Game 29 Report – South Carolina Gamecocks

Pregame

Missouri (7-2; 3-2 SEC) at South Carolina (6-3; 4-3 SEC)
November 16th, 2024, 4:15 PM ET
William-Brice Stadium, Columbia, South Carolina
Weather – Clear, 68 degrees

Game Recap

#21 South Carolina 34 – #23 Missouri 30

It took a while for the game to get cranked up, but once it did it was one of the most exciting games that I have been a part of on the journey.

In the first quarter, Missouri started the scoring with a field goal before South Carolina went right down the field and scored to take a 7-3 lead. An additional field goal by Missouri made the score 7-6 after one.

The second quarter was pretty silent throughout. South Carolina final put some fireworks in play towards the end of the half. The Gamecocks scored two touchdowns in the final two minutes and took a strong 21-6 lead into the half.

Missouri had the only score in the third, pulling within 21-12 on a touchdown and missed two-point conversion. The Tigers also scored twice early in the fourth quarter and took a 22-21 lead. South Carolina finally answered back scoring and taking a 27-22 lead when they also missed a two-point conversion.

There was still a lot more excitement to come. Missouri drove the length of the field and scored a touchdown with 1:10 remaining and took a 30-27 lead. The Gamecocks needed a field goal to tie, but ended up making it all the way to the end zone with 15 seconds remaining to win the game 34-30.

Final: South Carolina 34 – Missouri 30

Stadium Overview

Williams-Brice Stadium is located a couple miles south of the campus near the fairgrounds in Columbia. As usual, this is always a negative to me as it makes it hard to enjoy the campus atmosphere on game day. It also means most students had to take buses to the game.

With the Gamecocks being one of the hottest teams in the country the crowd showed up though. This was definitely a sellout. And everyone was loud as well. This was definitely one of the most exciting games I have been to from an atmosphere perspective.

The stadium is a double-decker horseshoe setup. In the north end zone there was as single deck with a large video board rising above the stands. This was also where the student section was located. There were video boards located between the two tiers. Shrubs also lined up around the field on three sides.

There were several different concessions located around the stadium. Along with the normal food, there was Big Dippers Chicken, Billy G’s Carolina BBQ, and Little Caesar’s pizza. The food prices were higher here than most college stadiums I have been to recently.

Finally, there was a large park located to the west side of the stadium where they had food trucks, games, sports radio, live music, and a big screen where they showed other games. This was a festive area, especially because there were not many other places to go before the game.

Hot dog – $5.50

Souvenir Soda – $7.00

Canned Domestic Beer – $11.50

Other Sporting Event – Women’s Basketball

#1 South Carolina (3-0) – East Carolina (2-1)

The South Carolina women were coming off an undefeated National Championship season, so it was exciting to see them play in person.

The team plays at Colonial Life Arena, a large facility downtown. There were two tiers of seating with a large video board above center court and runner boards between the two tiers.

I was a little surprised there were not more people at the game. Most of the upper tier was general admission seating and it was only 10-20 percent full.

Although, the game wasn’t very competitive and most people probably knew that for a Sunday afternoon game. The defense set the tone early holding the Pirates to only 5 points in the first quarter.

From there, the Gamecocks started to turn things on. By halftime, the lead was up to 49-15. In the second half, South Carolina just put the coasters on. They continued to pull away and ended up winning the game by 51 points.

Final Score: South Carolina 95 – East Carolina 44.

Campus Overview

Just like for Texas, the South Carolina campus is also in downtown. The difference was the bulk of the campus in Columbia was it was mostly insulated from the city around it. That made it feel much more like a true college campus.

Another interesting thing about the campus was the building style. They had a colonial style to them that made them very unique. They didn’t have the boring feel that a lot of campus building sometime give.

The main part of campus was known as the horseshoe. As the name describes, it was a large green space that had a pathway along each side, and they came together at the visitor’s center. There were several people out getting their Senior pictures taken on the beautiful day.

There was also an International Festival going on near the Student Union. There were many different groups from multiple countries with food and music going with a lot of students visiting the area.

Attractions

South Carolina State Capitol

The South Carolina capitol is a beautiful building from the outside. The dome is covered in about 44,000 pounds of copper. There is capitol mall area with several monuments as well. In general, the area was very quiet, especially compared to the trip to Austin, Texas, the month before.

Unfortunately, there was massive construction going on inside of the building. This means everything above the first floor was closed to the public. The inside portion of the dome as well as the chamber areas were both inaccessible.

They still had someone giving some tours of the first floor along with giving history lessons of South Carolina and how the capitol building ended in in Columbia. The person giving the tour was actually a former local newswoman who was very famous in the state.

They also had a 15-minute video they showed to talk through the history of the building. Although we could not tour the whole building, I appreciated the history lessons they were still able to give.

South Carolina State Museum

The South Carolina State Museum was a large museum located next door to a large children’s museum. It was three floors of history to explore.

The first floor focused on the prehistoric history of the area. They spent some time focusing on the dinosaurs and other animals that called the area home. There were also exhibits to talk about the geographic history from the mountains on the west side of the state to the coastal areas on the east.

Moving on to the second floor, the focus shifted to the industries of South Carolina. There were displays around space history and the textile industry that was famous in the state due to cotton crops that grow here.

Finally, the third floor went through the actual human eras of the state. One interesting fact is how South Carolina was one of the major places of conflict in the Revolutionary War as the most Southern state. Reading about all of that history was very fascinating.

Overall, it was an interesting museum. Personally, as someone mostly interested in how the state came to be, I wish the top floor would have been the first floor to visit. It still was a very well put together museum.

Riverbanks Zoo and Garden

The Riverbanks Zoo is located near downtown Columbia. They had an aquarium, a couple of aviary buildings, and quite a few exhibits that were exciting to see.

The highlight of this zoo was probably the gorilla exhibit. There were two gorillas located right next to the viewing windows. Both of them were just laying down with there arms and legs crossed like they didn’t have a care in the world.

Overall, the zoo was kept in good condition. Compared to some other zoos in similar sized cities this one was a little bit smaller. For the cost of admission, I expected something a little bit bigger.

There is also a botanical garden that is adjacent to the zoo. Your admission fee allows you to visit both. However, I did not visit the garden as part of this trip.

Congaree National Park

I was not aware that South Carolina had a National Park, but sure enough they have one. Congaree National Park is located about twenty miles southeast of Columbia. It makes it an easy drive from the city and a great place to get out into nature and to do some hiking.

The first thing to know about this national park is that there aren’t any great mountains, waterfalls or other natural monuments that makes it a must-see park. On the other side, however, there weren’t very many people at this park which made the hiking a lot more peaceful.

The main hiking area was a wooden boardwalk that started from the visitor’s center. There was a ranger at the front along with a bulletin board to inform folks that part of the boardwalk was closed due to damage from a storm. They recommended a path to take to get in the most hiking.

The boardwalk was well maintained. Once you got to the end of the boardwalk there were two or three other paths you could take to go deeper into the forest. All of the paths were easy to track and well-marked as well.

The main part of the park was all swamp land. Because of that there were not many animals to see. However, there were a lot of different types of birds that you could here. Just stopping from time to time to listen to the birds made the hike a lot more fun as well.

Dining

Lizard’s Thicket

Lizard’s Thicket is a chain of ‘meat and three’ restaurants. Being in the South, this was the type of place that I thought would fit in with the culture of the area. Unfortunately, this was one of the more disappointing restaurants I have been to.

I’m not sure if all the restaurants would be the same, but the décor in the one I visited was very run down. There were only a couple other people in the restaurant at the time as well.

For my meal I went with the liver and onions, which was their Thursday special. It had been several years since having it so thought it would be a nice switch up. For my three sides I went with yams, green beans, and mac and cheese.

Although the décor was not great, the food was actually not bad. The serving of liver and onions was larger than I expected. I do think they undercooked the onions though, which made them a little crunchier than they should have been.

All of the sides were decent, although there was top layer of cheese on the mac and cheese that was slightly overcooked. Not enough to ruin the macaroni, but enough to scrape off the top layer and leave it untouched.

Overall, not a place I would likely go back to if I was back in the area. It is worth trying to find other Southern restaurants.

Mr. Friendly’s

On the flip side of the Southern cuisine spectrum was Mr. Friendly’s. A more upscale restaurant located just a few blocks from the South Carolina campus. When you walked in, they had art work all around the restaurant that you could go online and purchase if interested.

Here I went with the peach mustard BBQ glazed salmon. It came with a side of grits and a choice of succotash or slaw. Since, I had never tried succotash before that’s what I decided to try.

It was a good choice. I really liked the ingredients that were mixed together. The fish was also very well cooked. There were peach slices and chutney that topped it that was also a nice fit.

The only part of the meal that wasn’t great were the grits, but that is more of a personal preference. Although, if I mixed it in with the fish and succotash it made it a lot better. I think by itself the butter taste just overwhelmed.

This was easily the best restaurant that I visited in the Columbia area on my trip.

Palmetto Pig

As I was looking for barbecue places in the area the one thing that stood out was how many of the restaurants were buffet style. That was true of Palmetto Pig as well. It was a very small, family-owned, restaurant located downtown where I was parking for the game.

The main items on the buffet were fried chicken and pulled pork. There were also plenty of sides including mac and cheese, green beans, baked beans, coleslaw, and potato salad. The price also included iced tea or coffee.

All of the food was very good. My favorite side was definitely the mac and cheese. You could easily tell it was homemade. The pork was also very good and there was a selection of different barbecue sauces you could put on top.

One other interesting thing about this place was that students could use their meal points at this restaurant if they wanted to. I thought that was a neat feature for a place that was near, but not on campus. Hungry students being able to eat all they want would make it a favorite for me.

El Jimador

My first choice of Mexican restaurant to try was actually Real Mexico, a small, hole-in-the-wall, place. But, when I pulled into it, the place was swamped and there were no parking spaces to pull into. Because of that I decided to find another Mexican place to visit. After looking at places near my hotel, I decided on El Jimador, a small chain restaurant in the area.

El Jimador had a large menu to choose from. As an enchilada lover I went with the enchilada supreme. It came with four enchiladas; beef, chicken, cheese, and bean. There were two interesting things about the meal.

The first is that they topped all of the enchiladas with lettuce, tomatoes, and sour cream. This made it almost seem like a salad was placed on top. The second was it was not served with rice or beans like most of the other meals were.

The enchiladas were very good. It was nice to have a variety of fillings to try different flavors. I expected the lettuce and tomatoes on top would have taken away from the meal but it actually fit in really nicely.

Overall, although it didn’t have the same authentic Mexican atmosphere that I believe my first choice would have had, El Jimador still was a good Mexican restaurant choice.

Duke’s Pad Thai

Duke’s Pad Thai was a small Asian cuisine restaurant that was collocated with a Banh mi sandwich restaurant called Little Bee. They had a large variety of rice dishes, curries, and ramen.

It was easy to tell this was a popular place. I went near the end of the end rush but the parking lot was still full and most of the table were occupied. That is usually a sign of a good restaurant.

The dish I chose was the hot basil stir fry. It came with chicken, basil, garlic, onions, and mushrooms (I said no to the bell peppers). When the plate came, I was surprised with how big the serving was. It ended up being too much for one meal.

The flavors all worked well together. The chicken was cooked well and tasty. Between the flavors of the onions and mushrooms the dish was a good choice. The only thing that threw me off a little was there was no heat to it. After rechecking the menu, it was not classified as a spicy dish, but I had assumed because it was called ‘hot basil’ that it would have been.

Duke’s definitely had a large variety of food that would make it a favorite to anyone that enjoys Asian cuisine.