Tennessee football: 5 reasons Vols loss at Gamecocks is a moral victory
2. Two crucial missed calls and bad penalties cost Tennessee football the game.
South Carolina’s win over the Vols came down to three key penalties and two horribly missed calls. One was a missed call on a penalty. But we’ll first talk about the most blatantly missed call that cost Rocky Top the game.
Down 24-16, South Carolina drove to the Tennessee one-yard line. Rico Dowdle clearly fumbled the ball on the goal line, and the Vols clearly recovered. But the refs, in a horrible call, ruled Dowdle down and didn’t even review the play. The Gamecocks scored a TD and two-point conversion on that drive. make no mistake, that was the difference in the game. But it also came down to other costly penalties.
The first was in the first half. Jauan Jennings scored a touchdown to give his team what would become a 14-3 lead after the extra point. However, he made the dumb decision to slam the ball on Steven Montac’s chest. That resulted in an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty enforced on the kickoff, and it gave South Carolina great field position to set up their first touchdown drive.
The second penalty came in the third quarter. Tennessee and South Carolina were trading barbs, but the Vols still had control of the game up 21-16 and in the Gamecocks red zone. However, with a 3rd down play coming up, which the Vols had been flawless on all night, Marquez Callaway committed another unsporstamnlike conduct penalty. That play forced the Vols back 15 yards and made them use their third down to get a more manageable field goal instead of a touchdown.
Finally, there was a penalty that was a missed call late in the game. With the score still tied at 24, Baylen Buchanan was flagged for a horrible pass interference penalty against Shi Smith. That play set up South Carolina in Tennessee territory and allowed them to kick what would be their game-winning field goal in the fourth quarter.
It’s tough to say if those three penalties would’ve changed anything. But one of them likely would have. Meanwhile, that fumble certainly would’ve changed the game, as the Vols almost surely would’ve won was it called right. Instead, all of that went against UT, and they still managed to take this down to the wire.