-[sirens wailing] -[anticipatory music playing]
[crowd cheering]
[man 1] If you play in this league…
every Saturday…
you will walk into the fire.
Can our talent,
can our love for each other, withstand the heat?
[tiger growls]
-Game day! -[team] Yeah!
[man 1] Or will it burn up?
[thrilling music playing]
-[whistle blowing] -[crowd cheering]
[man 2] The SEC is the greatest place in the world to play college football.
Let's go!
[man 3] This is where the best players are,
the best coaches are.
Settle in and do your job!
[man 3] The biggest stadiums, the most rabid fans.
[screaming]
[man 4] This isn't just football.
This is religion, this is the fabric of society.
It's my honor to present the national championship trophy.
It's the SEC teams who are winning the national championships.
And that's how it's been for a very long time.
[man 5] Third downs in the SEC,
that shit is different.
-[crowd exclaiming] -[whistle blows]
Twelve Saturdays, all eyes are on you as the head coach.
[man 6] I have my life, mortgage,
and everything associated with 18- to 21-year-olds. What am I doing?
-[man 7] Don't know how to tie a tie? -[man 8] I know how to.
-Cut, cut! -[all laughing]
[man 9] It's a brotherhood here.
Every kid in this state grew up dreaming of playing for one of the universities.
[man 10] Fans expect a five-star recruit to come in right away and win games,
and, you know, I feel like that's unfair.
When Shane and I got married, he said, "It's not if we get fired, but when."
[commentator 1] And Mertz shaken up.
[man 11] There was an initial, "This can't be real."
-Love you. -Love you too, Mom.
[man 12] You can't affect the game on the field no more.
So what can you do?
If we together, we gonna get this done!
[man 4] 2024 is a massive year of change.
[players shouting]
[woman] We've got 12 teams in the playoff. There's more pressure than ever.
Go out there and take what's yours.
[man 4] You don't have room for mistakes.
You're supposed to gut their team!
[man 13] Job's on the line every Saturday.
[man 14] It's been a hell of a hard year. We all know that.
[commentator 2] Arkansas wins!
[woman] But one huge win can change your life.
It's what you in the SEC for!
Hell yeah!
[man 6] We can beat anybody in the country.
Don't ever forget what defines you.
-"Family" on three. -[team] Family!
This is the dream right here.
[man 15] It's literally any given Saturday in the SEC.
[music fades out]
-[upbeat music playing] -[birds chirping]
♪ Hey! ♪
-♪ Hey! ♪ -[music stops]
[indistinct chattering]
-[player 1] Gotta go! -[player 2] Line up, line up.
[player 3] Got the opening there.
[coach] Bring that defense in! Back!
[whistle blows]
We can't-- we can't fucking go half-speed.
I want it to be that when you walk in this building,
you have a sense of what to expect on a day-to-day basis.
The standards.
People use the word "culture."
You have to cast a vision for what you're wanting to accomplish.
Let's go, let's go, let's go! On the hop!
Move, move!
-[whistle blowing] -Bring it up! Bring it up! Bring it up!
And our vision is to win championships.
Get over here!
Bring it up!
And that means you gotta play with the right attitude.
Listen to me, man. I'm gonna say it one more fucking time.
If you wanna come out here and go half-speed, go ahead.
I'm going fucking in!
Is that clear?
If you guys wanna go half-speed, let me know now.
You're wasting my time.
Get your asses going!
I don't like the snaps. Finish the snap.
You can't just say,
"Oh, it's okay not to be focused this play."
"It's okay to cut corners."
Eyes up! Eyes up!
It's not okay.
Here we go! Gotta get it in! Turn it up! Turn it up!
Week in and week out, in the SEC, it's on.
You never can get by with your B game. You're gonna get beat.
Let's score! Let's score!
Our players, they know who I am, and they know that coach is hard on them…
That's an inside!
…every single day.
Get your ass going!
Somebody's gotta be hard on them.
[indistinct chattering]
[man 1] How y'all doing?
-I might have some. Want me to check? -[man 2] Please.
[Brian] Tequila can get you in trouble during the season.
I'll wait 'til after the season.
[all laughing]
Let me find him some tonic water. It's not for me.
It's got a twist of lime in it. Is that okay?
-It's perfect. -Beautiful.
-You look like a twist-of-lime guy. -Yeah, I'm a twisted-lime guy.
[Brian] You're a twisted-lime guy.
I grew up in Chelsea, Massachusetts,
just outside of Boston.
Irish Catholic. One of four.
[Paul] There's a lot of good quarterbacks in the SEC now.
-There are. -Boy, oh boy.
My dad worked as a manager at a local oil company,
and he was also in politics.
Growing up, my dad was demanding on all of us.
Pinot?
That's been the foundation of who I am for 35 years as a coach.
I'm demanding on all of our players.
-[man 3] A lot of good teams in the SEC. -Top to bottom, it's crazy.
-Every weekend. -Ole Miss could win it all.
Yeah. Thanks for reminding me.
[all laughing]
[upbeat music playing]
[tiger growling]
[Brian] I was offered an opportunity here at LSU
to take on a program that had fallen on hard times.
[man 4] LSU is one of those big-time programs in the SEC
that's expected to win year in and year out.
[Brian] SEC champions!
Ten-and-three seasons don't cut it there.
[announcer] The national championship trophy
for the LSU Tigers.
[woman] Ed Orgeron wins the national championship.
Fired two years later.
I think it speaks volumes about what LSU is as a program,
and what the expectation is.
-Pleasure to meet you. -Welcome to Baton Rouge.
So the school hired Brian Kelly, a hard-driving coach.
[commentator] Not sure Brian agrees with the call.
[man 5] Brian Kelly's reputation
is he's one of the best coaches in college football,
but he's never won a national championship.
[crowd cheering]
[Andy] In his first two seasons, you saw the promise.
Brian Kelly built one of the best offenses in college football.
[commentator] Daniels looking for the end zone!
[crowd cheering]
[Andy] In 2023, you have Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels
throwing to first-round draft pick Brian Thomas,
throwing to first-round draft pick Malik Nabers.
But the defense
was one of the worst defenses you have ever seen.
[man 6] They were outscoring everybody,
but the problem was everybody was outscoring their defense.
Their defense was the worst in the conference,
lacking in physicality and toughness.
They couldn't make the critical stops late in the game.
[Andy] So you move into 2024,
where the expectations are
the defense has got to be a whole hell of a lot better.
[train horn blows]
[reporter 1] The dawn of a new season has arrived.
It's week one of college football in the SEC.
[reporter 2] LSU is jumping right into the fire with Southern Cal.
This game will be in Las Vegas,
so certainly an interesting game,
and a tough game to start the, uh, the season off.
[intriguing music playing]
[Brian] You guys want to talk about playing well.
This is where you do it.
You don't just come out here and run around,
and think it's gonna happen on Saturdays.
You've got to finish it off the right way today.
Everybody's locked in.
There's an attention to detail, being thoughtful--
Listen to me!
Today is that day.
-[exciting music playing] -[players shouting indistinctly]
[Brian] Last year, our defense, in the second half,
we couldn't make any plays when we needed to late in the game.
Fast and efficient today.
If you don't know what you're doing, ask questions.
And so this year, we are going to put in a whole new defensive mindset.
They've gotta have an attention to detail.
They've gotta have grit to make the plays necessary down the stretch.
[players grunting]
[player] Right there!
-[Brian] No, no, no, no, no. -[whistle blows]
No, no. That is not fucking sifting.
This year, Coach Kelly, you know that you gotta lock in,
'cause if you mess up, I mean, he is gonna rip into you like no other.
So you gotta stay on point, for sure.
[Brian] We gotta go. We gotta go.
[player] Yes! Go, go!
[players shouting]
[whistle blowing]
-How can we mess this up? -[player] Run it again!
[Brian] Are we-- Hold up, hold up!
Are we talking to each other? Stop!
Are we talking to each other? What did you say to him?
You have to talk to each other.
Come on, men. Let's go.
[Whit] I'm not the biggest, the fastest, the strongest,
but I know that I'm a guy that's gonna give you 110% effort
no matter what.
Whit Weeks, Louisiana State University, play linebacker, number 40.
My dad played at Georgia.
He was my football coach every year besides my eighth-grade year,
and he'd always hold me and my brothers to the highest standard.
There was one game I can remember, I, like, wasn't hustling.
In the middle of January, so it's cold outside,
I get home after the game, he says, "Get out the truck, start running laps."
And I just had to run laps around the house.
It felt like I was running laps forever. Ever since that day, I've been hustling.
[coach] Here we go. Set, go.
-Good. Good eye. -[Whit] Arm over.
I've got Whit right here.
Remember, I wanna try to break my fucking rib.
I wanna get down and away.
[Whit] This is my sophomore season.
I wanna be one of the best linebackers in the country.
[commentator] Whit Weeks.
Up the middle. Ankle tackle.
And he's brought down.
[Whit] The responsibilities of a linebacker,
I'd say we're the quarterbacks of the defense.
We're making all the calls, setting the front.
It really comes down to us
putting the defense in positions to make tackles.
That's better! Keep going!
[Whit] Last year, the defense, we played a pretty embarrassing fashion.
We let quarterbacks run all over us.
This year, I think the biggest difference will be to let Whit turn it loose.
His drive, his grit, his leadership.
Let's go. Come on. Get in here.
Grab a knee. Grab a knee. Grab a knee.
Defensively, doing the little things the right way.
We call something, it's gotta be run.
We gotta execute it.
If you do those things extraordinarily well,
this is a football team that wins every single weekend.
Let's lock in any of the mistakes that we had today.
Let's get them cleaned up.
Everybody good with that? Good job today. Good work ethic. Get a break.
-[player] "Family" on one! One! -[team] Family!
[whistle blowing]
All of that preparation now has to be flipped to performance.
And it's on them.
That's where it gets nerve-wracking.
All right, it's out of your hands.
When you're like, "Uh… Okay. Here we go, 18- to 21-year-olds."
And I have my life, mortgage, and everything associated with these guys?
All right, what am I doing? What am I, crazy?
-[man 1] Turn left. -[motor rumbling]
[man 2] Yeah, turn.
Take, like-- Just go out and then take a right on the dirt road.
Go straight, you'll see another dirt road. Take a left on that dirt road.
-[Whit] Hold on. -[man 2] We got a World War II vehicle.
It's got a few bullet holes in the side.
[Whit] In high school, playing with my older brother,
that was one of the most fun, if not the most fun,
I've ever had playing football.
Then once LSU did offer me,
I knew that opportunity's too good to pass up playing with West.
Trying to think of when the last time that we, uh, came out here was.
I remember it was freezing cold, so it was probably last winter.
Whit is two years younger than me, so my junior year was his freshman year.
[country guitar music playing]
Playing with your brother is not something a lot of people get to experience.
[Whit] Here, West, you got that.
-There he goes. -[West] There it comes.
-[bird squawking] -[rifle fires]
Nice.
Whit, he didn't really play that much his freshman year.
This year, he's due for a breakout season.
And that's gonna lead to wins each and every week.
We still got that live one that way, and I think the other one went this way.
There was only one this way, two that way.
With West, this is the last year we'll get to play together.
So we don't wanna go out losers. We wanna go out winners.
-[rifle fires] -Bang!
-[wings flapping] -[rifle fires]
Hey, what are we, five for five?
-[West] I haven't missed a shot yet. -[Whit] Me neither.
[wings flapping]
[Whit laughs]
How crazy would that have been?
[all laughing]
[West] Playing USC this week, the first game,
I'm making it kinda personal for me that way.
I'm like, I'm not gonna let these West Coast dudes
come in here and push us around.
We're from the South. We play real football.
That would've been crazy if I'd caught that one.
[Whit] I know.
This week, we are prepared, we're ready.
[rifle fires]
-[West] Missed. -[Whit laughs]
Shit.
[David] Pretty bad shooting.
-[West] That was quite embarrassing. -Yeah, that was, that was.
Yeah, if you don't practice it, it goes away.
[West] So what do we got now?
-[man 3] That's seven. -[all] Seven?
-[David] We got three, I think. -No.
[David] Did you pick up any of our deads?
You're boosting-- You're inflating your, uh, your score right there.
[David] I've been watching them all these years.
Dad just sits back, and now gotten very rusty.
-We need to line them up, get a picture. -[Whit] That's a pretty good day there.
[exciting music playing]
[Alyssa] It's week one,
and if you're LSU, you wanna show the country pretty early
that you're going to be a college football playoff team.
They'd like nothing better than to start with a win against Southern Cal.
[shouting]
This is a fan base that is thirsty to get back to the mountaintop,
and there's just an immeasurable amount of pressure on Brian Kelly.
Going into this game, the question will be,
has he improved this defense, that was so terrible, from a year ago?
[commentator 1] Fourth quarter here in Las Vegas.
Four-point lead for the Bayou Bengals.
[coach] Fourth quarter, finish strong!
Finish strong! Fourth quarter, let's go!
-[crowd chanting] LS Who?! LS Who?! -Hey! LS Who?! LS Who?!
[suspenseful music playing]
[commentator 2] Marks gonna get the carry. Got a huge hole.
And makes his way down to the 28-yard line of LSU.
Couple of missed tackles.
[Whit] A couple of times during the game, I'll mess up my job.
I'll look to the sideline, and I'll see Coach Kelly screaming at me.
I'm like, "That's not gonna be fun when I get to the sideline."
Let's go, defense!
[commentator 2] Coach Brian Kelly standing there,
not liking what he's seeing from his Tiger defense.
[commentator 3] Moss gonna try to make him pay.
Throwing to the end zone. He's got it! Touchdown, Ja'Kobi Lane!
[crowd cheering]
[Brian] We had some guys play their butts off tonight.
[players grunting]
[commentator 2] And the kick is good!
[Brian] But there were self-inflicted wounds…
[commentator 3] Throwing deep, and flags coming everywhere.
[Brian] …and the inability to make the plays necessary down the stretch.
[commentator 3] Woody Marks rumbles into the end zone,
and USC is on top with eight seconds to play.
And we're sitting here again, we're sitting here again,
talking about the same things.
[commentator 3] That's how it's going to end.
[commentator 1] And with a victory over LSU here in Las Vegas.
And I'm so angry about it that I gotta do something about it.
I'm not doing a good enough job as a coach.
[dramatic music playing]
[Brian] When you've got somebody down, you've gotta put them away.
Who we are as LSU,
everybody is gonna play their best against you.
Everybody.
They want to beat you.
You can't let that happen again.
-Am I making myself clear? -[players] Yes, sir.
If I'm a fan of LSU, I'm wondering, "What did we sign up for?"
"Brian Kelly's old-school style, will it work when the pressure's on?"
That remains to be seen.
[music fades]
[birds chirping]
[chill music playing]
[man] Thank you, God, for this wonderful day and food we'll receive.
Thank you for the opportunity to be together this morning for breakfast.
-In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. -Amen.
-[man] Y'all have a busy day at school? -I do. Three quizzes.
Three quizzes? That's the ones you were studying for last night, right?
Protons and neutrons?
Which one's positive?
-Pressure's on. -[boy] Protons.
See? I think I'm smart.
-[Shane] Is that true? -I don't know.
[Shane] We go to the same place as long as we're winning.
Same orders, same booth.
Not that we're superstitious or anything.
We had a pretty good run with Waffle House.
-I don't like Waffle House. It's cursed. -Come on.
Eventually, Waffle House will cycle back,
but right now, this is so far in 2024,
and hopefully we're here for…
till January, right?
Means we've had a great year.
She's the big one that has to drive herself to school.
-So she has to leave before all of us. -I have stuff to do at school this week.
-[Shane] All right. Love you. -Love you.
[Shane] When you talk about SEC football programs,
let's face it, South Carolina's not considered,
quote-unquote, "one of the premier programs."
So nobody's picking us to do anything good in 2024.
[crowd cheering]
[exciting music playing]
[Shane] Last week, going up against Old Dominion in the first game,
there was chatter about how terrible South Carolina is.
They're gonna be lucky to win two games this year.
[commentator 1] Fourth quarter on a Saturday night.
Carolina's down three,
trying to find a way to win this ball game.
Sellers into the end zone! Touchdown, Carolina!
Nobody panicked. We found a way to win. Think we got a really good football team.
[birds chirping]
[Shane] Which one you wanna start at? This one?
-You start here. I'll start here. -[Shane] All right.
This is our summer-- summer, uh…
summer work, that we were able to do this. You're looking in the sun, aren't you?
Here at South Carolina…
We keep backing up, far as we can go.
I love this state.
I wanna retire here and make an impact here,
on and off the field, for a long time.
Thought you were trying to keep me on this.
Like my dad did at Virginia Tech.
All right. Come on. Let's get out of here.
[intriguing music playing]
All of this stuff is just things that I've collected and saved over the years.
Love this.
When my dad became the head coach at Virginia Tech,
his very first away game as a head football coach
was at South Carolina,
Williams-Brice Stadium, October 10, 1987.
When you coach in the SEC, there's high expectations.
Every single week, all eyes are on you as the head coach.
'Cause my last name is Beamer,
with that comes expectations.
[intriguing string music playing]
[Andy] Shane Beamer is the son
of one of the great college football coaches of all time,
Frank Beamer.
He put Virginia Tech on the map.
Coach Beamer has 200 wins.
[Andy] They always talk about a lunch pail team.
Virginia Tech brings a beat-up lunchbox onto the field
as an emblem of what that program's about.
They are the tough, hard-working guys.
[Shane] They won a lot of games at Virginia Tech.
Was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
Has a statue outside the stadium at Virginia Tech.
We're gonna get 'em!
[Shane] I mean, there's streets named after him, and rightfully so.
[crowd cheering]
[Shane] I love Virginia Tech. I was here before as an assistant coach.
But up there, I'm always "Frank's son."
I came to South Carolina because I wanted to make my own name,
be Shane Beamer, and not just "Frank's son."
Third down, O. Selly, third down.
-Hit it. -[player 1] Let him throw.
[players] Make sure we get it right. Pursuit!
-[player 2] Quarterback just pushed me. -Did he? He wouldn't do that.
He wouldn't do that.
Coach Beamer is happy, talks to everybody, smiles in everybody's faces.
[Shane] Way to compete, way to compete.
My name is LaNorris Sellers.
I play quarterback at the University of South Carolina.
[Shane] You all right, David? Come on, Moe.
[LaNorris] It's not like a coach-player relationship.
It's kinda like something closer than that.
It's real love.
Be a player. Just go get the first down. Know the situation.
-[LaNorris] He makes it feel like family. -To scouts.
[LaNorris] I remember before signing day, we talked for--
Pretty much every day he called me, texted me, checked in on my family.
[player 3] Work, work.
[player 4] Go, Gil. Yeah, Gil. I see you, Gil.
[Shane] LaNorris' recruitment in high school was a little different.
Most quarterbacks are committed during their sophomore year,
junior year at the latest.
He had some injury issues leading into his senior season,
where he wasn't as recruited as highly as he should've been.
[player 5] Down field. All right, you got that?
[Shane] The first time I ever really watched him
was seven-on-seven camp,
and there were some other highly-decorated quarterbacks,
but it was very evident to me that the best quarterback in our camp,
and it wasn't even close, was LaNorris Sellers.
He just showed the "it" factor. It's his competitive spirit.
[crowd cheering]
[Shane] He led his high school football team to a state championship,
which hadn't been done at his high school in a long time.
[commentator] Sellers up the middle for a Bruin touchdown.
[Shane] We offered him a scholarship
and the opportunity to stay close to home and were able to get him here.
[chill music playing]
[LaNorris] We ready now, yeah.
-How are you? -I'm good.
-It's good to see you. -[LaNorris] You too.
-[woman] You famous? -[LaNorris] Nah.
[man] Ready to play?
You got it?
[indistinct chattering]
This is the only place I eat at. This, Chick-fil-A, or Wingstop.
[mom] They probably gonna say, "Your usual, Mr. Sellers?"
[laughing]
[LaNorris] My family are very important to me.
Through everything, they've always been there.
All the sacrifices they made for me growing up,
to be at every event that we had.
When I got hurt my junior year, they was there supporting me through that.
I like Beamer, but I didn't think I was coming.
-You didn't think you was gonna come? -[Cheryl] Well, I remember you…
You used to always be on the phone with Coach Beamer all the time,
and then I met Coach Beamer, and it was just like, it's something here.
-The best decision y'all could've made. -[Cheryl] Ever. Ever, ever, ever.
[LaNorris] Something about South Carolina,
people just don't think we're a good team.
I am looking forward to changing that.
[indistinct chanting]
[crowd] Beamer! [cheering]
[commentator 1] Carolina and Kentucky. The first SEC game.
Gamecocks are the ten-point underdog in this game.
LaNorris Sellers going on the road for the first time
after a struggle against Old Dominion.
This is a big test.
Put the whole SEC on notice right now, because we're just getting started!
-[crowd cheering] -[rousing music playing]
[commentator 2] LaNorris wants to throw down the middle.
He's got his man.
[players grunting]
[commentator 2] Touchdown, Carolina.
South Carolina absolutely destroyed Kentucky.
[Shane] I'd been around some freshman quarterbacks
like Michael Vick at Virginia Tech.
It's exciting to see LaNorris get ready to take the next step,
because you know it's coming.
Let's go! Let's go!
Oh! Love y'all.
Y'all weren't worried, were you?
[Andy] Next week, they play LSU.
South Carolina's been in the SEC since 1992,
and the Gamecocks have been underdogs pretty much the entire time.
They're playing against all these teams that have won national titles.
Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, LSU.
If South Carolina dominates the LSU game,
we have to completely revise what our expectations are for that team.
Can they compete with the superpowers in the SEC?
[Shane] Even I walked off the field and said to myself,
I think we've got a chance to do some really big things this year.
-[music stops] -[birds chirping]
[suspenseful music playing]
[reporter] LSU is going to South Carolina for the first time since 2008.
LSU has to win this game.
I don't advise starting the season one-and-two.
You better bring it.
Our coaches always say,
"A loss is only a loss if you don't learn from it."
So you really just got to learn from it and put it behind you and keep playing.
Losing that game against Southern Cal,
I feel like… I feel like, "Oh, what could I have done better?"
I mean, I was-- I was frustrated. Our whole team was frustrated.
It could end up being a good thing for us,
'cause we realized that everything we did to lose was on us.
-[Whit] Yeah. -[West] It was all fixable stuff, so…
[Whit] Especially with the way we lost that one too,
going up on them and then them coming back and beating us.
As a defense, you take pride in stopping the run.
I mean, it just fell apart for us. We just didn't make tackles.
[West] We'll get that corrected.
Yeah, now we gotta go execute. Now we gotta go play football.
[intriguing string music playing]
[Brian] Going into the South Carolina game,
the last week in practice,
we went back to work on talking about how to close…
executing late in games.
-[player] He was running, back was to me. -[Brian] I got you.
-[player] I tried to place it in his area. -I'm with you.
-That was the first window. -[player] Yeah.
[Brian] Not fearing failure. Getting them to understand that concept.
You know it's counter.
He's thinking a million other things. You guys get your depth.
I've always been demanding, but not demeaning.
We're always gonna push our players to be their very best,
but you have to have a different way to reach the players.
Hey, look at it this way, you missed it right and left,
so now the next one is going down the middle.
You almost spun around on the first one, huh?
You know, growing up,
I think where politics helped me in coaching
is when I went into it after college.
I worked for the state senator,
and then worked for Gary Hart on his presidential campaign.
And I think it gave me a good perspective on relationships and communicating.
And that's really the essence of good coaching.
So, what do you have to do before you come out here now?
-[player] Get going? -[Brian] Think right.
Like, okay, I gotta get going here. I'm a little sore, a little tight.
Let me get on the bike, get going, get a sweat going.
We're gonna be featuring you, and you've gotta be setting the tone.
-Got it? Here we go. -Gotcha.
[Brian] You know, they're human beings.
They're not these people behind, you know, the curtain.
And that's why Blake was hired as the defensive coordinator.
[whistle blowing]
[Brian] This was somebody that was going to do a really good job
of building relationships with the players.
Hey, we ought to do one on… Whit!
Thanks.
-Vámanos aquí, mi amigo. -Set!
Hey, you passed Spanish this summer, big dog.
Hey-- Run it!
Hey, if we go angle it when they fire it, fuck the pick, just go.
-They can't block us. -[Whit] Yeah.
[Blake and players shouting indistinctly]
[Blake] There's a lot of really good X's and O's coaches out there.
Whitty, I called four here.
But if you can't relate to the players, I think you've got a problem.
Yeah, you have the back to the flat.
Remember what I said yesterday, quarter flat. Love is quarter flat.
In my opinion, your number one goal is the bond you have with the players.
What is Louisiana's state flower?
Oh, come on.
I know it's white. Hold on.
-What is it? -[Whit] Magnolia.
-[Blake] The magnolia. -[players cheering and applauding]
[Blake] The thing with trivia,
I kind of just organically started doing a few years ago.
All right, who thinks Sage is gonna win?
Kinda just to loosen them up before we dive into the film.
Louisiana is home to both the crawfish capital of the world
and the frog capital of the world.
Which cities consist of each name?
I think the guys have fun with it, and I tell them it's useless facts,
but you never know if you're gonna end up on Jeopardy one day.
It might help you, so…
Y'all don't even know the crawfish capital?
All right, Xavier, help him out.
[players laughing]
-[Xavier] I'd say Breaux Bridge. -Breaux Bridge, there we go.
Just like any of us in a job,
if it's miserable for them to come and work every single day,
then you're probably not gonna get the best version of them they can be.
So I try to make it fun for them.
All right, here we go. Corrections from today. Okay…
It used to be, when I played, "Yes, sir." "No, sir."
You just did what coach said.
Now they're just a lot more inquisitive and a lot more sensitive.
Y'all see that? All right, it's third-and-one…
[suspenseful music playing]
[players] Morning.
All right, so it's 9:15.
At this time tomorrow, we'll already be at the stadium.
I've learned a long time ago,
in these big games, players have to make plays.
What I love about this game,
and what keeps me going in this game,
is watching you guys play the game with incredible love and passion,
and I haven't seen that yet.
And I think that's my fault.
But if it is, you've got my permission.
I want to go see you enjoy this.
I need to see the joy of winning and the joy of playing this game.
That's what we need.
Let's go to work.
[players chattering indistinctly]
[man] Keep doing what you're doing. Keep doing what you're doing.
It's our time now. It's Gamecocks' time.
Everybody else had their time. It's Gamecocks' time now.
So let's go do this thing, right? Yes, sir, let's go do this thing.
Let's go do this thing.
I wanna give you everything I can
so that you can know
that your encounter with D-Mo was something you'll never forget.
Here we go.
Let's go, let's go! Get where you're going! Let's go!
Compete! Compete!
Derrick Moore, I'm affectionately known around these parts as D-Mo.
We gotta go! We gotta go!
Don't walk. Get where you're going! Get where you're going!
Yeah, yeah!
What an opportunity for us, huh?
I serve as a team builder for Coach Beamer
and support his vision for South Carolina football.
-Debo. Tone setter. It's coming, ain't it? -You know it.
-We're on that shit Saturday. -You gonna be on it.
There's no such thing as nine to five around here.
I mean, you can forget that. I'm working at two in the morning.
I call Coach Beamer at one o'clock in the morning,
text, "Coach, I gotta tell you something."
Yeah!
I jokingly tell our guys my phone's right next to my bed.
My wife's on one side, my phone's on the other.
So I hug my phone more than I hug my wife.
[laughing]
[air horn blasts]
[Shane] Offense, defense! Let's go, guys!
[tense music playing]
[Shane] To beat a team like an LSU, that has the tradition that they have,
and to be three-and-oh, that opens up a lot of doors.
You're gonna be nationally ranked, and a lot of eyes are gonna be on you.
If we're doing that,
that means we've elevated this program from where it is now,
just like my dad did at Virginia Tech.
-Here we go. -[whistle blows]
Good, good, good, good!
-Good, good, good, good! -[whistle blows]
But, you know, easier said than done
against, you know, one of the storied programs in the SEC in LSU.
We started something last week in Kentucky.
There are some skeptics.
Can South Carolina do it again? Was that just a one-time thing?
There's more energy and buzz already in town.
It has been all week. It's gonna continue to increase.
So be who we say we are. That's who we are.
[player] "Family" on three! One, two, three!
[team] Family!
[exciting music playing]
[excited chattering]
[commentator 1] The national eyes are on Williams-Brice Stadium today
where your South Carolina Gamecocks entertain the number 16-ranked LSU Tigers.
I would never sit there and second-guess what's happening out there on the field.
I've already figured out Shane's way ahead of me.
Shane's really good at what he does.
They're gonna be playing hard.
They're gonna be giving it their best shot.
In this conference, it's a battle.
[Shane] Gonna be a heavyweight fight.
They got a good football team. We got a great football team.
You practiced your ass off. We got better this week in practice.
Now it's the fun part, go cut the thing loose.
[crowd cheering]
[Shane] Being the head football coach at a place like South Carolina,
in a college town,
there's a lot of great things about it, but there's a lot of negatives about it.
Win one week, and everybody loves you.
You lose, the next week everybody wants to run you out of town.
[crowd shouting]
[reporter] South Carolina smoked Kentucky. They crushed them.
Then College GameDay's like, "We're coming to Columbia."
And so now, you've got a team that's coming off a big win,
that's got College GameDay there for the first time in ten years.
It's going to be a madhouse in there early.
[crowd cheering and applauding]
[Brian] I think what's hard to understand
is the incredible commitment from the fan bases.
They're such small towns.
Maybe there's 30,000,
but then, all of a sudden, you pull up to the stadium,
and there's like 85,000-90,000 people.
-[crowd cheering] -[intense music playing]
That coach last week said that his team, for the first time in his career,
tapped out.
I want that coach to walk in this press conference after the game
and talk about for the first time in his career,
his goddang team tapped out.
Go be who we say we are.
Everybody is in the game today.
You are in the game. I wanna see that sideline electric today.
[Alyssa] LSU's defense gotta get some confidence back
against a new South Carolina offense
that's shown some spark with LaNorris Sellers.
Already having a loss under your belt,
any misstep means that the room for error gets smaller and smaller
to bring home that national championship.
[commentator 1] All right, we're ready to get this one started.
The white towels are spinning and flying.
Boot meets ball, and we've got football.
[crowd cheering wildly]
[commentator 1] Kicking out of the back of the end zone,
and the Gamecocks will start, first down and ten.
[Brian] Bring that defense in! Bring the defense in!
[commentator 2] For Sellers, it's only his third career start.
He's gonna be learning as we're watching him here,
facing a blitz-happy defensive coordinator.
[players grunting]
[Shane] There we go.
[Brian] All right, let's get going.
Come on!
[players grunting]
[commentator 1] Whit Weeks able to trip him up,
but Sellers uses that 6'2" frame to stretch it out.
What a job by the young quarterback.
This offensive line had an incredible opening drive.
[Brian] Oh my God.
It's good by you, Whit. You got your near knee down, you're good.
-Now what? Run your feet. -Run your feet. Yeah.
[Blake] It's a good form tackle. Run your feet.
[commentator 1] Defense for Carolina lined up.
[suspenseful music playing]
[commentator 3] Debo Williams with the tackle.
Hey, good fucking start, man. Keep playing ball.
[commentator 3] Gamecocks block it at the 30-yard line!
And Carolina's got the football.
First and goal at the ten.
Touchdown, Carolina!
[crowd cheering]
[Whit] We had a good week of practice. We came in this game prepared.
So we're like, how the heck did this just happen?
[Brian] Listen, nothing's been done yet.
We've got to score and hold them on defense.
[commentator 1] At the snap, give to Durham.
[suspenseful music continues]
[commentator 1] Touchdown, Fighting Tigers!
LSU's on the board.
[Brian] We were able to make a couple of big plays.
[commentator 4] Ball's out!
[commentator 2] Good call by Blake Baker.
[Brian] We were able to cut into the lead.
[commentator 1] Touchdown!
[Brian] But we were still a click behind them.
[commentator 3] LaNorris out of the gun. Gonna run it straight up the middle.
It's LaNorris! Wide open at the 50!
Gonna try to outrun him at the 35!
They can't get him at the 15!
Ten, five…
Touchdown, LaNorris Sellers!
Seventy-five yards!
[crowd cheering]
[dramatic music playing]
[Whit] Hey! This is our fucking game! We got this shit!
Let's go!
We needed something to happen.
There's no way we're losing this. We're still right in this game.
[crowd shouting]
[commentator 3] Sellers in some trouble.
-[whistle blowing] -[crowd exclaiming]
[player] The one thing you can't do!
[commentator 1] Sellers a little slow. He's hunched over.
[commentator 4] His shoe is off, and he's limping, and that's a concern.
And that is a plot twist that the Gamecock fans did not wanna see.
[Blake] It's a 60-minute ball game.
I promise you this, you do your job, they won't score.
And let this be one of the great comeback victories for LSU.
[player] Let's win!
[commentator 3] If you're just joining us, LaNorris Sellers went out of the game,
injured an ankle at the end of the first half.
[LaNorris] I think I stepped up, then he grabbed me,
and kind of caught my ankle on him, and I just sprained it.
I heard it pop.
Once I couldn't put pressure on my ankle, I just knew something was wrong.
[commentator 3] It's been Ashford so far there afterwards.
You can seek a down if they screw that up and then work back over here.
[commentator 5] The game flow went back and forth a little bit.
LSU did fight back.
We're getting stronger! We're getting stronger!
You can see it! You can see it!
[commentator 4] Now it comes down to this.
LSU, two yards away from taking the lead.
Man, win this fucking game right now!
[suspenseful music playing]
[commentator 1] Williams into the end zone!
[man] Touchdown!
[commentator 1] Put a Tiger six on it! Touchdown, Fighting Tigers of LSU!
It's okay, baby. We're good to go. That's all they're gonna get!
All they're gonna get, Tonka!
[commentator 1] So now it's up to the Tiger defense.
[coach] All of a sudden, they're in panic mode.
So don't flinch, right? And the big piece is don't fuck it up.
[commentator 1] Carolina again relying on the backup, quarterback Robby Ashford.
[commentator 5] Need three points.
You gotta get to at least the 35-yard line to have a shot.
[tense music playing]
[commentator 1] Catch made at the 43-yard line.
Now across midfield, and making his way to LSU's 41.
[commentator 4] Play clock, final 30 seconds to go.
[commentator 3] On the blitz, he'll run up the middle.
-[Shane] Let's go! -[commentator 3] Inside the 35-yard line.
[commentator 4] Whit Weeks in on the stop.
[Whit] Let's go!
[commentator 3] Now Shane Beamer is gonna kick the field goal from here.
Trying to tie this ball game up,
to send it to overtime.
Five seconds remaining.
[tense music playing]
[music stops]
[commentator 4] Drives it…
[silence]
-[dramatic music playing] -[commentator 4] And just misses it!
And LSU survives
for a huge comeback victory on the road,
and breaks South Carolina hearts.
Hey, that was good.
-So much respect for the fight of y'all. -You too, man.
-Yeah, good luck to you. -Good luck.
[crowd cheering]
[team chanting] LSU! LSU!
LSU! LSU!
LSU! LSU! LSU!
I love the way you guys keep playing.
[team cheering]
[Brian] Great college football game.
So proud of the grit and-- and the perseverance.
[team chanting] LSU! LSU! LSU! LSU! LSU!
[melancholy music playing softly]
In the SEC, it is way too damn hard to just give people stuff.
And give them credit.
They went down 17-nothing on the road and came back, fought back.
Give them credit, man, all right? Much respect for them.
But we let their ass off the hook.
I love you. You did awesome. Proud of you.
[Shane] If we can learn from this,
and understand what a thin line it is between winning and losing,
and come right back to work tomorrow,
every goal that we have is still in front of us.
Every single thing that we came into this season saying that we wanted to do,
everything is still in front of us.
It's a team at LSU that's really talented, and we just went toe-to-toe with them.
It's a great reminder
that it's a very thin line between winning and losing.
A key for us is gonna be, do we take another step as a program,
another step as a team?
-Let's get a break. -[player] Get in here tight.
-"Family" on three. One, two, three. -[team] Family!
[dramatic music playing]
[man 1] In the SEC, we set an expectation to be national champions.
[man 2] Millions of people watch your game every week,
depending on you to make a play.
[commentator 1] That's gonna be a touchdown!
-"Game ball" on two. One, two. -[team] Game ball!
It's kind of like going to war. I wanna be in the front.
Let's go kick their ass.
[crowd cheering]
[man 3] This game was always gonna mean something.
Now it means everything.
[Andy] If you don't win a national title…
[commentator 2] Deflected. Intercepted!
[Andy] …you failed.
[man 4] This season, it's been hard.
Who are we gonna be?
But what happened yesterday doesn't dictate what happens tomorrow.
[sports reporter] If Garrett Nussmeier leaves LSU,
this football program will be in some trouble.
What you thinking for next year?
[man 5] My dream's always been to play in the NFL.
"Win games or your you-know-what is done for."
[commentator 3] Sellers, gonna roll, throw the back of the end zone.
He overthrows.
[woman] I do not really leave the house after a loss.
I feel like the town is mad at me.
[Shane] Get lined up!
You tell me I can't do it, I'll do it right in front of your face.
[man 6] I came here to be the savior of this program.
[Harry] This matchup makes David and Goliath look like a fair fight.
-[Alyssa] Fan bases… -[commentator 4] Arkansas wins!
[Alyssa] …want success, and they want it now.
-[reporter] You beat the number one team! -Look at this.
[Andy] Any given Saturday…
[commentator 5] Pick-six in The Swamp!
[Andy] …could change everything.
[Paul] There was a lot of anger, a lot of people furious with Napier.
[fan] You suck, Billy!
It's critical that we stick together.
[interviewer] How do you not take that personally?
[upbeat rhythmic music playing] e that personally?