving them very little time to get on the field. And, you know, we gave them what, 25 or 30 yard penalties on that drive? And we just gifted them a field goal. But apparently with 20-20 hindsight you still felt you had a chance. And then we fumble a run and on fourth and one, they break it off for a long touchdown. It’s a killer. And then we don’t get the fourth and a half yard and we can come out and hold them to a field goal, but that’s a killer. And then I still think at this point we’re still struggling. Then we just get to a point where we play more of an all-around defense to try to stop them moving the ball and they shoot long and put the game away.
Overall, what do you think of Marcel’s performance?
Definitely up and down. We are not made to play such a game. We can’t fall behind like that in the second half. Once it got to that point and we weren’t able to play the game that we’re better at, I think that really hurt us. But then again, he’s still a little kid. He is learning. It’s getting better. He obviously needs to be a little more careful with the football. The first down interception, that was obviously huge momentum. I think we were down 10 at that point. He has to learn. But it’s certainly not on him. There are many other things, starting with me, that caused us to lose this football game.
Does Marcel the starter move on?
Now he’s the starter and we’ll see where we go.
How is it Le’Veon Moss was he doing and how much does it hurt that he was gone?
Le’Veon is a great running back and not having him was tough. We’ll see. I don’t think it looks really good right now, but I don’t think it looks maybe as bad as it might look on the field. Hopefully it’s not one of those awful ones, but I think he’ll be out for a while.
Mike, is there any chance that you guys, after the win last week and all the praise and everything they’ve gotten in the last week, have lost focus?
no
Do you feel like everything is still on the table for what you want to do to make this season a success?
It feels that way because it is. We are tied for first. We still control our own destiny until Atlanta. We still control our own destiny until the playoffs. So yes, it feels like that. Because it is.
You were close to Sellers a few times, what did he do to escape?
Yeah, it felt like we came close to taking it a few times. And I think we didn’t get it. That’s why I’m laughing. He’s a big kid. And obviously I did a poor job of getting our kids to understand how you’re supposed to wrestle a 240-pound kid. We kept trying to get high around it. And he’s too strong for that.