WARNING: Major league no-purpose ramble below.  If you make it all the way to the end, don’t complain, you were warned.  (Also, there’s a little language in a couple of the linked clips if you’re on company time.)

There have been several comments across the webernets the last few days about American Movie Classics airing the 1993 movie The Program this month.  Haven’t thought about that film in a while, but once I reflected on it for a few minutes today I couldn’t resist looking up the trailer for the film:

Most of you, even the young-uns, I’m sure have seen the Fox College Flash Classic episode multiple times, with Hank Campbell making an epic stop on a Tennessee two-point conversion attempt to preserve a win in the 1992 Gamecock football rags-to-riches season.  But some of you probably don’t know that quite a few scenes for The Program were shot on that day as well.  And if you do know, but weren’t there, I can assure you it was quite a surreal scene.

It was October 31, 1992.  Halftime of a pretty doggone exciting game consisted of USC and UT fans banding together to cheer on the fictional ESU Timberwolves football team.  (Did they ever identify what ESU stood for in the movie? Eastern State University?)  The PA guy had to do his best to get the crowd revved up, because quite frankly it was very awkward to see these bunch of scrubs running around on the field executing scripted plays and being followed by guys carrying huge cameras.  It was comical to a certain extent, and at times I felt a little sorry for the dudes on the field, because a lot of times we were cheering AT them instead of FOR them if you know what I mean.  But after the first few attempts, the crowd got into it and it turned out being kind of fun.

If you pay close attention to the movie you can really see how Williams-Brice has transformed over the last 20 years. Amazing what a coat of paint, an end zone upper deck, football offices and a few signs will do to spruce a place up.

I had graduated from USC in the winter of 1991, worked as a waiter for a while and had only recently gotten a “real” job in Augusta. My old buddy Gman, in law school at USC at the time, asked me to come up for the game, he was having a big crowd at his apartment that weekend.

I’m pretty sure this is the first weekend I was introduced to Tbone, who was in law school with the G.  I also met two of Tbone’s good friends from his hometown – Mike, which is a generic enough name, and the other guy, let’s just call him Bill, because he actually has a nickname so unique that some of you folks might know who he is…and that wouldn’t be a good thing.

BTW, I have zero recollection of Tbone from this weekend.  Nada.  But by everyone else’s account he was there.  Great first impression that guy gives, huh.

So “Bill” gets hammered before the game, and gets so sick in Gman’s apartment that he is physically unable to go to the game.  We pile about 15 people in the bed of Tbone’s pickup truck (purportedly) after some pre-tailgate cocktails, and ride down to the W-B on a gorgeous Halloween day.  The rest is pretty much history – great tailgating, great seats (30 yard line, lower level) great first half, very unique halftime, great second half, and then Hank Campbell.  Truly one of the great Saturdays I’ve ever spent at a Carolina football game.

(Side note: the Braves lost to the Blue Jays that night in the World Series 3-2, which put only a slight damper on the day.)

Now, for the film itself, some random thoughts:

• The Program was released the following year, in 1993, starring Sonny Corleone.  I think I saw it at the theater, but honestly can’t remember.
• The movie is chock full of cliché, covering every relevant football topic or theme from the early 90’s – football factory, rebel QB, veteran player vs. freshman position battle, veteran coach losing his edge and conflicted on how far to push the rules so he can produce a winner, and one that hit close to home in Columbia – steroids (cue dramatic music).
• A buddy of mine was an extra in the film – actually an assistant coach with a couple of speaking lines – and he told me Kristy Swanson (Camille in the movie) liked to PAR-TAY (poles, dancing and the like).
• Joe Kane – the perfect name for a rebel QB.  Wonder what ever happened to Craig Sheffer anyway?  Wish there was some sort of database on the internet for movies.  Oh well, guess we’ll never know…
• Didn’t remember this – the dude jacked up on roids is named Lattimer in the movie.  Sounnnnd vaguely familiarrrr?  And there’s one scene where he does a helluva make-up job on himself.  They know how to teach some serious skull face at ESU.
• Bob Neal, father of Dave Neal (of College Flash Classics and SEC Football fame), does the play-by-play for the Timberwolves.  Did a voice over job with Bob Neal a few years ago, fascinating guy. Has some great Ted Turner stories. (hey, I told you I was going to ramble)
• The game-winning touchdown in the final scene is ridiculously Hollywood.  Parts of it are eerily similar to the final play in Friday Night Lights (the greatest football movie ever made, so please forgive the comparison).

So, you made it all the way through.  Do you have any of your own memories from October 31, 1992?  (The “I wasn’t born yet” crowd, shut the hell up.)

So word has finally leaked that USC and UNC are deep in talks about a proposed 5 game series in football.  No one on our side of the border is talking yet, but note reports such as this are prevalent:

With the info now out there, we here at TRC feel comfortable releasing our own intel on the topic, which we’ve been holding close for some time now.  Our own crack investigative team has uncovered intra-office memos detailing the Gamecock AD’s approach to the negotiations.  Don’t ask us how we came across the info (OK, Gman is a janitor in the AD’s Office), and please do NOT forward or disseminate publicly:

As a self-appointed “basketball guy” and long time season ticket holder, my brethren here on the blog usually look to me to weigh in on what has undoubtedly become the third most popular sport amongst the fan base. Lucky me.   As I’m sure you readers would rather read about 2015 football recruiting than our basketball team, my challenge is to hold your attention, if even only for a few minutes.

Well, we pull no punches here at TRC.  I’m going to say some things here that need to be said, and I want to make one thing clear:  THESE COMMENTS ARE DIRECTED TO THOSE VOCAL FANS  THAT WANTED COACH ODOM TO BE FIRED.

I remember it all very clearly.  They said Odom couldn’t recruit.  Sure, he had Devin and Zam on the roster, but he didn’t actually SIGN those guys, they transferred in.  No matter that he DID SIGN Ro Balkman (NBA), Tarrance Kinsey (NBA), Sam Muldrow (diamond in the rough), Tre Kelley (scoring machine), Dominique Archie (budding star before injury), Mike Holmes (flawed but major talent) and Carlos Powell (tremendous heart and post moves), among others.  Sure, some of those guys were nice players (again, they said), but they weren’t going to win The Big Dance for you.

Well, let me ask the bloodthirsty “Fire Odom” crowd now:  wouldn’t you kill for a dynamic scorer like Tre Kelley or Devin Downey running the point, or for a Carlos Powell or Sam Muldrow making an actual post move in the paint?  Wouldn’t you just love to see an athlete like Balkman or Archie finishing an alley oop?  Well, we’re not seeing any of that now.

Not even close.

No, Odom – with his two NIT titles and mostly competitive teams – was not good enough for the fans.  They remembered the glory days of the McGuire years and felt that they deserved better.  After all, in the late 60’s and early 70’s we were a national basketball power! (Sound familiar?  Did anyone notice the CTU fan holding up the 81 national championship sign during the 2012 Orange Bowl?)

Now, did I absolutely love Odom as a coach?  Not especially; but I understood the state of our program and realized that he was as good a coach that we could expect to have under the circumstances.  The guy knew the game and had previously achieved success in the toughest conference in America.  All in all, I thought he did a pretty good job based on the recruits available to him.

Did he reach for some guys who couldn’t play? Sure he did. Did he lose to CTU too often? No doubt.  But what Odom did accomplish was the continuation (after Fogler) of program that was respected within the conference and that actually had a modicum of respect nationally.  Odom had name recognition as the guy who discovered and developed Tim Duncan, and Odom had enough credibility that he was able to persuade a supreme talent like Downey to transfer to USC when he probably would have been welcomed by almost any team in the ACC.

Now, we are pretty much a laughing stock, with losses this season to Elon and Tennessee State, and a mostly empty Colonial Life Arena for home games.  Want to know how we stack up nationally? Check out our basketball page on ESPN.com and look at our horrifying national rankings in scoring, rebounding, assists and and field goal percentage. Be glad if you missed the halftime comments made by national commentator Doug Gottlieb (I’m not a fan, BTW) when we played UNC earlier this year.

Instead of sticking with Odom (remember, he left with Downey, Frederick, Holmes, Archie, and Muldrow ON the roster), he was forced out and we decided to go with Darrin Horn, the young gun with the hair.  The Odom bashers had won.  The boring and underachieving veteran was out, and the up and coming WKU coach (who after all, had gotten to one Sweet 16) was in.  In case you have forgotten, Horn won 10 games in the SEC and 21 overall with the players he inherited from Odom.  In other words, the cupboard was pretty well stocked with groceries. Instead, we started over with a new chef who had his own recipes.

This change is what the fans wanted, what they “deserved.”  Now really, what exactly do we “deserve” as USC basketball fans?  Despite an amazing  run under McGuire and an SEC title under Fogler, our storied program has won exactly one NCAA tournament game in its history, and I think that was a consolation game.  As far as basketball tradition goes, we don’t have much. Not much at all.  With this as our reality (again, this sounds strangely familiar), a large segment of our fans cling to the belief that we should be able to reenter the national basketball scene with ease.  The thinking is that the right coach is all we need.

Sadly, sports fans, it’s not 1971 anymore.   While it may be a little easier to quickly achieve upward mobility in basketball as compared to football, the same basic principles apply in most cases.  The teams with tradition (i.e., Kentucky, UNC, Kansas, Duke) usually win and win big on a consistent basis.  For the most part, these programs don’t recruit, they select.  While some of these schools have good coaches as well, a trained monkey could probably sit on the bench and win 20 games with some of their rosters.  After the traditional elites, there’s a group of teams that have been good for quite some time and are close to achieving elite status: UConn, Syracuse, Gonzaga, and Michigan State being examples.  When examining this second group, one thing stands out:  coaching stability.  These schools have stuck with coaches, year and year through thick and thin.  After the elites and emerging elites, there’s everybody else.  The everybody elses of the world try various methods to break into the next group.  Some cheat (Tennessee, Florida, Oklahoma) while others hire and fire at will.

USC falls under the hire and fire category and is learning the hard way that Horn and company are not the quick fix some wanted him to be.  Instead of taking steps forward, we have taken giant steps backwards.  I would venture to say that none of our current starting five could start for the team that Horn inherited from Odom.  And this is after four years.

Folks need to understand that it is very, very hard to win consistently in basketball at USC.  Realize that the SEC in basketball is the equivalent of the ACC in football.  The stud players from our neighboring states wouldn’t dream of coming here to play basketball (just imagine Clowney signing with NC State last year if you don’t understand my point).  Meanwhile, too many of the great players our state produces are leaving for greener pastures (i.e., Raymond Felton to UNC).  Also understand that Horn has signed most of the highly rated players in the state during his time at USC (Ellington, Slawson, Leonard).  That should tell us something about the talent pool we are working with.

The only way we will ever achieve success in basketball will be to build a program step by step (see baseball, see football).  Would Odom have eventually broken through with that coveted NCAA win?  Perhaps not, but we’ll never know.  Can Horn get there?  It looks unlikely, but we will probably never get this answer either, because let’s face it, Darrin Horn is a goner.

The fans, with their lack of support for the program, have spoken.

Our special Saturday edition of TRC Unleashed has been archived, and if you weren’t able to listen live, you can listen to it here.  We discuss among other things the recruitment and commitment of Mike Davis, who we’re looking forward to seeing among our current commitments, the new members of our coaching staff, the arrest and scariness of Byron Jerideau, and Dabo’s most recent rant.

Give a listen!

That’s right, Buck will be at the revival of the hit musical “Annie” on Sunday during our normal show time, so we’ll bludgeon him for that, plus talk some Gamecock sports.  Please join us at 6:30 p.m. today where we’ll discuss:

• Coaching changes
• Recruiting
• The state of the basketball program
• How our joy of making fun of CTU continues unabated

Join us, it’ll be more entertaining than our game against Florida, that’s for sure.

Really, it has thousands of potential uses:

e s p n

oh your

piece about

dabo

where he slept with

his mom

sent alarums through

my very soul

(for the uninitiated, based loosely on the poem, The Red Wheel Barrow)

People always talk about how the holidays are depressing.  Christmas Day can get a little depressing, knowing that month-long holiday build-up resulted in a pair of bedroom slippers that totally didn’t fit.

But after that you always have New Year’s to look forward to. But once that gets here you start thinking about going back to work and you just want to stab yourself in the eyes to keep from having to deal with that hen in the office across the hall.

But we still have football, and while I have railed against the sin of not having the Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl and Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day, the BCS has at least extended our holiday into the year’s first week.

But once the BCS title game is over, what is there?  January college basketball sucks really hard people, admit it.  Recruiting? We’re down to pining over a couple of guys who we didn’t really want two months ago.  The outdoors frightens me with its lack of color and creepy leafless branches longing to bring me into their clutches.

Wait, what were we talking about again?

On to The Sweep:

Hail ‘Bama. I hate to say that, because Alabama losing is so much more entertaining and better for business than them winning, what with their crazyass fan base and all. But you have to give Nick Saban credit, he showed why he is a living legend and why The Hat is The Hat. LSU was putting together one of the most epic seasons of all time, with wins over Oregon (Rose Bowl champ), West Virginia (Orange Bowl champ), Alabama (eventual BCS champ) and Arkansas (Cotton Bowl champ).  But the Tide got revenge in a big way, dominating on defense like the ’86 Bears and with an assist from A.J. McCarron and Game of the Century Goat Jeremy “The Toe” Shelley, who is a hero despite MISSING two field goals and an extra point.

The funniest thing to me last night was seeing all the tweets about how “THIS GAME ISN’T BORING THIS IS HOW FOOTBALL IS SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYED!”  Look SEC fans, you don’t have to continue to defend the conference, we’ve already won. Those were the best two teams in the country last night, and one of them proved beyond a shadow of a doubt they are the best in the land.

But please don’t try to pass that off as an enjoyable game.  That game was bad. (I initially typed horrendous, but I recalled all the cracking pads I noticed last night, which I enjoyed, so I upped the grade.)  Games that are great defensive battles have meaningful touchdowns scored, that’s what makes them so great.  I love a good 13-10 game. I love a good 45-42 game. I love football. And I loved last night, but I didn’t love being a spectator of that particular game.

My lasting memory from the game will always be this —> OUCH.

Top 10 Finish. As expected, South Carolina finished with their first ever Top 10 ranking when the polls were released early this morning, earning the #8 spot in the AP Top 25 and the #9 spot in the USA Today coaches poll.  Apparently the Gamecocks did not impress everyone, as Josh Kendall ranked us #11 in his final ballot.  Oh yeah, he works for The State, but I’m sure you already knew that.

Annnnd Here We Go. Will the Gamecocks be ranked in the Top 10 in the 2012 preseason polls? Well, if the way too early prognostications are any guide, it appears so.  Mark Schlabach of ESPN has USC at #10 (his alma mater UGA is at #6),  Other teams of interest include BCS title game participants LSU at #1 and Alabama at #3, probation-riddled SoCal at #2, the record holders for most points ever scored in a bowl game at #7, FSU at #8…wait, seriously?  FSU in the Top 10 again? Sucker.

70-33 is ranked #22 in this poll.

Don’t Say Nothin’ Says Somethin’. Devin Taylor’s announcement that he is staying for his Senior season is a major boost to the Gamecock defense next year.  It’s also the right move for a classy young man who will greatly improve his draft stock over the next twelve months. Any time I heard his name mentioned in conjunction with the draft I couldn’t help but think of Clifton Geathers, whose decision to leave early hasn’t quite panned out so far.

It Just Doesn’t Get Old. Brent Musburger took a shot at Clemson last night during the BCS National Championship, saying something to the effect that “Alabama has given up nine touchdowns all season, Clemson gave up more than that in ONE GAME!”  Ouch, man. (I can’t find a clip of it, so if anyone has one, please pass it along.) Bet the Esso Club won’t be quite so welcoming to Brent next time.

Now I See Why Tigers Eat Their Young. More on the “70-33 Incident”, FIGUREFOUR over at Shakin’ the Southland pretty much hates everything about Clemson football at the moment. And the people in the comments section pile on. Good read. Good, good read.

Ragin’ Cajun. If you didn’t see reporter Bobby Hebert’s questioning of Les Miles after the game you should treat yourself. Hebert used to be the quarterback of the New Orleans Saints. And the Atlanta Falcons. And he has a radio show. And his son plays offensive line for LSU.  And he’s nutty as a fruitcake.

Honestly, my respect for Les Miles goes way up here, because he embraces calm and actually answers like Hebert is a real journalist.

Come on Spring.