Last year we did an audio review of every Gamecock football season since 1987. Due to popular demand, we will be re-running the series this summer leading up to kickoff against Texas A&M on August 28.
South Carolina and Lou Holtz began 2004 with the intention of washing away memories of the horrifying 2003 finale. Skip Holtz had been stripped of play-calling duties (and of the notion he was the head-coach-in-waiting) and the Gamecocks took the field in god-awful black helmets and black and white uniform combinations.
After a somewhat encouraging 4-1 start with a close loss to a good Georgia team, USC stumbled to a 2-4 finish. Rumors began to swirl the last two weeks of the season that Holtz would be leaving. By the time the Clemson game rolled around not only was that a given, but there were also strong indications of who our next coach would be – Steve Spurrier. Obviously that seems easy to believe now that he’s entering his tenth season here, but at the time it was simply inconceivable that such a legend would come to USC.
Unfortunately, this garbage prevented us from giving Holtz a proper send-off. A 6-6 record would’ve probably gotten us a bowl bid, but the brawl cost us that and gave us a lot of bad national publicity.Even though things did not end well for Lou or the ’04 season, when Spurrier was announced as our next head coach a few days later, the program was given a much-needed shot of adrenaline.
Click here or click the graphic for the 2004 season review, and enjoy!
Last year we did an audio review of every Gamecock football season since 1987. Due to popular demand, we will be re-running the series this summer leading up to kickoff against Texas A&M on August 28.
Buckshots changes things up a little in this edition, covering the frustrating 2002 and 2003 seasons in one episode.
Tbone and Gman have taken a bit of a break from the blog lately. And by “bit of a break” I mean I found them on the back of a milk carton earlier this week. After contacting the authorities and tracking them down, I thought it would be a good idea to try to get them back in football/blog mode with the season just around the corner. So I asked them a few questions to get the wheels turning, and below are their responses. Feel free to add your answers in the comments below.
Clemson fans say we don’t remember anything prior to 2009. Is that true? Why would they think that?
Gman: Not true. I remember everything. Frankly it’s just a lot more fun to remember good years instead of bad or average years. The truth is that they want to make themselves feel better about recent history (5 straight losses) by relishing ancient history. Sorry CTU fans, but your attempts to bring us down aren’t working. As Janet Jackson said: What have you done for me lately?
Tbone: What else can they say? When your team loses by double digits for five straight years, you have to come up with something. The best way to respond to this line of argument is either (depending on the spirit of the conversation) A) Yep, y’all and everyone else used to own us, but boy, how things have changed! or B) Man, seems like the only thing they teach at Clemson anymore is Ancient History.
Will Sidney Rhodes start at CB vs. TAMU?
Gman: No. Brison Williams & Rico McWilliams will start with Sidney and Jamari Smith as backups.
Tbone: No, but I wouldn’t be surprise if he got significant snaps. I expect Brison Williams will man one spot, and Al Harris Jr. sounds like the leader on the other side.
How many freshmen will be starting on defense by game 7?
Gman: One, being one of the three freshmen corners.
Tbone: Two. The aforementioned Harris, Jr., and Bryson Allen-Williams.
More TD’s this year – Shaq Roland or Pharoh?
Gman: Shaq. He’s gonna bust out.
Tbone: Roland. Looking at the last few games of 2013, he really started to take off. I think Pharoh is gonna get his, but Shaq can be a traveling circus show out there,
If Spurrier decided to try to make the Senior PGA Tour after this season, who would be our next head coach and why?
Gman: Shawn Elliott. He’s got the “it” factor. Will keep the staff together. GA elevates to offensive coordinator and Whammy gets over not being selected and becomes the best DC in the business.
Tbone: I like the idea of Shawn Elliott, with Mangus and Whammy in tow. Elliott presents like a head coach, and he’s got strong South Carolina ties. He’s proven to be a good recruiter, and an excellent motivator. His unit this year may be the best (on paper) we’ve had since the days of Jim Carlen. But if we can’t keep the band together, then I want that young cat from Ball State (Pete Lembo).
What is your absolute worst memory as a Gamecock fan?
Gman: With these memory questions I’m going with live moments instead of TV moments. So, the worst was Ga Tech 1988. We lost 34-0 and I remember leaving my seat in the 2nd half and lying on the ground near the concession stand. It was miserable. Going in we were 6-0 and #6 in the country-on top of the world. Tech won 2 other games that year: versus UT Chattanooga and VMI. Runner-up: Sitting through the frigid and putrid Papa Johns bowl.
Tbone: Tough one. A few years ago I would have said it was 63-17, but after a five-game win streak and an Orange Bowl blowout loss for Clemson, much of the sting from that old game is gone. I think the 2004 Clemson game might be it, as we lost both the game and the fight by big margins. But then we made a great hire a week or so later so . . . Wait! Wait! It’s The Pushoff. Yeah, absolutely. I was sitting in the freezing cold end zone bleachers at Death Valley Jr. for that flagrant no-call, and I’m still mad about it. Refs called it tight all night long, both for and against us, then let that obvious one slide at the end.
How about your best?
Gman: A tie. CTU-1987. My freshman year. I fell down in the bleachers on Ryan Bethea’s catch and run to the 6 yard line or so. I remember looking up at Buck (before he was Buck) and screaming: “Did he score???” This is tied with The Fade game. Was watching with Tbone (before he was Tbone). What a moment.
Tbone: Best that I didn’t attend? Either Ryan Brewer flipping the OSU defender off his shoulders in the 2001 Outback Bowl, or The Hit. Things got joyfully broken in Chez Tbone after both of those. Best memory from a game I did attend has to be the 1992 Clemson game, with Taneyhill signing the Tiger Paw and me dancing in the middle of the Clemson student section.
Who is your current go-to musical artist?
Gman: Jack White. Creative and one hell of a performer.
Tbone: Last concert I attended was Tokyo Police Club earlier this summer in Philadelphia, but for various reason I’m not sure I really understood what was going on. I listen to an inordinately large amount of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke these days, but I think Ryan Adams may be top of my list. If there is a better ballad out there than his “Come Pick Me Up” then I haven’t heard it. That song is exactly how it feels to be single.
Best movie you’ve seen in the last 12 months?
Gman: Nebraska. Not the best year or so for movies. Runner up: American Hustle. Runner Up #2: Muscle Shoals, a cool documentary.
Tbone: None of them. Movies suck. I saw Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, American Hustle, and several more, and they all gargled my (Editor’s note: deleted due to the family-friendly nature of our blog). If I ever go to the movie theater again, I want you to decapitate me with Blu Ray disk of The Wolf of Wall Street.
If you were food, what would you be and why?
Gman: I would say sushi but I don’t want to steal it from Tbone. So I’ll say bacon. Why? Because it’s the perfect food. Goes with everything and is always good. Think about it: have you ever had a bad piece of bacon? Of course not.
Tbone: I would be the braised beef tongue from American Grocery, a restaurant in the West End of downtown Greenville. And I would luxuriously dine on myself, because I would be rich, smooth, and incredibly tasty. I’m not ashamed to admit it, I would eat my delicious beef tongue self.
Last year we did an audio review of every Gamecock football season since 1987. Due to popular demand, we will be re-running the series this summer leading up to kickoff against Texas A&M on August 28.
The 2001 Gamecock football season featured a lot of great memories sandwiched around America’s greatest tragedy. After opening the season with two victories, including a second straight win over Georgia, the season was interrupted by the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
USC and Mississippi State were the first sporting event, and the first real “event” after 9/11, so there were a lot of eyes on that Carolina victory. After that win, the Gamecocks had a thrilling victory over Alabama, and ran their record to 5-0 before crashing to the ground in a 10-7 loss at Arkansas.
Predictable losses to Tennessee and Florida preceded a win over Clemson which broke a four-game losing streak to the Tigers. And the season ended on a real high note with a cakewalk that turned into a last-second victory over Ohio State in the Outback Bowl (again).
Click here or click the graphic to listen to how the season unfolded, and enjoy!
Last year we did an audio review of every Gamecock football season since 1987. Due to popular demand, we will be re-running the series this summer leading up to kickoff against Texas A&M on August 28.
It was a new century and Lou Holtz and the Gamecocks were looking to beak the nation’s longest losing streak (21 games) and give the fans something to cheer about.
They did that and much more in 2000, starting the season with two goalpost-destroying victories, including a stunning win over ninth-ranked Georgia and interception throwing machine Quincy Carter.
Last year we did an audio review of every Gamecock football season since 1987. Due to popular demand, we will be re-running the series this summer leading up to kickoff against Texas A&M on August 28.
Tbone puts the 1999 Gamecock football season into perspective as I’m sure no one ever has, quoting Shakespeare, poet Edith Wharton, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And it all comes together perfectly to put that dreadful season in its proper perspective.
Not only that, but for you young Gamecock fans who were either too young, or had not yet reached your peak fandom by 1999, Tbone absolves you from any of the burden from that season. It is, as he says, “our gift to you”.
The 1999 Gamecock Flashback is an absolute must listen, an emotional ride through a dark, dark time. But it is indeed a time worth remembering.
Click here or click the graphic to listen, and enjoy!
Last year we did an audio review of every Gamecock football season since 1987. Due to popular demand, we will be re-running the series this summer leading up to kickoff against Texas A&M on August 28.
Tbone fills in for Buck and takes us through Brad Scott’s final season as Gamecock head coach, a dreadful 1-10 campaign.
After a season-opening victory over Ball State, USC would slog through the worst season in the program’s history (a designation that would last all of 12 months). Tbone tells us about Gman’s ominous prediction after the first game, a loss to new D-1 member Marshall and their green polyester-clad fans, and listening to the Ole Miss game in his car at the beach – which I think qualifies as a clinical sickness.
Also, in 1998 a gentleman named Billy Reed from Kentucky wrote an unforgettable (believe me, we still haven’t forgotten) article about what a huge mistake it was to invite South Carolina into the SEC, basically because we were such pathetic losers. We have lost a total of two (2) football games to Kentucky since that article was written. (If anyone has access to the contents of that article, please contact us, we’d love to post it.)
The season culminated with a loss to a 2-win Clemson team in probably the most forgettable game of the series. Both teams would have new coaches when the 1999 season began.
It’s a scene man. Click here or click the graphic to listen, and enjoy!
Last year we did an audio review of every Gamecock football season since 1987. Due to popular demand, we will be re-running the series this summer leading up to kickoff against Texas A&M on August 28.
The Brad Scott era at USC continues its slow fade in 1997, dropping to a 5-6 record. At least with the 6-5 in 1996 we had victories over Georgia and Clemson, but not so in ’97. The season could’ve turned out better, but a devastating knee injury to quarterback Anthony Wright against Tennessee forced 165-lb. Vic Penn into action.
Penn fled the program to Central Florida after the Clemson game, largely because he couldn’t throw the out (1:36:37 here). In that Clemson game, despite a blazing start by Troy Hambrick (TD’s at 22:10 and 31:50 here), we lost primarily due to Brad Scott making one of the worst calls in coaching history (1:05:50 here).
(Note: also fun to see Wally Burnham of USC matching defensive wits with Reggie Herring of Clemson. Two of the most hated defensive coordinators in the state’s history.)
Still, 5-6 was a picnic compared to what was coming.
Click here, or click the link to listen, and enjoy!
Last year we did an audio review of every Gamecock football season since 1987. Due to popular demand, we will be re-running the series this summer leading up to kickoff against Texas A&M on August 28.
Brad Scott hoped to answer some questions about the Gamecock program in 1996, but another up and down campaign had fans scratching their heads. Despite a smoking hot start by QB Anthony Wright and RB Duce Staley, and victories over our top rivals Georgia and Clemson, we finished with only six wins and no bowl bid.
Last year we did an audio review of every Gamecock football season since 1987. Due to popular demand, we will be re-running the series this summer leading up to kickoff against Texas A&M on August 28.
Click here or click on the graphic to listen to the 1995 flashback, and enjoy!
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