The Auburn Tigers are 2011 BCS Champions.   At least for now. 

To put a spin on the famous Goldwater campaign slogan, “You know in your heart that they’re WRONG.”    And I think we all recognize it.

Cam is a hired gun.  Fairly is a dirty player.  Trooper is a known bagman.  And Chizik is complicit in it all. 

And they’ve gotten ever freaking break on every freaking bounce of the ball all year long. But that is sort of necessary for a championship run, isn’t it?

The numerous officiating mistakes and/or oversights were equally necessary, and were the hardest to watch.  A crooked team coached by crooked coaches should not get every single call, should they?

Well, witness this breakdown of the play that won the game:

\With that said:

SEC!  SEC!  SEC!  SEC!

On the day of the official end of competition for the 2010 football season, I’d first like to say on behalf of the TRC staff thanks to all our readers for making our little blog venture a success.  Because there is so much news and analysis on the web, we’ve tried to be a little different, and a little entertaining, and not TOO serious (read: silly).  We hope you’ve enjoyed reading as much as we’ve enjoyed writing.

We’ll continue the blog through recruiting, spring practice, basketball season, baseball season, academic casualties and bar fights until we’re back around to August and another glorious football season.

My final thought on this season is a mix of college and pro football.  A couple of weeks ago I was reflecting on the Gamecocks’ and Falcons’ (my favorite pro team since forever) seasons and wondered:  is this the greatest football season I’ve ever experienced?

I searched the internets and compiled win-loss records for the two teams since 1987.  I chose 1987 because that’s my first year as a true, die-hard Gamecock fan (my allegiances were elsewhere before that, but that’s a story for never, lest I risk losing readership).

The answer was a little depressing in that, strictly in terms of wins and losses, this is by far the best Gamecock/Falcon season ever with 22 wins – and the Falcons have the opportunity to add at least three more to that total.  The teams combined for 18 wins in both 2004 (USC 6, ATL 12) and 2008 (USC 7, ATL 11).  In 1998 – Atlanta’s Super Bowl year – the teams “combined” for 17 wins, with Atlanta securing 16 of those.

The teams combined for single digit wins in 1989 (9), 1996 (9) and the low water mark in 1999 (5 – all by the Falcons).  Overall, the teams’ combined record since 1987 is 316-355-5.

I hope for my fellow Gamecock fans that you follow a different pro team than I do.  If you are a Gamecock/Falcon fan, all I can say is:

I feel your pain.

As you may be aware, we here at TRC like to broaden the scope of the blog from time to time to bring you, our faithful readers, items of particular pop culture significance.   In the past we’ve brought you internet meme updates, and even tips on grammar and language usage. 

Today we are focusing on the “Wilhelm Scream,” a stock sound effect that has appeared in dozens of movies and television programs.   First recorded in the early 1950s, this sound effect of a man screaming has made it way into dramas, comedies, and action movies.  It’s in movies as far back as Them, as popular as Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and as recent as Pirates of the Caribbean and Toy Story. 

Since this is still a sports blog, however, we thought it might be best to demonstrate using something more relevant.  We picked–totally at random, mind you–some Shane Beamer coaching footage from the past couple of years.  Listen closely and see if you can hear a Wilhelm Scream or two:

Yes, I should have done this last week, but there are a lot of things I should have done last week instead of absolutely nothing.  So, even though 60% of the BCS games have been played, who is here I am (and was) pulling against:

Bret Bielema - from hanging 70 points on Austin Peay and Northwestern, to putting up 83 points on Indiana, to the unneccessary 2-point conversion against Minnesota, Beilema has set himself up for some serious comeuppance.  Football has a strange karmic sense about it, which means payback will probably come in a much greater form than a two-point loss to TCU. 

Tostitos Fiesta Bowl – Nothing against the good people of Glendale, but I’ve never been a big fan of the Fiesta.  After all these years, it still doesn’t seem to belong among the Rose, Sugar and Orange.  This year’s epic tilt between Oklahoma and UConn certainly didn’t help (although I realize that’s not all their fault).  Now that they have a shiny new stadium in Dallas, the Cotton Bowl needs to be returned to its rightful place among the top tier bowls.  Or, re-rename the Chik-fil-a Bowl back to the Peach and give Atlanta a BCS game #nevergonnahappen. 

 Virginia Tech’s Uniforms – Nike and Virginia Tech, please stop.  There is no combination of orange, white and whatever that other color is (maroon, really?) that is going to look good.  Ever. 

Jim Harbaugh – Nobody is this likeable.  I’m very suspicious.  There must be something dark and disturbing he is hiding… 

Terrell Pryor – A case study for not paying college athletes.  The only guy who can make Kirk Herbstreit a sympathetic figure (not because I don’t like him, but because he’s so darned handsome), Pryor used the money he gained from selling his possessions to get a tattoo.  Hardship, indeed. 

Cam Newton and Auburn – If you don’t get this one, you must be new to the TRC blog.  Welcome.

In a previous post, we laid out 4 keys for the CFA Bowl.  Let’s review:

1.  Get #21 on Track.  FAIL.  He came out gang busters, with one over-the-shoulder catch for a big gain on the first series.  But the hit (a clean one, by the way) on Latti at the end of the first series spelled doom for this key and, in the end, for the Gamecock’s hopes.  Nice to see Bmad and Miles fight and claw for yards, but they don’t have the quick feet and wide angle lenses of Lattimore.  The murmurs of worry and disbelief in the GA Dome as #21 lay motionless on the ground were widespread.  Glad the kid’s OK, and that we will see him on his Heisman run next year and beyond.

2.  Stout, opportunistic defense. FAIL.  Stout?  Well, for the most part, yes.  But opportunistic?  Utter fail.  How many fumbles did we NOT recover?  How many picks did we NOT grab?  I lost count.  I loved these guys and their effort on Friday night, but the inability to take advantage of FSU miscues was a big part of the loss.

3.   Smart, efficient play from the quarterback position.   FAIL.  Do I need to even get into this one?  Three picks on three successive series (and a slew of other bad reads) were absolutely fatal to the Gamecock’s chances.  Again, I like how he kept his head up, and he bounced back for a couple of good 2nd half drives, but in the end Garcia’s play was not what we needed to win.  An interesting side note:  Spurrier stuck with him despite the repeated picks – what does that tell us?

4.  Run back a kick.   FAIL.  /shugs shoulders  /vomits /shugs shoulders /whimpers

Last year’s TRC staff trip to frigid, bitter, annoying Birmingham has been well documented elsewhere in this space (btw, have a blast this year, you annoying Kentucky fans, and be sure to plan ahead and attend all 4 minutes of the BBVA Compass FanZone).

This year we were hoping for something better than the frigid hell that was Legion Field, so when the fine folks at the CFA Bowl – who we’ve always loved and supported and believed in [ahem][ahem] – announced the selection of our fighting Gamecocks, the TRC staff was elated.

Schedules scheduled, contacts contacted, tickets ticketed, and plans planned we are now ready for gameday.  Buck, Mrs. Buck, and Buck Jr. will be tailgating from home with multiple Buck relations in the North Atlanta Suburbs.  Tbone, Kbone, Cbone, and Hbone will be driving down to the ATL for some pregame parading and touring.  Gman and Mrs. G will be – wait, perhaps I should introduce you all to him first; he’s the third TRC guy who’s supposed to be our resident basketball expert writer – swinging by the Buck pad and hopefully enjoying some South Florida Bulls Football.

The whole happy group will convene at the Georgia World Congress Center for prebowl festivities and then will be reporting live from the 2010 CFA Bowl inside the Georgia Dome.

Expect updates on gameday festivities, the game itself, and the whiskey-soaked aftermath via twitter throughout the day and into 2011.  Oh, and we may poke some serious fun at A.J. Green and the Mighty Georgia Bulldogs in the [giggle] [/focus] Liberty Bowl [bwahahah] and the not-so-Mighty CTU crowd in the Charlotte Tire or Muffler or whatever-we-lose-track Bowl.

Just the mention of the year ‘1984’ carries a ton of meaning to the average Gamecock fan.  It was a year of celebrated firsts, but also a year of numbing almosts  It was a year of unprecedented success, but also a year of devastating defeats (well, the Gator Bowl was probably just a ‘tough loss’, but the real facepalm moment came a few weeks earlier NOTE: don’t click the preceding hyperlink unless you are in a very, very, happy place).

But in the end, 1984 was the high-water mark for the Gamecock football program- we hope only ‘to date.  Ten wins, with those victories including Georgia, Notre Dame, Clemson, then-powerful Pitt, and a good Florida State team.

The coincidental similarity (NOT ‘irony’, see here) of this year’s attempt at 10 wins and our last 10 win season is that both years included a win over Georgia at home and a victory up the dirt road at CTU.  For this year to reach the 10 win plateau, we’re gonna need an additional similarity: wins over Florida State.

With that in mind, let’s go back to the future and preview what South Carolina will need to do to defeat the Seminoles in Friday’s Chick-fil-a (ne’ Peach) Bowl:

Get #21 on track.  By the way, what’s up with everyone saying ‘untracked’ these days?  It doesn’t make any sense, in that most anything that runs on a track is headed for disaster if it gets off the aforesaid track.  I think someone slipped up a couple of years ago and misspoke, and now sports commentators think it’s a real thing and keep repeating it (I’m looking at you, Scott Hood).

Anyhoo, for SC to win this game, we need Lattimore running hard and running free both early and often, as in:

Secondly, we need a stout, opportunistic defense, that gets to Ponder or Manuel or Rix or Weinke or whoever again and again.  Something like these guys did:

Next, its gonna take smart, efficient play from the quarterback position.  Stephen Garcia needs to take his drops and get rid of the ball.  He needs to avoid forearm shivers from opposing referees.  He needs to stay within himself and not try to win it on his own. He needs to protect the football.  And he needs to NEVER EVER EVER EVER NEVER try something like this:

And then, it wouldn’t hurt if we could run back a kick past the 20 yardline.  Yes, yes, I know we are prohibited, by rule, from doing that (or at least Coach Beamer thinks we are) so we put our smallest player back there to ensure we start every drive on the 17 yard line.  But still, wouldn’t something like this be nice (just this once)?

btw h/t to cockytalk for all the video links.

You just might be a middle of the pack team in a mediocre conference when you lobby and whine and beg your way into a cold bowl in Charlotte.

The #5 bowl pick in the Mighty ACC is the Meineke Car Care Bowl, and the trusty internet was on hand to witness the first CTU practice:

I think the CTU longsnapper may have inadvertantly mouthed a new slogan for the entire Tiger experience at the :35 mark. 

Clemson University, “You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do.”