How 2009 USC win over Clemson served as a springboard to program’s glory years

Looking back, more than a decade later, the first thing former South Carolina defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson remembered was the costly miscue before the storm.

His boss, Steve Spurrier, recalled a sunny day in Williams-Brice Stadium.

The most successful coach in South Carolina history was not yet that in 2009. That day — Nov. 28, 2009 — he was the coach of a 6-5 football team, one that had lost four of five after a 5-1 start.

Across the field was rival Clemson, a top-15 squad on a six-game winning streak, with a spot in the ACC title game clinched. A year prior, the Tigers had popped the Gamecocks to secure Dabo Swinney the head coaching job going forward.

The Gamecocks were not in a great way after three losses in a row, while the Tigers decidedly were. That early afternoon (the game kicked off at noon) might not have seemed like it was starting something, but the 34-17 South Carolina win that day helped spark the most successful era in program history.

But that afternoon, it was just a hard-fought ball game.

“We played well that game,” Spurrier told The State. “That was a good game for us.”

A different time

Looking back, the 2009 Gamecocks had the kind of season that might drive today’s fans to the edge. Spurrier was in Year 5. He’d assembled talent, and the defense was excellent, but the offense, his forte, had languished.

Spurrier said there wasn’t any sense of pressure going into that Clemson game riding a losing streak. Then-athletic director Eric Hyman said he believed the program was on more than stable ground.

“You could see the cupboard was filling up with talent,” Hyman said. “It was really clear cut. Even though the performance on the field may not be up to everybody’s expectations, you could see the program was really progressing.”

Still, the season had been a bit of a ride. A 7-3 season-opening win saw a quarterback (Tommy Beecher) benched after four interceptions. The late-September upset of Ole Miss is still a cherished game in program memory, and with wins against the likes of Kentucky and Vanderbilt, only No. 21 Georgia and No. 2 Alabama marred the Gamecocks’ 6-2 record.

But in those days, the back end of the schedule was always difficult. First a solid Tennessee team put up 31 points in a win, then a Bobby Petrino-led Arkansas team closed on a 23-0 run to down USC. After Florida ground out an ugly 10-point win in Columbia, the Gamecocks were staring down a possible .500 season.

“I don’t know what the attitude was,” Spurrier said. “We’d lost three in a row. We just needed to win one.”

Tight end Weslye Saunders added the team knew the importance of the Clemson game and frankly didn’t have the time to doubt themselves.

Johnson said those Gamecocks had the athletes to match up with most anyone. What they were missing were big defensive bodies up front, the sort who could deal with power offenses such as Arkansas.

“Felt like (we) had a really good plan,” Johnson said of Clemson game preparations. “Kids understood it clearly.”

It didn’t hurt that they’d played one of the best slates in the country. They were battle tested, if nothing else

Las Vegas left USC as a three-point underdog at home, and at the start, things didn’t get off well for the hosts.

A rally after first punch

Then-special teams coach Shane Beamer’s kickoff unit did its job, penning up explosive returner C.J. Spiller and setting up the defense in a good spot.

But a yellow flag flew.

“You never do that,” Johnson said, speaking of the referee. “You go tell the coach, ‘No. 33 is breaking the line a little quick, get it later or it’ll get called.’ ”

Give Spiller, one of the fastest players alive at that point, another chance, and he’d make you pay.

“We had to re-kick, and Spiller took it to the house,” Johnson said. “We hadn’t even gone on the field yet defensively, and we’re down 7-0 to the No. 15 team in the nation.”

“Somebody said, that might be a bad omen for Clemson,” Spurrier added. “We didn’t worry about it. We just kept on playing.”

The turn didn’t come quickly, as Gamecocks quarterback Stephen Garcia tossed an interception on his first drive. Then it took a turnover to snuff out a Clemson drive inside the South Carolina 25.

And then the USC offense, which had struggled much of the season, found its footing.

It took some creativity to start. Stephon GIlmore, only a freshman who was also staring on defense, carried multiple times out of the Wildcat formation. Then he reared back and uncorked a spot-on post pass to Alshon Jeffery.

“Usually when we put like a defensive back in at Wildcat, the other team plays without a free safety,” Spurrier said. “Everybody’s up there.

“We hit that one, I think they tackled him on the 2-yard line or something, but we scored right after that. So it was nice to get that one.”

A few plays later, Garcia came in, ran the option on the goal line, pitching to Brian Maddox for the score.

DeVonte Holloman, a freshman starting in the secondary beside a high school teammate in Gilmore, picked off a pass on the next possession, setting up a short field.

“Y-drag,” said Saunders, who took advantage with a short scoring catch two plays later. “That’s a very favorite play of coach Spurrier, and for me and Garcia as well. We’d eat a lot off of that play.”

From there, the lead just built. Another nice drive produced a field goal. Late in the third a defensive stand and nice punt return set up a short scoring drive, capped with a Garcia to Tori Gurley connection to make it 24-7 halfway through the third.

Power and flurry

Ellis Johnson coached for a long time, and he made a point about the nature of what can happen to a coach. If a team starts to fall behind, with the opposition running the ball and controlling the clock, a coach might move toward the pass, even if the running game is the centerpiece.

And this encapsulated the trap into which the Gamecocks pulled the Tigers.

South Carolina’s ground game had been moribund, to put it nicely, most of the season. The Gamecocks had only surpassed 130 yards as a team twice in the first 10 games (against Florida Atlantic and S.C. State). At season’s end Kenny Miles led the way with 626 yards, and Maddox was second with 307.

But that day, things came together.

“We were just more physical than them,” Maddox said. “It just clicked this game. You gotta have those big guys that are really getting a push in order to be able to do anything else.”

The Gamecocks closed out with 223 yards. Miles had 114, while Garcia and Maddox had 90 more. That was a contrast to what happened on the other side.

Johnson had warned his players to just try to prevent the big play. The Tigers boasted C.J. Spiller and Andre Ellington, both guys who could break a big one.

At day’s end, the pair had 31 yards on 13 carries.

“We’ve emphasized to our players, don’t worry about stopping them for no gain,” Johnson said. “It’s not going to happen very often. ... We worked really hard to try to disrupt the run in the backfield, get them to slow down or change directions and then make sure our DBs got good angles on coming up through the box.”

The Gamecocks had a young defense, one stocked with a range of future stars. And they delivered. As the lead grew, the Tigers went more to the pass, finishing with 42 throws and only 212 yards.

Part of that was a few special plans the staff had for Clemson QB Kyle Parker.

“He only scrambled to his right,” defensive line coach Brad Lawing said. “He hated going to his left. We made him go to his left.”

They’d run a twist to flush the 6-foot Parker to his right, then have 6-foot-8 Clifton Geathers in his face. Johnson also deployed a two-man rush that bounced around Clemson’s center and could get some pressure while dropping nine.

In truth, the defense only gave up 10 points, seven with 3:46 to go, to make it a 10-point game. The Gamecocks’ offense, which spent much of the final quarter hammering away, got an easy capper.

Jeffery caught an onside kick and nearly housed it. On fourth and goal, the Old Ball Coach let them sling it once more. Saunders slipped into the back of the end zone, open as can be.

Minutes later, a 34-17 win secured, Moe Brown and Garrett Anderson chased Spurrier down with the water bucket.

The run to come

To this day, there’s not perfect unity on exactly what the 2009 win over Clemson meant.

The Gamecocks suffered a bowl loss that still stings most USC fans — “We stunk up the Birmingham Bowl,” as Spurrier put it — but Johnson noted the staff had already started to control the state in recruiting. Both Spurrier and Hyman were never ones to put too much weight on that one game, but each admitted it helped start a little something, as Hyman called it a “catalyst.”

The players, they felt the tailwinds starting to build.

“Looking at the history of us going to the SEC championship the next year, it was a very epic win for us,” Saunders said. “Because we didn’t go to a big bowl game and we didn’t play that well in our bowl, a lot of people don’t look at the season as ‘a success’ but for us internally, we could definitely feel what was about to take place.”

It was the kind of game that builds the mood around a program, helps lock in that recruiting advantage.

Coming into that November day in 2009, the Tigers had won 10 of the previous 12 in the series. They’d not beat the Tigers in Williams-Brice in eight years.

Then came the magical run: Marcus Lattimore ... Jadeveon Clowney tormenting Tajh Boyd ... D.J. Swearinger belting folks ... and then Spurrier throwing shade. Five in a row as part of 42 wins in four years.

“Those five in a row, we seemed to play well against Clemson,” Spurrier said. “They had a lot of turnovers, mental errors here and there, whatever, dropped punt. And we seemed to play with very few mistakes. ... It was fun beating those guys.”

And the first came when a humble team on a losing streak caught a division champion, on a sunny day in Williams-Brice.

“It was almost like a sense of excitement,” Saunders said. “People could feel the program shifting in a positive direction

“We felt very confident going into that game, even though we were underdogs.”