Scott Davis: The Agony and the Ecstasy
C.J. Driggers
GamecockCentral.com columnist Scott Davis, who has followed USC sports for more than 30 years, provides commentary from the perspective of a Gamecocks fan. You can follow Scott on Twitter at @scdonfire.
It started as a low hum. At first I didn’t even recognize it.
I was walking towards the lower level of the West Stands at Williams-Brice Stadium just after South Carolina needed all 60 minutes of a football game to subdue mighty Louisiana Tech. Then I heard it, first as a murmur, then as a soft rumbling and finally a full-throated screech: GAAAAAAAAAAME…COOOOOOOCKS!
The fans who were left in the old building were giddy about surviving a game against, well, Louisiana Tech. A team that currently plays in Conference USA. And is coached by Skip Holtz. And was a nine-point underdog entering the game.
Yeah, that Louisiana Tech.
That Louisiana Tech led the football game for most of four quarters. Despite giving up 57 points to Mississippi State earlier this season, they shut out the Gamecocks for almost 50 minutes of a 60-minute contest and did so with ease. For long stretches at a time, Williams-Brice had all the electricity of a spring practice (and not too many more fans). When placekicker Parker White missed his second field goal of the game – to make the Gamecocks an astonishingly ugly 1 for 7 on field goals in 2017 – boos flowed like lava from a volcano.
None of that sounds particularly enjoyable, does it?
Well, you’ll have to take my word for it: You had to be there.
As it happened, I was there. After my tailgating reunion fell apart at the 11th hour before the Kentucky game (and thank God it did, looking back on it), I was making my first appearance at the Brice for 2017.
If you watched the game on the flat-screen at home, you’re going to have to take what I’m about to say on faith: After White went zero-to-hero on us and tapped through a 31-yard field goal to clinch the win, the faithful throngs walking out of the stadium were celebrating like the Gamecocks had just actually won a meaningful football game or something. I know that to be true because I was one of those people doing the celebrating.
I hugged my mother-in-law. My father-in-law and I did some sort of complicated back-slap/bro hug/high-five thing. I may have even done a dramatic fist pump in semi-slow motion as I wandered towards the parking lot. Things were getting weird.
Being in that stadium, sitting in that ridiculous Columbia heat (almost 90 degrees at kickoff? Really, Mother Nature?), watching as the Gamecocks squandered opportunity after opportunity, kept putting the football on the ground, kept spraying field goal attempts towards imaginary goal posts in galaxies far away and kept refusing to take a lead against the overmatched Bulldogs – it just felt like one of those perfect Gamecock football storms was brewing all day long.
Many fans went ahead and took a knee on the game by the end of the third quarter. The already thin East Upper Deck crowd shifted into Lean Cuisine territory as the second half wore on. The new DJ blasted hype music to a listless crowd. Even the “It’s another Carolina…FIRST DOWN!” guy couldn’t get anything going. And did I mention it was approximately 47,000 degrees?
The crowd ended up freaking out about the win because of all that, not in spite of it.
See, it had already become clear to us: This is going to be another Citadel. Another disaster in a century-long line of disasters. The defining moment when the 2017 season officially died and we all drove home wondering if we’d have the stamina to come back for more heartbreak in 2018.
The crowd had long ago decided that it was over. It just wasn’t going to happen. Those of us who remained in the stands, wilting in the heat, were doing so out of habit, hanging around just to watch the car crash reach its ultimate conclusion, just curiosity-seekers waiting for the carnage to officially unfold so we could complain to each other and fill the evening air with our bitterness.
And then the Gamecocks suddenly started scoring. It was 13-7, then 14-13, then seconds started hemorrhaging off the clock, and then Tech was closing in on the end zone before kicking a field goal to go back ahead 16-14, and I happened to glance up and notice that there were about 45 seconds left in the football game. What looked like it would be a routine defeat was now going to be an agonizing, machete-in-the-stomach defeat.
After everything that happened the week before against Kentucky, now we were going to be asked to accept this?
This?
And that’s why Gamecock fans skipped out of the stadium in the dying afternoon sun on Saturday, why they hugged each other and high-fived and offered up exhausted GAAAAAAAAME-COOOOOCK chants after barely beating the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs.
Do not feel embarrassed if you celebrated that ridiculous victory. Being a fan is not a rational act – it is the most irrational thing you can do as a human being. You can be happy, sad, confused and indifferent all at the same time. It makes no sense. So don’t be embarrassed if you cheered in delight immediately after grumbling for three hours, like I did.
Because you see, the season was over. It was dead. It was not breathing.
And then, just like that, it came back to life.
The Deebo Samuel Large Pepperoni Pizza Game Balls of the Week
Despite Samuel’s indefinite absence with a leg injury, he will continue to be the namesake for our weekly Game Balls. Deebo’s done enough by now to lay claim to the Balls until 2025 and beyond. Let’s toss out some Deebos to the following:
Bryan Edwards – With Samuel sidelined, Edwards is doing everything he can to fill the void. The Conway sophomore hauled in six catches for 122 yards on Saturday, but it was his bobbling grab of a 41-yard prayer from Jake Bentley with a handful of seconds remaining that gave the Gamecocks just enough yards to attempt a winning field goal. Also, “The Conway Sophomore” sounds like a good name for an action hero, doesn’t it? Let’s try to make that happen.
Ty’Son Williams – After Williams received a head-scratching zero carries in the Kentucky debacle, many Gamecock fans spent the week wondering aloud why the coaches refused to call his number. Saturday, it was almost as though the offensive game plan was: “Oh, you wanted Ty’Son Williams? I’LL GIVE YOU TY’SON WILLIAMS, OK????!!!” He got carry after carry in the first half, eventually winding up with 95 yards and more than likely cementing himself as South Carolina’s primary ball carrier.
Parker White’s Exuberant Celebration After His Game-clinching Field Goal – I’d like to give White a Deebo, but you can’t deny those two missed field goals also happened. So instead we’ll toss a Game Ball to his wild, gyrating celebration after he knocked the game-winner through the uprights, which involved him sprinting towards midfield, then not really knowing what to do once he got there, so he just waited for his teammates to mob him once they finally caught up with him. That was fun.
The Guy Behind Me in the Stands Who Screamed “Make This for the Good of Your Social Life!!!!” at White as He Lined Up to Kick the Clincher – I laughed out loud. It broke the tension.
My Mother-in-Law Saying “I Can’t Watch This” as White Lined Up to Kick the Clincher, Then Actually Turning Away from the Field – Look, the confidence level wasn’t soaring at this point, OK?
The Fact That At Least Every Five Minutes or So At My Pregame Tailgate, Someone Looked Around at the Lifeless Stadium Scene and Exclaimed, “Man, It is DEAD Here Today!” – It wasn’t exactly electric in Columbia on Saturday. It was also 47,000 degrees.
Deflated Balls
When an SEC team needs a last-second field goal to slip by a Louisiana Tech team that recently surrendered 57 points to Mississippi State, I think you need to hand out a few Deflated Balls, which we’ll deliver to the following:
Not Scoring a Single Point Against a Defense That Recently Surrendered 57 Points to Miss State Until About 11 Minutes Were Left In the Football Game – Not a particularly crisp performance from the Gamecock offense. South Carolina seems to be groping for an offensive identity at the moment, and four games into the season, it might be time to figure out what – if anything – this unit does well and try to emphasize it. While we’re here…
Attempting to Throw a 40-yard Bomb on Third-and-Short When the Gamecock Offense Desperately Needed a First Down to Stay on the Field and Relieve a Beleaguered Defense – What happened here? I know USC has been one of the worst short yardage teams in America in 2017, but what were the odds of this play succeeding? One in 50? That was the opposite of a high-percentage play.
The Ever-Growing Injury List – A week after losing their best offensive weapon, the Gamecocks learned they’d be without one of their top defensive talents for the season as Bryson Allen-Williams was ruled out for the remainder of 2017 with a shoulder ailment. This stuff just makes me sad (and kind of makes me hate the sport of football).
Me for Seeing the Videos of Jadeveon Clowney and Alshon Jeffery on the Jumbotron and Feeling Empty Inside – I miss those guys. I reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally miss those guys. I miss a lot of guys. Damn.
Some Members of the Local SC Media Chastising Gamecock Fans for Not Producing a Rabid Environment for a Game Against Louisiana Tech the Week After Perhaps the Most Disappointing Loss of the Last 10 Years – Are you kidding me? Look, it wasn’t rocking and rolling inside Williams-Brice on Saturday. No argument there. But let me set the stage for you real quickly: This football program has existed for 125 years. In those years, the team has won a single conference championship (for a conference they have not been a part of in more than four decades). They have no SEC titles in a quarter-century in the league. They didn’t win a bowl game until after they’d been playing football for more than 100 years (true story). They’ve largely been dominated by their instate rival over the years (and their fans watched in horror last year as that same archrival won the national championship). They went 1-10, 0-11, 3-9 and lost to The Citadel during the last 20 years. Their fans enjoyed one tiny blip of goodness during the Steve Spurrier years, then watched as Spurrier coasted towards retirement, hung up his visor at midseason and allowed the program to slip back into a freefall. This year, the athletic administration hyped a game against the University of freaking Kentucky (historically the SEC’s worst football program other than Vanderbilt) into another Solar System, then the team came home and laid an egg in one of the most disappointing performances in recent memory. Year after year after year, South Carolina fans watch things like that happen and still show up. They still care. They still fill the stadium, many times when there’s little reason at all to do so. I can assure you, of the many things that have been wrong with South Carolina football over the last century or so, their fans are not on the list. So if they didn’t show up in droves for a single game against Louisiana Tech the week after that hideous Kentucky disaster on a day in which temperatures hovered near 90 degrees at kickoff, you know what? They’ve earned it. As always, we can count absolutely count on some folks in the South Carolina media to troll the Gamecock fan base even though there’s not a single group of fans in the country who can even dream of withstanding the things they’ve been through, and still care and still support their team the way these fans do year after year. If it makes you feel good inside to continually clown a group of people who relentlessly stick with this team simply because they love this school and this state, then I don’t mind saying it: You don’t make the game more fun to watch. You add nothing. And you should be ashamed of yourself.
As for the rest of us…sure, we celebrated a win against Louisiana Tech.
We’ll celebrate any win we can get for the rest of this uncertain season.
And we won’t feel bad about doing it, either.
Because we love our school and our state.
And no matter how much some folks try to get us to stop, we’ll just keep right on loving them.
