Ho Hum



Have you ever gone out test driving cars that were really out of your price range? I have. It’s fun every now and then to check one or two of these out. To take them for a spin. To get to sit in an ergonomically correct cockpit feeling and hearing the thrust of a perfectly tuned engine that in reality has no business being street legal. The only real downer is when you have to go back, get into your own car, leave the exotic on the lot, and head home. To me that is what the past few weeks have been like for us. The Alabama win would certainly qualify as an exotic win for us. While not quite the Bugatti Veyron of wins, which I think is the greatest car built to date for public consumption, that would be an undefeated season and a national championship, it would certainly be something Italian. Then we had to leave that one and move. Seemed like we were still driving the exotic in the first half the next week. The second half of the Kentucky game was a Yugo, no doubt about that. All but the last 2 minutes of the first half of the Vanderbilt game was pretty much the same. Well, it was at least an early Hyundai. Starting with the last drive of the first half last Saturday night, we got back into own car and headed off. Winning against Vandy the way that we did is like driving the car that we currently have. Twenty-one unanswered points and a couple of misses was a nice way to end a night that had started off having people worried if they were going to have to dial 9-1-1. The only difference is that with our football team, the exotic wasn’t left on the lot, it is in our driveway. And oh how we want for our team to drive that car some more.

A Win Is A Win

Some of our fans have forgotten that we are in the SEC. Road games are tough in the SEC. Wins on the road are to be coveted and treasured. Just ask Alabama. We had been on quite a losing streak on the road and we ended that streak against Vandy. Did our fans rejoice? Some did. Most did not. Would I have liked for us to have ‘hung half a hundred’ on them? You bet your ass I would have. Am I happy that we held off a hungry Vandy team that threw the kitchen sink at us and looked more like ourselves in the second half in doing so? You bet your ass I am.

It seems to me that some, and I do mean a large number, of our fans think that we are at a point where we can drive the exotic all of the time. We aren’t, yet. I would love for us to be, but the cold hard reality is that for whatever reason, we just aren’t that far along, yet. I do think that we’ll get there and that this day isn’t all that far off. For the time being though, that is one more hump that we need to cross.

There are two things that sicken me regarding our fans. One, is that when the team doesn’t seem to live up to their lofty expectations, some will start pouting and spouting. A win is a win folks. We won at Vandy. It wasn’t the game that I hoped or even thought that it would be, but we won. I come online and I see bellyaching running epidemic. Posts and threads devoted to all that went wrong in the game with only a few trying to point out all that went right.

Hear me on this. Vanderbilt came after us with any and everything they thought they had to offer last week. This wasn’t the defense that they had played thus far in the season. We were playing with a backup tailback that doesn’t seem to have adjusted to the new rushing schemes that we’re now using. They were stacking the box and attacking. It was a mess and this was not what had been prepared for. But, we held them off, adjusted, and won.

The clearest sign that we haven’t ‘been there’ before is how some in our fanbase act like Fred G Sanford at the first sign of adversity. “Elizabeth, I’m coming to join you honey. I’ll be the one with the garnet tears on my shirt and the shattered dreams in my pocket.” They almost make the person that named Chicken Little seem prophetic.

I have just resigned myself to accepting the fact that some people just do not like our starting QB. He currently has the 5th highest QB rating in all of college football and is coming off his best performance statwise, but nevermind all of that. They don’t like him and never will. Not every play is perfect. Players and coaches make mistakes throughout the game. Some seem to have lost sight of this fact. When a QB completes 31 of 39 passes and throws for around 350 yards he has done pretty well. Very few games are played at 100% efficiency, that is why you play them and don’t just use the projections to determine the outcome.

Understand what I am saying. I am not against venting after a loss, I do it myself, but this was our first road win in two years. I am not against identifying or discussing areas that need improvement. What I am talking about is the stuff that goes beyond venting and lasts much longer. The habit of some to stay focused on the bad and their failure to see the good.

The other thing that bothers me is the other end of the spectrum. The, “We’re Carolina. We’ve always been around .500 so we shouldn’t expect to ever not be just middle of the pack.” To this crowd I would like to say, “Wake up!” and trust me, that is the ‘censored by me’ version. Some think that we shouldn’t expect more implying, even stating at times, that people that do are somewhat delusional. They seek refuge in denying themselves hope. If they don’t extend themselves a little, then they won’t get hurt if things come crashing down. I would hate to go through life fearing success. I would hate to be a fan and not have hope. I know our track record, but, I also see what we have. This is probably the best team that we have ever fielded. We have knocked off the #1 and #4 teams in the country over the past two seasons, should have knocked off the current BCS #1 team in their house, and some are sitting back waiting for the losses to come piling in instead of enjoying the progress that we are making.

In short, I just wish that we as a fanbase, and the Gamecock Nation, could realize what we have and enjoy to journey to the top with one another a little more without getting hysterical every time we experience some growing pains.

Home Field Advantage

One thing that has stood out to me over the past two seasons is just how much of a home field advantage we have at Williams-Brice. It doesn’t take a genius to see the difference between our team when we play at home and when we are on the road. We should be patting ourselves and each other on the back for that. Somehow though, our team has to learn to play without feeding off the energy that The Cockpit gives them when we are away from our house. To be the team that we all want them to be, they must learn to win consistently on the road. Auburn was close to that for three quarters, but we need that performance out of them for 4 quarters each and every game. It’s just another hurdle that we have to clear to get where we’re going, but it is an aggravating hurdle right now.


In conclusion this week, don’t be afraid to discuss what ever you might be thinking. That is the reason this site exists. Just don’t fall into the trap of focusing on the bad at the expense of getting to enjoy the good. For goodness sake, don’t resign yourself to not caring or being hopeful. Hope, as we learned in the movie, is a good thing. Stay focused on the Big Picture. You might just like what you see.

Force is equal to mass times acceleration. I don’t know the mass of the Gamecock Nation. I don’t know the force that was involved two Saturdays ago in catapulting us into the stratosphere or the acceleration that we experienced either. What I do know is that the planet earth attracts objects at an accelerating rate of 9.81 m/s2. Last Saturday night when we came crashing back down to earth, it seems as though we were accelerating a little bit more quickly than that. Kind of like the Wiley Coyote cartoons that we watched as kids, there seemed to be a moment, just a moment, when we stopped just above the earth’s surface, held up a sign for the college football world to see, and then splat. What that sign said varies with each individual member of the Gamecock Nation. I am pretty sure that most of the responses could fall into about 4 or 5 categories. I am absolutely positive that 99% of them could not be printed here without the site’s built in censor kicking in.

Ahhh...the life of a Gamecock.

It has its ups and downs and this season is just like all of the others. But is it? Is this the life of being a Gamecock that we have endured for so long? Is this the same ol’, same ol’? I’m not going to try to blow any sunshine up your butts. Most of our hind parts are still throbbing from the pain inflicted upon them last Saturday evening. Any agitation back there right now is unwelcome. This I know. What I am going to do is be honest about a few things with you for the next few minutes. And if that honesty should happen to separate your lower cheeks a bit allow a stray ray of hope and optimism to sneak into your dark abyss, well then so be it.

Things aren’t as bad as they have seemed since last Saturday night. This isn’t the SOC, which I have read has several meanings. It just isn’t and I’ll tell you why.

The Hangover Effect

Everyone was talking about our players experiencing what is labeled as the Hangover Effect. This is when a team just mails it in the week after pulling off an upset of a perceived better team. That didn’t happen. This team showed up to play. With the exception of the three turnovers, the team, both sides of the ball, was clicking in the first half Saturday night seeming to have picked up where they left off the week before. We scored 28 points and could have easily without the turnovers have had two more, if not three, TD’s on the scoreboard. But we didn’t. While the team seemed to be sober, there were a couple of people that were still experiencing a fatally high blood/cockiness level. One was on the sidelines. The other was up in the booth.

One would think that the owner of a vineyard would know the perils of imbibing a little too much in the fruit of his own vine. One would think. But, let’s give the man a break here. It’s been a long road getting to where we are now and the temptation of tasting a little more of what lies ahead for us would be a tough for anyone to deny. Even Coach Spurrier. There isn’t a one of us that can hurl a stone in his direction for this, for we are all guilty of the exact same thing if not in this then in some area of our lives. Against Alabama, Coach saw his team perform the way he had been anticipating for years, about 5 of them now. He was elated and easily slid into role that he was once accustomed. He got a bit ahead of himself. The first sign of this for me was when he pulled Stephen Garcia and put in Connor Shaw in the first quarter. Twice. That act told me two things immediately and I shared them with the people that I was watching the game with.

One, that Coach was treating this game as a practice or a scrimmage and not as a threatening SEC opponent. Argue with me on that all that you want, but, when we had to have our best effort on the field last week against Alabama, Coach wasn’t pulling any of this nonsense. There was never a time when the backup was even close to going into the game. On that note, he didn’t approach this game, he didn’t approach the Kentucky Wildcats, with the same seriousness or the same determination that he had employed against Alabama. Yet, I would bet everything that I own that he demanded that from the players all week long. For a brief moment, he was coaching like he was still at Florida when he should have been approaching things more like he did when he was at Duke.

Two, that this would screw with Garcia and that this would infiltrate the team. Again, you can argue all that you want, but, I am going to respond by asking how many turnovers did we have when Shaw entered the game? How many wide open receivers were overthrown by Garcia up to this point? How many points had Kentucky scored? What sideline was Ol’ Mo sitting on up til then? After what has seemed like forever and a week, Garcia had finally lived up to billing last week against Alabama. He was at the top of his game and seemed to be continuing that in the early moments at Commonwealth Stadium. Then, he had his confidence sucked right out of him. The picture that tells it all, other than his dwindling performance in the remainder of the game, was the shot of him standing on the sidelines looking over at the huddle that was about to go into the game. He was bewildered. He was confused. That one move served to allow some of his confidence to seep out and that dark demon named doubt to creep in. It was a bone-headed maneuver.

Lou Holtz, remember him? He has said on numerous occasions that, “If you have two starting quarterbacks, then you don’t have one.” Coach needs to listen to, learn from, and harken to the good doctor. You don’t place a little child that has just taken his first step in a marathon. You don’t put a moped on that tract in Indianapolis the first weekend in May. You don’t take a picture of a young girl that has just received her first training bra and place it in Playboy magazine. There are reasons for this, albeit more for some than others, but you have to allow time for things to develop.

Alabama was the game where Stephen Garcia first showed that he could do all that Coach was asking of him. It wasn’t the game where he showed the world that he had arrived and now could withstand anything thrown his way. Use the Kentucky game as a scrimmage if you want, and we demonstrated that this is what it should have been to us, but use it to develop the one true leader that this team has on the field, not to veer away from him. The team sees Garcia as the leader. The talking heads that commentate on college football all see Garcia as the team leader. Most fans over the age of 14 see Garcia as the team’s leader. Why is Spurrier so hellbent on manufacturing this competition? Coach had the perfect opportunity, and has it this week as well, to build upon what Garcia had shown against Alabama, and he blew it. Hopefully, the damage can be repaired this week in practice, and we’ll see this happen against Vandy on Saturday. Connor Shaw is good and will have his time here, but right now, it is Stephen Garcia’s time, and his development should be the primary focus. I know that this is the one area where Coach can invest some effort that will pay some immediate dividends.

My only other complaint from Saturday night involving Coach has to do with Kenny Miles. When asked about Kenny Miles in the post game interview, Coach looked like a deer in the headlights. It was as if he hadn’t even considered it up to that point. Is Marcus Lattimore better? Yes. Should Kenny Miles have been ready to go just in case the true freshman couldn’t? Yes. Were we prepared as a team for this possibility?

The one in the booth is, to no one’s surprise, Ellis Johnson. Again, when we had to play our best against the best, we were pressing and aggressive. We weren’t ten yards off the ball and retreating. This week, our defensive backs needed binoculars and a ticket to get a glimpse of the Kentucky receivers just before snap. I haven’t seen all of his post game interview, but in the part that I did see he said that they tried everything to stop Kentucky during the second half. Well, that isn’t quite true because I know the one thing that you didn’t try. You didn’t try what had worked the week before against your former employer. I understand the defense we ran in the Alabama game. I have no clue what we have been trying to do in the other 5 games we have played this season. Unless, we have been playing to lose and I don’t believe that is what we’re trying. Bend don’t break hasn’t been working, and I don’t foresee it working in the future. A “Thanks” to the person that posted the stats in the forums of our pass defense over the past 5 or so years. That stat chart is mind-boggling. We are a better defense than this. We proved against Alabama. So what is the problem here?

And concerning that 4th down play, all that I can say is that a pop warner coach would have had that corrected on Monday of last week. It was deja vu all over again, but only from a week ago. You just know that the Kentucky brain trust was salivating holding that ace up their sleeve.

The other hot topics after this one are the timeout and the under-thrown ball/interception. I am quickly running out of space, but, neither should have been an issue. The stands should have been empty of anyone not wearing garnet by this point. That, sadly, wasn’t the case so I’ll quickly respond. It is easy to Monday morning what Coach had to handle spur of the moment Saturday night. If he misused the time out with his experience, then none of us would have gotten right intentionally either. Regarding the interception, Spurrier said that the ball was supposed to go outside. Common sense and an eighth grade understanding of football would agree with him. Garcia under threw the ball. Go back a few paragraphs and reread. Think that a confident Garcia throws that ball short in this situation? I’ll give you two examples from the Alabama game that says the throw would have been dead on target. Yet on this night, well, we all know what happened.

We should have won this game with ease. We knew that Kentucky was a second half team, but, they should have been, and nearly were out of it in the first half. They weren’t. Don’t get me wrong, Coach Spurrier and Ellis Johnson are still my picks to be leading us. Don’t even consider that I am not one of their biggest fans. I am. But, they blew it Saturday. We still should have won, but we didn’t. They weren’t alone, players made mistakes too like they do every game, but you don’t expect these mistakes from these two. Coach Spurrier gets a bit of a pass from me on this one, even as inexcusable as he would agree that losing this one was. He was having fun. Coach started opening his Christmas presents a little too early, but, his parents came home and caught him. The punishment for this was a female dog. Ellis Johnson, on the other hand, doesn’t get off quite so easily. I just don’t get what he is trying to do or why he is trying it. We know what does work, but then we don’t do it. Even when the game was on the line. We know what doesn’t work, and keep doing it. It just doesn’t make any sense. But, they are still the ones that I want heading things up here for us.

The season isn’t over. All that is gone is our dark horse campaign to be national champions and a possible one loss season. We are still in the driver’s seat for the SEC East. We can still play and win in Atlanta. We can still go to our first BCS bowl. We are still in control of our own destiny. Hopefully, we can see the problems that we experienced last Saturday night addressed and corrected 'cause when we do, we’ll see the team from here on out that we saw against Alabama and not the one that we saw this past Saturday night. When we get that, we’ll not only get to see a lot of long term goals accomplished this season, but we’ll also be setting ourselves up pretty well for 2011.

What was the sunshine that I risked shining into our nether regions? Why is this not like times before? This time it wasn’t a lack of players or talent that did us in, it was some mental snafues by the coaches. Correcting players can be chancy. I am betting that their correcting themselves isn’t. So, yes, I still believe that we are going to have a great season.

Nothing shows the cracks quite like a little adversity. Last Saturday night at Auburn, we were shown some cracks. It was a game that I believe we should have won, but we didn’t. However, I do not believe that this is the ‘same story, different year’. Here are a few of my thoughts from the game.