Yeah, I don’t get it either.

Here are some quick, barely researched, not fully formed thoughts from last night’s sloppy 49-6 victory over the University of Alabama-Birmingham:

Broken records. Let’s start with two pretty significant records: first, Marcus Lattimore became the all-time leader in touchdowns scored at South Carolina with 34, surpassing George Rogers and Harold Green. Of note, Lattimore has accomplished this in 23 career games, while Rogers  had 33 TD’s in 47 games and Green had 33 in 44. It’s pretty amazing to think where he might be if he hadn’t injured his knee last year, and where that record might wind up if he decides to stay for his senior season.

The other record is actually a milestone – Steve Spurrier’s 200th career win. He’ll never get to the upper stratosphere in wins, but even so he will certainly be recognized as one of the top 10 college coaches of all time once he’s done. His innovative offenses of the 90’s changed the SEC and the college game forever. Also, he was quick to point out he has 47 professional wins to his credit, as if to say, “hey, I took time off to do some other things, these guys ahead of me didn’t.”

Attack of the rabbits. Jadeveon Clowney had perhaps the best game of his college career last night, with 7 tackles, 2 sacks, and 3.5 tackles for loss. Devin Taylor was also all over the place last night, and the interior linemen were smothering the UAB run game from the get-go. It’s still early, but the defense is ranked in the top 10 in the country in rush defense and points allowed. We were also introduced to the name of our four-man front where we line up all defensive ends – “Rabbit”.

Now all us novices can feel football smart when we see it and can say to our buddies, “hey, check it out, they’re in Rabbit.”

On the other hand…They got it under control for the most part in the second half last night, but there seem to be a lot of breakdowns happening in the defensive backfield. There are too many receivers finding space, and that’s ok for the competition we’ve played the first three weeks, but next week things will get ratcheted up a bit. Breakdowns against the Missouri’s and Georgia’s of the world, where one play can be the difference, can get you beat.

Thompson to the rescue. Once again, Dylan Thompson came in like a man on fire after Connor Shaw re-injured his shoulder/scapula/back/something. He made one bad decision, a few bad throws, but survived them all to throw for 177 yards on just five completions. The combination of the play calling and his newfound confidence disturb me a little, because he seems to think he can fit every throw in in every situation. He threw one pick that was erased by a flag, and another that the UAB guy dropped and could’ve been a pick six. Again, mistakes that can’t be made against big time competition.

Shaw looked shaky, much like he did against Vandy. He didn’t have a lot of zip on his throws, and missed a couple of open guys by a lot. Still, let’s hope he’s ok by next Saturday, because we’ll need his dual threat capabilities to keep Mizzou off-balance. (Although he ran a lot less last night than normal, which I’m sure is to protect him.)

Receivers receiving. Ace Sanders had a great night, and might be about to break out the way we expected him to this year. He has great hands, and is great in the open field and hard to bring down one-on-one. Bruce Ellington also had a fantastic night before injuring his shoulder, coming up just short of his first career 100-yard receiving game. Dameire Byrd is averaging something like 137 yards per catch, Shaq Roland got his first taste of the Carolina end zone, and Jerell Adams…wow, what a man-child. With the exception of the enigmatic D.L. Moore, the pass catchers had a good night. The future is bright at receiver for the Gamecocks, now we just have to get them the ball.

Glued to their seats. It appears a lot less people left early last night. Or at least they stayed until some time ran off the clock in the fourth quarter. But even the HBC admitted last night’s game was long, saying in the post-game presser, “I was about ready to leave with ’em.”

The Transitive Property Report. I’ve actually decided to make the TPR a separate weekly feature, so be on the lookout for that mid-week. But I couldn’t go through this column without marveling at what a train wreck Arkansas is. They finished strong last season, and had National Championship aspirations coming into this year, even with the Bobby Petrino fiasco. But after a stunning lost to Louisana Monroe, a 52-0 thrashing at the hands of Alabama, and the starting QB calling out “quitters” on his team, the fans are about ready to burn Fayetteville down.

There but for the grace of God go us all.

Go Cocks! Beat Mizzou!

 

 

The ACC announced yesterday that the prettiest girl still alone on the dance floor, Notre Dame, is joining the conference.  Sounds good, surprisingly good, right?

Oh, wait, there’s one little detail we forgot to mention.  Quoting from the official release:

 . . . with the exception of football”

Pesky little detail there, eh?

Basically, Notre Dame is shifting from the woeful Big East (which will now completely collapse, I’ll wager) to the nervous and twitchy land of the Atlantic Coast Conference.  Same deal basically, except that Notre Dame agrees to play 5 ACC teams in football each year.  This isn’t really an innovation or change for the Golden Domers, as they already have four now-or-future ACC teams on their current schedule.

While the initial reaction to this move was widely positive for the ACC, more national pundits are beginning to question the wisdom of ACC commissioner John Swofford.  In the end, it appears that Notre Dame gets everything it wanted, and the ACC gets the same bad deal that didn’t work for the Colonial Athletic Association or the Big East.

Positives for Notre Dame include:

– Immediate upgrade to basketball revenue and profile.  The Big East is no basketball slouch, obviously, but the ACC is the brand name.

– Upgrade bowl tie-ins for football.  That’s right, the deal allows Notre Dame to leapfrog the bowl-eligible ACC schools for any bowl slot save a BCS game, which the Domers are already eligible for as the golden independent.  Swofford has guaranteed that at least one ACC school a year is gonna head to a less than prime bowl because the prime bowl can pick the Irish.

– No real commitment to do anything with the ACC in football other than play a few of them each year.  Which ND already does.

– Stable (relative to Big East) conference while still avoiding the B1G and Big 12 rules requiring full membership.  Interestingly, the ACC had the exact same rule . . . until yesterday.

– Notre Dame’s academics are more consistent with the ACC than with the Big East.

So, what are the positives for the ACC?

– They made the nightly news yesterday for something other than a scandal at North Carolina or Miami.

That’s about all I see for them.

The biggest two barometers of just how bad this deal is for the ACC are 1.  the reaction of the CTU and FSU fanbases, and 2.  – well lets wait on #2 for a moment.  Although this is only anecdotal evidence, I can report that local talk show callers to WCCP are in full-fledged revolt mode over this deal.  Many seriously believed that the SEC or Big 12 were about to offer the Tigers a slot, and this seems to all but close off that possibility.  FSU alumni that I”ve spoken with are excited about playing the Irish a couple of times a decade in football, but seem to think they could have negotiated that deal on their own without Swofford’s additional conditions.

Oh, and back to the 2nd bad barometer.  I’ll quote from the ACC official press release:

In addition to extending an invitation to Notre Dame, the Council of Presidents voted to increase the conference exit fees to three times the annual operating budget. Currently this would equate to an exit fee of over $50 million.

Why would the conference need to add this draconian penalty for leaving?  It’s not a sign of healthy conference relationships, obviously.  As you may already know, the SEC has NO exit fee – ZERO.  If you want to leave, you are welcomed to leave.  But the ACC is basically threatening its member institutions with athletic budget suicide in order to keep them at home.

Anyone else think that Notre Dame is exempt from this provision?

Here are some quick, barely researched, not fully formed thoughts from yesterday’s  surprisingly easy 48-10 victory over the East Carolina Pirates:

Tempest in a teapot. Dylan Thompson’s cameo in last Thursday’s Vanderbilt game was roundly panned by…well, everybody, including Steve Spurrier. But Spurrier obviously knew something we didn’t when he named Thompson the starter for yesterday’s game against ECU in place of Connor Shaw, because he had #17 lobbing bombs from the opening series. Thompson responded by going 21-37 for 330 yards and three touchdowns in his first career start. He wasn’t perfect, but he was much more than good enough against a porous East Carolina secondary. As Spurrier said in the post-game presser, Thompson’s confidence was as high as it’s ever been and his teammates responded and rallied around him. Good to see.

Before anyone gets excited about a quarterback controversy (which is a ridiculous notion, but I’ve already seen it floated out there), Spurrier has said Connor Shaw will start next week against Alabama-Birmingham provided his shoulder is in good working order by then. But it’s nice to know Thompson appears to be a viable option should Shaw have to sit for any reason.

Opportunistic D. The Gamecock defense gave up more than 400 yards of offense to the Pirates, but forced five turnovers and gave up only ten points. You can bet Coach Ward will not be happy with the yardage total, but I don’t think it’s anything to be concerned about unless we start to see a pattern. Speaking of the D, did Jadeveon Clowney put on about 40 lbs. of muscle this week? I don’t now if it’s the home jersey, of if they purposely made his number smaller on his jersey, but he looked frightening to me. I can only imagine how frightening he looked to the ECU left tackle.

The Head Ball Coach. There was a lot of talk over the summer that the HBC had “gotten his swagger back”, talking more smack than he had previously at USC, and nearing the level of his Florida days. Yesterday he showed a little more of the swagger, calling a wide receiver pass with 35-3, and then scoring the final touchdown on a 51-yard pass play with less than a minute to go.  In the post-game Spurrier said the reason for that last pass was “to win the fourth quarter, we talk a lot about winning the fourth quarter around here”, and USC was trailing the fourth quarter 7-6 at the time (but still leading 41-10). You know what coach, I’m ok with it. As a matter of fact, I LOVE IT.

Also in the post-game, Spurrier mentioned USC ran 50 plays in the first half, then took a jab at Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris by saying “boy that Clemson coach would be proud of us wouldn’t he?” (Morris’ goal is for his teams to run about 80 offensive plays per game.) Spurrier followed that up with a fit of laughter unseen in his days at USC. Classic.

“I’d keep throwing coach.” East Carolina held Marcus Lattimore to 40 yards on 13 carries, and the Gamecocks to 131 total rushing yards. Spurrier said when he asked Sean Elliott what running plays he wanted to go with, he responded, “I’d keep throwing coach.” That had to be music to Spurrier’s ears.

Better reception. Concern over the wide receiver corps grew after last week against Vandy, but the group redeemed themselves with a solid performance yesterday. Eight different receivers caught passes yesterday, led by Bruce Ellington’s four catches, and D.L. Moore’s two touchdowns. Spurrier looked anxious to take the wrappings off his new toy Shaq Roland, but #4 couldn’t come down with any long balls. He did have his first career catch and finished with two catches for 25 yards. Buster Anderson looked like an all-SEC candidate at the tight end position with four catches for 90 yards and two TD’s. So far there are no superstars to catch the ball, but it appears there are a lot of solid options.

Around the Country, aka The Transitive Property Report. After a weekend of strange games last week that had us guessing about the quality of some of our future opponents (and one of our past opponents), I thought we’d take a look at our schedule and determine how we feel about that team after week 2. There is no rhyme or reason to the TPR, it’s just how I feel and I make it up as I go:

• Vanderbilt – lost to Northwestern 23-13. Now, Northwestern did beat Syracuse, who in turn gave SoCal a run for their money yesterday, so that takes a little sting out. But Vandy still appears to be Vandy. Transitive Property Report (TPR) for Vandy: Not so good.
• UAB – DNP. TPR for UAB: Not a problem.
• Missouri – Lost to Georgia 41-20. Honestly, I expected more from these Tigers. Maybe I got caught up in the ESPN first SEC game hype. Mizzou missed a ton of opportunities and succumbed to a suffocating Georgia D. Can we hold them in check in two weeks? TPR for Mizzou: Slightly good, but cautious.
• Kentucky – Beat Kent State 47-14. Yawn, nothing scares me about this team yet. Still have to point to the drubbing at the hands of Louisville. TPR for Kentucky: Very good.
• Georgia – Beat Missouri 41-20. The score was maybe a little misleading, this game was close fairly late until a couple of critical turnovers by Mizzou. Still, UGA’s defense was scary good WITHOUT four starters. The Dogs vaunted running game and next next next next next Herschel Walker was shut down for most of the night. They appear to have found a go-to receiver in Marlon Brown. TPR for Georgia: About the same, still looks like this could go a long way in determining the East champion.
• LSU – Beat Washington 41-3. Meh. Washington has been a struggling program for years, and after muddling to a 21-12 win over San Diego State, you knew they wouldn’t put up much of a fight in the bayou. Can someone explain why this was the ESPN prime time game and UGA-Mizzou was on the Duece?  TPR for LSU: Still feels like a loss, but we’ll know more about both teams before it gets here.
• Florida – Beat Texas A&M 20-17. An outstanding win for Will Muschamp and the Gators. I missed the first half of this game, but my Twitter timeline told me TAMU was manhandling Florida in the first half. But the Gators played an inspired second half in an extremely hostile environment and put themselves back on everyone’s radar. TPR for Florida: Not enough information, feeling neutral.
• Tennessee – Beat Georgia State 51-13. The first question is, how did GSU score 13 after only scoring six on South Carolina State? Eh, not relevant, I know. Tennessee’s big win over NCSU last week doesn’t look nearly as big after the Wolfpack only beat UConn 10-7. The Vols are better, but I think this one still goes in the W column when all is said and done. TPR for Tennessee: Good, up slightly from OK.
• Arkansas – Lost to Louisiana Monroe 34-31. The shocker of the weekend by far. Outside of LSU, a lot of pundits pointed to this game as the most likely loss for the Gamecocks. But the Hogs have problems all over the place, and without Tyler Wilson they are a .500 team at best. We’ll see if and how they recover in the coming weeks. This team has owned us for a while, but this may be the year to exact a little revenge. TPR for Arkansas: MUCH more confident.
• Wofford – Beat Lincoln University 82-0 (!!!). We all know this game will be painful. We will not lose to them, but as always our ego will take a hit. TPR for Wofford: Groan, we have to play them again?
• Clemson – Beat Ball State 52-27. It’s the second week of September, and CTU is rolling. Sound familiar? The Tigers get another scrimmage next week against Furman before they get the only real test on their ACC schedule against Florida State. We’ve known the ACC is weak for years now, but they might be scraping bottom at the moment. Get used to hearing it from the upstate crowd all year as they smash cupcakes, but remind them that the outstanding Auburn team they beat got rolled by Mississippi State. TPR for Clemson: Still feeling good about it.

Go Cocks, beat [searches Google for UAB mascot] the Blazers!

How do we top Dabo in his religion-pimping, self-promotional, faux-piety disingenuity?  Let’s pray it doesn’t come to this: