South Carolina Gamecocks Rally to Secure Position for SEC Title

By Tyler Brett

November 16, 2013

shaq roland — Jeff Blake – USA TODAY Sports

Heading into Saturday, the South Carolina Gamecocks were on the short end of several of the tie-breakers for the SEC East title and a spot in the SEC title game at season’s end. They needed plenty of help to get to where they wanted to be but all they could do was focus on the games ahead of them and take care of business against the Florida Gators. After accomplishing that, and getting help from the Georgia Bulldogs, the Gamecocks are in prime position to sneak into the title game.

Coming into their game against Florida, South Carolina was stuck in second place in the division, one game back of the Missouri Tigers in a tie with Georgia. The Gamecocks were out of luck in tie-breakers head-to-head with Georgia and in the event of a three-way tie at the end of the season with both Missouri and Georgia. After Georgia lost a heartbreaker in the final minute against the Auburn Tigers, South Carolina just needed a win to stand alone in second place in the division race.

After going into half trailing 14-6, however, it didn’t look great for the Gamecocks. But South Carolina came out in the second half and tightened down on the Gators defensively while getting their offense a bit more on track to score 13-unanswered second half points to win 19-14. They now remain one loss back of Missouri and only need the Tigers to slip up in one of their last two games for SC to tie Mizzou in the conference standings and go to the SEC title game by virtue of their head-to-head tie-breaker.

The Gamecocks have now done all they can to get to the conference title game and will have to sit back and wait to see if their ticket gets punched to the SEC title game. Will SC get the breaks they need down the stretch?

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