By Will Vandervort

CLEMSON — It wasn’t the kind of night Clemson was expecting.

With a berth in the Bowl Championship Series at stake, plus the hopes of ending a three-game losing streak to archrival South Carolina, the Tigers figured Saturday night was their night. As it turned out, a Gamecock team with a backup quarterback and a third string running back picked apart No. 9 Clemson, 27-17.

It marked the first time since 1951-’54 that South Carolina beat the Tigers four years in a row. It also snapped Clemson’s seven-game winning streak and 13-game winning streak in Death Valley.

“It is obviously very disappointing, not just losing this one, but losing four in a row to them,” Clemson center Dalton Freeman said. “You have to give them a lot of credit, they have handed it to us the past four years. They have out played us.”

Just an hour before the start of the game, No. 12 South Carolina announced that backup Dylan Thompson would start in the place of starter Connor Shaw, who was still nursing a sore foot suffered in the win over Wofford a week ago. Then, in the third quarter, running back Kenny Miles left the game with an injury, but the Gamecocks never missed a beat.

“We just weren’t good enough tonight,” Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables said. “We didn’t coach them good enough. We just couldn’t make a play.”

Thompson threw for 310 yards and rushed for 38 more, while throwing two touchdown passes to Bruce Ellington and one to Ace Sanders. Not known for his running style, Thompson hurt the Tigers with his legs just as much as his arm.

Though the statistics don’t show it with his overall numbers because of four sacks, he had runs of 20 and 18 yards to keep drives alive, including a 20-yard scramble on a third-and-20 play late in the fourth quarter that set up his game-clinching touchdown pass to Ellington with 4:17 to play.

“I think the (scouting report) showed that wasn’t really his cup of tea, but when they needed him, he did it,” Venables said. “He extended some plays and ran the ball really, really well.”

The Gamecocks (10-2) dominated the second half offensively, while also keeping Clemson’s high octane offense off the field. USC possessed the football for nearly 40 minutes, while outgaining the Tigers by 116 yards.

“We couldn’t get the ball in third period,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “We just couldn’t stop them on third down. The third quarter was huge. We had too many penalties, too many turnovers and South Carolina did a great job of controlling the ball.”

South Carolina also did a good job stopping the Tigers. Clemson quarterback Tajh Boyd was sacked five times, four by Jadeveon Clowney, and he was intercepted two times.

Boyd finished the night 11 of 24 for 183 yards, while the offense finished with just 328 yards.

“Credit (South Carolina). They are extremely talented on that other side of the ball, but we did not do what we needed to do to win,” Boyd said.

It looked like Clemson (10-2) was going to do just that when Boyd led the Tigers on a 16-play, 85-yard drive which took 6:14 off the clock. Four times on the series Clemson converted on third down, including when he called his own number near the goal line on an option play from three yards out for a 7-0 lead.

“It was a tale of two halves,” Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris said. “In the first half we had everything like we wanted it. We had great tempo. We were playing, I thought, at a high level.”

After South Carolina tied the game with a 13-yard Thompson to Ellington touchdown, the Tigers needed only 24 seconds to regain the lead. Roderick McDowell broke off a 32-yard run, and then Boyd found Hopkins for a 43-yard touchdown pass on the next play.

Of the 328 yards, the Tigers had 237 at halftime.

“We got off to a good start scoring two touchdowns in the first quarter, but they just started to control the ball after that,” Swinney said.

And once again broke the Tigers’ heart.