The heart-pounding, white-knuckle, maddening 2021 South Carolina Gamecocks evidently still have some Disney magic with them in the form of a backup quarterback.

It’s difficult to explain after Zeb Noland’s game-winning heroics. But as frustrating and mistake-filled as the Gamecocks continue to be despite it being Week 7, they may have as much magic as a storybook tale could offer. Therefore, in the end, it was Noland’s game-winning 8-play, 75-yard drive that was the difference, in just 59 seconds to slip by Vanderbilt, 21-20.

Coach Shane Beamer admitted that the Gamecocks did just about everything they could to make it an ugly game. They had 4 turnovers, botched coaching decisions and 10 penalties for 78 yards. It was arguably the worst-played game against one of the worst opponents on the schedule. And keep in mind that South Carolina faced Vanderbilt’s backup quarterback Mike Wright.

“They made some plays, but we had too many missed tackles, penalties and mental errors,” Beamer said. “… We’ve got to overcome it. It’s all the things that we work on in practice, like ball security. We’ll have to coach the good and the bad and learn from it.”

The long-winded Beamer had plenty of material to explain the issues.

“There was so much bad football out there today,” Beamer said. “From busting coverages in the 1st half on defense to giving up explosive passes, turnovers on offense, 2 holding penalties by 2 DBs on the same play, missed tackles, a couple bad snaps on some kicks, some explosive plays on offense that came back because of holding penalties. We can’t have that. We’ll look at that tomorrow and continue to get it corrected.”

Now entering Week 8, the Gamecocks seem to have a common refrain each week. In some cases, the problems get worse, or are more pronounced.

For example, the Marcus Satterfield criticism continues to mount among fans as the latest example for the offensive coordinator was not pulling Luke Doty until the closing minutes of the game despite several bad decisions. That, of course, after the woeful showing at Tennessee, including trailing 35-0 in the opening half. All that led to boos at Williams-Brice Stadium as the offensive mistakes and penalties mounted.

Noland has been recognized and honored on Twitter as Col. Zebuliah Noland, where he’s mentioned as a Civil War-era soldier and throughout the season has written “dispatches” home to his mother from the front lines of Gamecocks wins and losses. It’s a fun storyline, even somewhat of a niche offshoot of the silver screen version of Noland himself. But Noland said he enjoys the account and hopes to have T-shirts coming soon.

Sure, the storyline is fine for now, but the program needs to head in a direction where these kinds of games are not an issue. Because in some ways, this was a flip of the Tennessee game, where the team started fast, and hit on some big plays early. But then it seemed to sputter in the middle and toward the end until Noland came to the rescue.

The Gamecocks step up big in competition this week and go on the road at Texas A&M. Something tells me that the crowd at Kyle Field is not going to be in the mood for being several thousand extras for the next installment of the Colonel Zebuliah show.