South Carolina is officially bowl eligible after a bounce-back 38-27 win over Vanderbilt Saturday evening. Ultimately, Vanderbilt’s defense was no match for Spencer Rattler and the Gamecocks offense in Week 10, just the opposite from South Carolina’s loss in the battle for the Mayor’s Cup last week.

The Gamecocks just had better athletes on the field. That was apparent with all 4 of South Carolina’s touchdowns in the first half. When the offense did slow down a touch heading out of the halftime break, there was enough of a cushion to still take home win No. 6

Each were incredible in their own right, but most could be whittled down to a South Carolina player just being better than anyone on the field. Take Juice Wells’ 68-yard touchdown reception in the first half as an example.

Wells was South Carolina’s leading receiver on the day, amassing 4 receptions for 110 yards and 2 touchdowns. His 2nd touchdown increased South Carolina’s lead to 17 entering the 4th quarter.

The entirety of South Carolina’s receiver corps was doing work Saturday evening, making Spencer Rattler look like the player everyone thought he would be upon leaving Oklahoma. Rattler threw for 186 yards, 3 touchdowns and 0 interceptions on just under 75% completion percentage.

And while Rattler got it done through the air, Christopher Beal-Smith got it done on the ground. Right when it looked like Vanderbilt was maybe going to make things interesting to start the 2nd quarter, Beal Smith made a house call.

He practically walked into the end zone.

Beal-Smith missed a couple games earlier in the season due to injury and has been slowly working his way back to 100%. he looked pretty good on that run. He finished the night with 55 yards on the ground for 1 touchdown. The rest of South Carolina’s unit added up to total over 200 yards rushing on the evening.

For all the prowess of South Carolina’s offense Saturday – that feels weird to say, by the way – its defense was less than ideal. Vanderbilt, without starting QB A.J. Swann for most of the 2nd half, was able to do way too much way too easily.

Vanderbilt finished the game with 452 total yards, but did turn the ball over 4 times which ended up representing the difference on the scoreboard. South Carolina turned the ball over just once, though 9 penalties did turn into 81 negative yards. Vanderbilt had a chance to crawl back into it late but fumbled their chances away and into the arms of Zacch Pickens

The Commodores were able to rush for whatever they wanted, adding concern to South Carolina’s run defense against 3 solid rushing teams to finish the year. Vanderbilt’s Ray Davis looked incredible Saturday, rushing for 167 of the Commodores’ 227 rushing yards on the evening.

And the Gamecocks have some tough games remaining on the schedule. Florida awaits Shane Beamer and company next week before a rough top 10 stretch against Tennessee and Clemson to finish out Beamer’s 2nd year in Columbia.