Alabama grabs lead at South Carolina on miraculous DaShawn Jones pick-6
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Alabama didn’t get off to the start that it wanted to in Saturday’s SEC battle at South Carolina, with the Crimson Tide trailing the unranked Gamecocks 3-0 in the first quarter and looking for a spark.
Senior defensive back DaShawn Jones took care of that. The Wake Forest transfer who is in his 2nd season at Alabama showed his ultra-quick reflexes, catching a deflected pass by LaNorris Sellers at the South Carolina 18-yard line and streaking down the left sideline to give Alabama life and the lead at 7-3 with 5:17 left in the quarter.
Suddenly, the 4th-ranked Crimson Tide, who had spent the previous 4 weeks beating SEC ranked teams, had a lead against a struggling South Carolina team that was looking to make its season on Saturday. The pick-6 wasn’t Sellers’ fault though, as he found a seemingly wide open Rahsul Faison in the right flat for what looked like a simple completion.
But things went seriously wrong for the Gamecocks and Faison, who couldn’t handle the throw. But instead of the pass falling incomplete, it deflected up and right into the waiting hands of Jones, who took it back in stride for 18 yards in the other direction to stun the home crowd and a national TV audience on ABC.
Here is the absurd pick-6 in Columbia:
There was obviously still a ton of time left in the game, but if Alabama does go on to win, it might very well look back on Jones’ incredible pick-6 as the turning point that got the Crimson Tide going.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
