Shane Beamer’s South Carolina team had every chance to beat Alabama football Saturday in Bryant-Denny Stadium. The Gamecocks scored with a chance to tie the game with a two-point conversion late, but failed on the attempt, then saw their chances dissipate with an interception on the final play, falling 27-25.

After the game, Beamer said he wasn’t shocked that USC was able to keep it so close.

“We aren’t a bad team, so we expected to win this game,” Beamer told reporters in Tuscaloosa. “Nobody was like coming in here at halftime doing cartwheels because we were in a tight game with Alabama. We expected that, because we have a good football team. Life in this conference is really, really hard. There’s really good teams you play week in, week out.”

On the two-point conversion attempt, Gamecock quarterback LaNorris Sellers rolled to his right, and fired the ball to the back of the end zone. He put far too much heat on the pass, and it flew uncatchable past any USC receiver.

Beamer said afterward that the play call was schemed specifically for Alabama.

“They’ve played a couple different coverages in their two-point play situations,” Beamer said. “One’s more of a zone, one’s more of a max blitz cover-zero type look. So we got the play that we thought was going to be good on both of them.

“I haven’t seen the replay of it, but from what I was told, we didn’t play with great technique and didn’t block it great, but had a couple guys open. We just gave a little bit of pressure there, unfortunately.”

Despite the miss on that play, Beamer remained high on Sellers going forward. The quarterback gave Alabama’s defense fits at times, using his legs to extend plays and drives.

“He’s a warrior,” Beamer said. “Proud of him. He continues to get better each and every week. Come on the road. 23-of-31, 238 yards, ran the ball well, I thought he did enough for us to win the football game, and he’ll continue to get better.”

The South Carolina defense played well most of the way against the Crimson Tide. The Gamecocks sacked Jalen Milroe four times, and picked off two passes.

According to Beamer, that was a major emphasis entering the game.

“One of the keys to the game for us was to affect the quarterback, to affect Milroe,” Beamer said. “And we were, we had stopped the run. We had sacked him four times. we had created, had picked the ball, created a turnover as well. So, thought they did enough for us to win. Wish we could have finished that (last) drive a little bit better when Alabama got the ball back.”

Next up, South Carolina plays on the road again, heading to Norman to face Oklahoma next Saturday. The Gamecocks fell to 3-3 with Saturday’s loss, 1-3 in conference play.

“They made more plays than we did at the end,” Beamer said. “Proud of the fight of our team coming down here, and no one was surprised by our performance. We expected this. We competed our butts off. All three facets. Everybody expected to win the football game. Came up a little bit short at the end.”