Gamecocks failed to milk the clock

South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier was planning on his team kicking a field goal on its second-to-last possession of the fourth quarter Saturday. He just wanted to kill more time before the kick.

"I was trying to milk the clock," he said during his teleconference Sunday," "It just didn't work out."

The Gamecocks began their last drive with 3:18 to play. With 1:24 to play, Ryan Succop kicked a 49-yard field goal to give South Carolina a 24-21 lead.

But Tennessee still had enough time to tie the game on Daniel Lincoln's 48-yard field goal with five seconds to go. The Vols won 27-24 in overtime on another Lincoln field goal.

Spurrier had hoped to kick the fourth-quarter field goal with about 25 seconds to play.

"Cory (Boyd) had an off-tackle play and runs out of bounds," Spurrier said. "We wished he had landed in bounds."

The Gamecocks missed another opportunity to run down the clock when quarterback Blake Mitchell threw an incompletion on a short pass to Kenny McKinley on third down before the field goal.

South Carolina ran out of bounds three times on the drive.

Spurrier also second-guessed his team's strategy on the following kickoff.

"We probably should have line-drived that last one," he said.

LaMarcus Coker reversed his field and ran all the way across the field to gain 37 yards on the last kickoff return. That gave the Vols a first down on their own 47-yard line. They then drove to the South Carolina 26 to set up their game-tying field goal.

"We try to kick away from their best return guy," Spurrier said. "We had (Coker) bottled up around the 30, but he got out to near the 50."