Carolina corrals Sooners

CAROLINA FOOTBALL This was a rout to release the demons. The garlic and sage for a struggling football team. The formula to kill all the bad juju.

Nick Emmanwori picks off Oklahoma quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. on the first play of the game. Adios to the LSU loss.



Demetrius Knight forces a fumble and 288-pound Tonka Hemingway scoops it up, rumbling to a 36-yard score. Forget about the Ole Miss blowout. Emmanwori picks off Hawkins again, running the interception back 65 yards for a touchdown.

Who can even remember the Alabama game? "That was our whole emphasis this whole week in practice," Emmanwori said. "Win the turnover battle." Just over five minutes into what became a 35-9 Gamecocks victory, South Carolina could breathe.

Coach Shane Beamer, returning to the place he coached for three years, could let his shoulders drop. The Gamecocks (4-3, 2-3 SEC) were the better team in the way a Lamborghini is nicer than a station wagon. "We can go toe to toe with any team in this country," Beamer said afterward.

Saturday's game in Norman kicked off at 11:45 a.m. local time.

By 12:02, the game was in the bag. Yes, it's silly to declare a game over after just five minutes — especially in this insane sport — but Saturday was that one-sided that fast. There were still nearly 10 minutes left in the first quarter .

.. and the Gamecocks had 21 points.

They had three turnovers. They had Sooners fans thinking about their afternoon plans. Saturday lived up to the billing of a defensive slugfest, but most didn't consider one of the defenses could score enough points by themselves to win outright.

That one defense could be so dominant that it didn't need to even concern itself with how its offense played. "We gave out some game balls in there and I apologized to the defensive guys I didn't give a game ball to," Beamer said. "Just effort.

Those guys were hunting today defensively." The Gamecocks had 13 tackles for loss and nine sacks — the most ever given up by Oklahoma and the most by South Carolina since it joined the SEC. The best part: All nine were by a different person.

"We knew we had to play harder than they did," Beamer said. "I never have to motivate our guys, but it was certainly a key this week that we had to strain to make plays today." At halftime, after quarterback LaNorris Sellers hit tight Joshua Simon on a long touchdown, South Carolina was up 29 points.

Walking to the locker room, Beamer was asked by SEC Network's Alyssa Lang if he was going to tell his guys it's 0-0, that it's all about what they do in the second half. Not exactly. "It ain't 0-0," Beamer said on the broadcast.

"We're dominating this game and we expect to dominate the second half." Last week after the loss to Alabama, the Gamecocks head coach stood up, deflated, trying to toe the balance of not wanting to celebrate a loss and telling folks that his team was close. Close to turning a corner.

Close to winning close games. The Gamecocks, Beamer said, were knocking at the door and when they opened it, they were going to bulldoze through it. Was Saturday the day the door was ran through? Time will tell.

Beating Oklahoma (4-3, 2-2), the worst-offensive team in the SEC is not quite the same as beating No. 7 Alabama, but it is progress. And it also perhaps furthered the case that South Carolina has one of, if not, the best defensive lines in the country.

The Gamecocks, rotating through seemingly everyone in the D-line room, racked up nine sacks and had another four tackles for loss. They were like grenades. It wasn't a question of if they were going to blow up a play, but just how much carnage there would be.

"We were actually having fun today," Hemingway said. Their domination lifted any pressure off the Gamecocks offense, which was not unbelievable, but it did not need to be unbelievable. Sellers completed 16 of 24 passes for 175 yards.

The rushing attack yield just 74 yards. And Sellers was sacked a half-dozen times. But, most importantly, the Gamecocks did not have a single turnover.

"Coming into that game, that was huge," Beamer said. "Whoever won the turnover battle, in my opinion, was going to win the football game." He was correct.

And while it's easy to nitpick the offensive inefficiencies, it's hard not to think about all the times Beamer talks about complimentary football. If one side of the ball struggles, the other side has to pick it up — or just score two touchdowns. Get local news delivered to your inbox!.