– Kentucky Head Coach In Waiting, Joker Phillips, has a quarterback controversy.  Not content to juggle two guys in the spot, the decisive Joker is still toying with at least three.  His choices appear to be; 1. The slow one with the weak arm, 2. the slower one with the slightly weaker arm, or 3. the fast one without arms.  All the while, the right choice is staring him in the face with olive colored eyes – eyes that see into your very soul.

– Consider Mark Richt, veteran thespian, with his fully clothed dramatic swan dive.  Is it art, smug self-indulgence, or a pre-enactment of the Dawgs 2010 season?  I’ve watched it a dozen times, dear friends, and the answer is ‘all of the above’.

– CTU’s transformation from legitimate football program to children’s cartoon show accelerates! The “All In Anthem“, as composed and performed by a couple of freshman DBs, explores the various rhyming possibilities of Dabo’s famous slogan. Sadly, it appears that these possibilities are limited to the word “ballin”, although the fresh freshmen occasionally throw in an unexpected “ball out” to keep things interesting.

– The Tennessee football program might not always play by the rules.  I know, I was surprised as well.

Rashad Faison is a guy who gets a lot of “one of my favorite Gamecocks ever” mentions.  A little too slow to play corner, a lot too small to play linebacker, Faison helped define the Spur position in Charlie Strong’s defense.  He was small (5′-9″) and in uniform looked like he should be playing for a JV team, but had a knack for finding ball carriers.  He was second on the team in tackles in 2000, and led the team in tackles and TFL’s in 2001.  And that was accomplished on a couple of pretty stout defensive units.

He’s another player who had to live through 0-11 to get to the great turnaround of 2000-2001.  He was one of several who had a shining moment in the 2000 Georgia game.  Early in the video below he gives a forearm shiver to Quincy Carter, then later makes a nice diving pick of a Carter pass (the fourth of five overall, in case you need a reminder…and I know you don’t).

I really don’t have much for you on this one, Cates was just the first #12 I thought of, right before Arturo Freeman (who never should’ve been participating in the drill where he tore his ACL, but that’s a can of worms for a different day).

A quick glance at the media guides revealed that he played DB his redshirt freshman year, and even started five games, which I didn’t remember.  He moved to WR as a sophomore, and was the team’s leading receiver as a junior, and second behind Brandon Bennett as a senior.

I thought Toby Cates was a cool customer, I do remember that.  He was of average build, average speed, average talent, in other words pretty darned average.  But he got every ounce of that averageness, which is always worthy of respect.

The question: Is it ever, under any circumstances, OK to pull for Clemson?

Now, fair reader, I know you know the answer to this, and I agree it is a little bit silly to put this topic in my award-winning series.  However, there are those fringe “fans” who make the following arguments:

My husband/wife is a Clemson graduate, so I pull for them when we’re not playing each other. First of all, and I mean this as disrespectfully as it sounds, you are no fan and have no concept of rivalry.  And if your husband/wife is telling you they are pulling for South Carolina, they are LYING, because it is not possible to have two people under one roof that are that clueless about the USC-Clemson relationship.  Check credit card records, phone bills, expense reports, etc., because your black-hearted, conniving spouse is probably playing you for a chump in innumerable ways.  Get out of that sham of a relationship ASAP.

I pull for Clemson because it’s good for the state. This “state pride” argument is asinine.  You know what’s good for the state of South Carolina?  Golf courses and hurricanes that don’t hit the state of South Carolina.  You know what’s good for the Gamecocks?  Clemson losing.  Losing at everything.  Football, basketball, baseball, field hockey.  And recruiting.  I want all the top recruits in the state, and if we don’t get them I want them to go to places like Michigan or Oregon State or Arizona where the chances of them hurting us are greatly reduced.

Now, this part may surprise you a little, but I don’t want Clemson to lose every game, and here’s why:  having hope and losing is much more painful than having no hope and losing (who better than us to grasp that concept).  For example, in football I’d like to see good run of 3-9, 4-8 type seasons out of them (losing to us every year of course).  That way they would have that glimmer of hope that a turnaround is just on the horizon.  I don’t know the ideal hope to pain ratio, but I think it would be somewhere in that range.

And I’ll share this with you as a bonus – the only time you should ever pull for Georgia?

When they’re playing Clemson.

Play of the decade for the Gamecocks, and Exhibit A as to why I love college football.

OK, I’ll admit it if nobody else will – I never really wanted Phil Petty to be our quarterback.  I didn’t want a game manager.  I didn’t want a guy who didn’t take chances and make mistakes.  I wanted somebody a little taller, a lot more athletic, with a stronger arm.

But when Phil Petty walked off the field for the last time as a Gamecock, he had done what I wanted most, won a heckuva lot of games (relatively speaking of course).  He persevered through Scott’s last year and Lou’s first, and helped give us a boatload of memories, including:

– The 2000 victory over #9 UGA, then the dramatic final drive and TD pass against UGA in 2001.

– Back-to-back Outback Bowl victories over Ohio State

– The 300-yard game and comeback for the ages against Alabama

– Spraining his ankle against Mississippi State.  What?  Don’t look at me like that.  That was a big, big play that led to “The Fade”.

This one was my favorite though. I was watching at the G-man’s house, and for the only time in my life made an immediate rub-it-in-your-face victory call to an obnoxious Georgia friend/fan.

Two random side notes – I’ll never get enough of Brian Scott’s Huggy Bear strut after that touchdown.  And why, oh why is Ron Franklin not the prime time play-by-play guy for ESPN?  He makes Mike Patrick look like Todd Ellis.  (I’ll apologize to Mike Patrick later and let him know I was just trying to make a point.)

As we enter the midpoint of fall camp, here are some storylines you may have missed:

– PJB Champ UConn indefinitely suspended a bunch of guys they really, really needed, but still weren’t good enough to play in the SEC.  The remainder of the Huskies are all 4-feet tall, enjoy crochet and afternoon tea, but would still pound the stuffing out of the Gamecocks.  Apparently it’s like rock/paper/scissors:  the paper looks weak and outmatched, but it always tops the rock.

– Bubba Drago will definitely play in the opener per the HBC.  No word on whether he will play quarterback, or will serve as the entire defensive line by himself.

– Coach said all spring that some of the freshmen O-linemen would play, but I thought he was just being cute.  Now, after one upperclassman blew out his knee, two betrayed a lack of conditioning necessary to complete practice, and eight others succumbed to the bubonic plague, it appears Spurrier was a prophet.  Oh, and one of our twelve walk-on long-snappers is now the 3rd string center.

– Sometime back the UNC Tar Heels looked away from their agent booty long enough to scuttle a scheduled game with the Gamecocks. They signed up instead for a home and home with the Mighty Volunteers.  Now that UT is apparently scared of anything other than Smokey’s shadow, the planned series is in limbo.     Could it be that Wesley Saunders and Marvin Austin flew down to Miami to try to work this all out?  Sounds plausible to me.  Of course, at one point I believed Brad Scott was a genius.

Comedy or Tragedy? Depends When You Ask.

– Coach Spurrier says we are pretty decent woefully bad ok nothing to brag about this year.  He says the quarterbacks are much improved disgusting exciting stupid a work in progress and the Oline looks stronger weaker committed to excellence average.   Hello Everyyear, nice to see you again.

– Mustard Buzzard head screw Larry Fedora is skipping the walkback and is opting instead for a full-blown reverse sprint.  A timeline to illustrate:

July 15th: “[C]ollege football fan in this entire country will be watching us – watching the Golden Eagles beating South Carolina,”

August 7th: “[O]ur guys are excited to be able to go out and compete against South Carolina.”

August 15th: “We understand South Carolina’s probably got one of the best teams they’ve had in years. We understand what Coach Spurrier and his staff are capable of doing.”

Here’s a little trivia for you – South Carolina has returned exactly ONE kickoff for touchdown since 1997.  Want to guess who it was?  Oh, right, the headline…

Matthew Thomas burst onto the scene in 2001 as a true freshman with a spectacular catch on the game-winning drive in a 13-9 win over Georgia.  He went on to have a solid season that year, and much more was expected of him in following seasons.

The kickoff return of 95 yards against UVA in 2002 showed a flash of who Thomas could be.  But a subsequent fumble by Thomas in the same game, returned for a touchdown by the Cavs, showed us the reality of Matthew Thomas – talented but very inconsistent.

Maybe we expected too much out of the lightly recruited DB/WR out of Georgia.  But it’s really his fault for showing us those occasional flashes of brilliance.  Isn’t it?

Who knew “Dat Boy” had so much influence on popular culture?  The LA alternative band Lifehouse has a new single out, and they’re “All In” just like Swinney.  Watch and listen (if you can):

Proof that its a Clemson Tiger University inspiration?  

The name of the album is “Smoke and Mirrors”.