'Better' Vanderbilt falls to South Carolina
Coach Derek Mason's first Southeastern Conference win still remains out of reach.
Vanderbilt fell 48-34 to No. 14 South Carolina on Saturday night to cap the Commodores' season-opening four-game homestand.
Vanderbilt (1-3, 0-2 SEC) again lost its starting quarterback, Patton Robinette, and found a game-breaker in Darrius Sims, who became the first player in program history to record two kickoff return touchdowns in the same game.
"Our football team is getting better," Mason said. "There is fight in this football team. We just have to continue to work a little harder to be a little better. We'll take a look at the film (Sunday) and criticize the things that need to be criticized and fix the things that need to be fixed. But for the most part, our kids got better tonight all the way around."
Robinette, a sophomore, left with an unspecified injury late in the first quarter with Vanderbilt leading 14-0 and did not return. He completed four of five passes for 55 yards and a touchdown. Mason said he was uncertain about Robinette's status for Saturday's game at Kentucky.
"I don't know that right now. I need to make sure I have a chance to check with our people," Mason said.
Freshman Wade Freebeck, who already was slotted to play in some capacity, replaced him. Robinette had been pulled from the season opener after suffering an injury, Mason said, and he returned in relief to lead Vanderbilt to a win over UMass a week ago.
Freebeck completed 11 of 20 passes for 168 yards, a touchdown and an interception.
Vanderbilt's Vince Taylor recovered a fumble deep in South Carolina territory with seven minutes left, and Tommy Openshaw hit a 25-yard field goal to cut the deficit to 34-27.
But Pharoh Cooper, operating out of the Wildcat, picked up 70 yards to the Vanderbilt 1 on South Carolina's next possession. Quarterback Dylan Thompson scored on the next play.
Thompson completed 22 of 34 passes for 237 yards and three touchdowns.
Vanderbilt fumbled the kickoff, and South Carolina (3-1, 2-1) recovered to seal the outcome.
Sims returned the opening kickoff 91 yards for a score in front of a crowd of 34,441, and he ran back another 100 yards for a score in the third quarter. The latter tied the record for the longest in Vanderbilt history.
On his first return, Sims broke through the initial coverage, side-stepped to the right and went virtually untouched to the end zone to put Vanderbilt ahead 7-0 just 11 seconds into the game.
"There was no doubt about it. It was a momentum changer," said Sims, who became the 18th player in Football Bowl Subdivision history to record two kick return touchdowns in a game.
Vanderbilt's defense held firm early on, and Robinette and running back Ralph Webb led the offense on an eight-play, 60-yard TD drive late in the first quarter. Robinette was 2-for-2 passing for 37 yards on the drive, including an 8-yard scoring toss to C.J. Duncan, the first touchdown of the redshirt freshman's career. It put the Commodores ahead 14-0 after not previously scoring in the first quarter this season.
South Carolina rallied with 24 unanswered points, beginning with scoring drives of 50 and 79 yards. But the dagger came when Brison Williams stepped in front of a Freebeck pass along the sideline right before halftime and returned it 53 yards for a touchdown. It turned Vanderbilt's long-held lead into a 17-14 halftime deficit.
"(Freebeck) just stared at it," Mason said. "He did what young quarterbacks do some times. If you give a young DB an opportunity to break, that's what is going to happen. But that's OK because he learned from it and didn't do it again."
South Carolina stretched its lead to 24-14 with an 11-play, 75-yard drive, capped by Thompson's 29-yard touchdown pass to Shaq Roland. But Sims answered with his 100-yard touchdown return, again to the right side, to trim the Gamecocks' advantage to 24-21 with 9:45 remaining in the third quarter.
The teams traded field goals to finish the third quarter. Vanderbilt drove from its own 5 to South Carolina's 2, where it faced fourth-and-goal. But the Commodores opted for a chip shot field goal by Openshaw to cut the Gamecocks' lead to 27-24 rather than try for a go-ahead touchdown.
South Carolina countered with a 10-play, 69-yard drive to keep the Commodores at bay. Thompson hit Nick Jones for an 8-yard scoring strike to extend the Gamecocks' gap to 34-24 with 10:34 remaining.
Reach Adam Sparks at 615-259-8010 and on Twitter @AdamSparks.