The Saturday matchup between South Carolina football and LSU became an instant classic. And as many college football fans are used to, it ended like many classics do: with a missed field goal.

Gamecocks kicker Alex Herrera missed a 49-yard field goal that would have tied the game and sent it to overtime. Instead, the Tigers escaped with a 36-33 victory in the SEC battle. The field goal came with four seconds remaining in the game after USC had moved the ball from its 25-yard line to the LSU 32 on five plays to set up the potential game-tying score.

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However, on a second-and-10 from the LSU 32, Gamecock coach Shane Beamer opted to run a counter with Raheim Sanders, who gained 1 yard and moved the ball to the 31-yard line. Instead of opting for more yards on third down, Beamer elected to send out Herrera for the kick. Herrera had made both his kicks before the fourth-quarter opportunity.

He missed it:

Asked about the ending sequence in his postgame news conference, Beamer offered this:

"We had to burn the timeout on the penalty, now down to one timeout," Beamer said. "We were in field goal range. I was thinking that I would love to get two plays in before the fourth-down kick, but I was just concerned about something happening and us not being in field goal range.

"With hindsight being 20-20, yeah, obviously you'd run a play there."

The timeout South Carolina had to burn was on a false start a couple of plays earlier. If the Gamecocks did not take the timeout, there would have been a 10-second runoff.

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Shane Beamer explains final drive

Fans on social media wondered why Beamer and his offense took a more conservative approach, especially considering the Gamecocks had two timeouts and began their final possession with 1:12 remaining

Beamer explained the final drive and his thought process for what he wanted to see.

"I can't remember everything we had called on that drive, but there were certainly some plays where we have deeper routes and we just needed to get into field goal range," Beamer said. "We felt like we needed to get to the 35-yard line to be in field goal range. We had plays call, there were some shots down field on that drive, like the first one was. We made some runs and took what the defense gave."

As Beamer mentioned, hindsigGreht is 20-20. Either way, South Carolina fans will be left wondering what might have been, especially considering a pick-six was wiped off the board earlier in the fourth quarter off an unnecessary roughness penalty by Kyle Kennard.

The Greenville News' Lulu Kesin contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Shane Beamer explains sequence before South Carolina's missed field goal