Buck says: Arkansas 45, USC 42 – I hope I’m wrong, but the ingredients are in place for a loss, I just couldn’t decide how close it was going to be. Even with Greg Childs lost for the season, the Hogs have plenty of weapons to put plenty of points on the board – Mallett, Adams, Wright, D.J. Williams – and a great good average below average ok, pathetic running game, but enough to keep defenses honest. And if our defensive backfield hasn’t gotten better in a hurry, they won’t need a running game anyway. I think we will be able to keep up, but one turnover could doom us in a “last team with the ball wins” type of game. I don’t buy into the “this game doesn’t matter, we’re focused on Gainesville” rap, but it’s a nice excuse to have in our back pocket if things don’t go our way. This would be a really nice win if we can pull it off. Again, hope I’m wrong…
Tbone says: USC 33 Ark 27 – Buck is smoking Gainesville Grass if he thinks we can hang 40+ on . . . well, anyone. Turnovers will be a factor in this game, but in SC’s favor. I think the Sandstorm Troups make enough racket and the Dline gets enough push to be good for a couple of big Arkansas mistakes. Add in our two automatics for 100 yards (don’t make me name them) and I think we withstand a late Razorback Rally. Oh, and by the way, we are playing for something: an Arky wins gives the Chick-fil-a Bowl the excuse they desperately need to skip over us AGAIN.
You know, sometimes I don’t get you people. I don’t think you appreciate what we are doing for you here, you spoiled readers of TRC. All along, even before the season began, we’ve been telling you that the Arkansas game was the most important game of the year doesn’t matter at all. You should be thanking your lucky stars to have such in-depth and consistent analysis at your fingertips.
We even predicted the Chris Culliver injury for crying out loud (not that we’re proud of that one). Its gonna seem strange to watch a kickoff return defensive breakdown without Cully back there. Mad love to you, #15 #17, get better and go get paid next year.
Speaking of the secondary, we here at TRC would like to propose the following to our Secondary Coach, Defensive Coordinator, Pass Defense Coordinator, Lorenzo Ward: Auguste at one Corner position, Gilmore at the other, with Whitlock as backup. For the safeties/spurs, a volleyball rotation of Swearinger, Holloman, Jeffrey, and Antonio Allen – one out, three in, when there is a bust, sit a guy and everybody moves over one. Makes sense?
Oh, and speaking of Spurs – you ever see that movie Vanilla Sky? You know, that one where Tom Cruise plays Tom Cruise playing a millionaire who has problems understanding reality? Yeah, that one. Anyway, perfect analogy for our kickoff returns under Coach Beamer. We don’t know if Coach Beamer is the Penelope Cruz character (odd, quirky, compelling, redeeming) or the one played by Cameron Diaz (looks great on paper but snakes in the head). Either way our 17 yards per return average makes ME want to jump off that skyscraper at the end of the flick. By now its pretty clear that pounding a 5’5″ guy up the gut each time is not the answer. Open your eyes, Coach B, open your eyes.
While I’m complaining, news broke yesterday that we coulda had Cam Newton for a mere $200,000.00. Am I alone in asking how the YES plan money is being used?
UPDATE: LSUFreak made my friday-funk all better with the following:
Man on man if only the Gators would miss this thingWe could win the East if the Dawgs could play defense Man that Richt is a strange dude, wonder if they will can him?
What exactly is wrong with his hair, by the way? Never thought I would say this, but dude needs to comb-overWait, what's that dude back there doing? Isn't that Grantham?Is his throat sore? Is it an alignment signal? Is he teasing Rainey about his girlfriend?Oh. My. God. He's taunting the Florida kicker. Unbelievable
With its 38-24 victory over the Tennessee Volunteers, South Carolina is bowl-eligible for the seventh consecutive year. The days where bowl eligibility were an unattainable goal for the season seem like a distant memory now, which is a testament to how far we’ve come as a program the importance of a twelve game season.
SO, with that milestone crossed, let’s look at TRC’s Weekly (NEW FEATURE!) SEC Bowl Projections:
BCS Title Game: Auburn vs. Oregon – Auburn has Fairy Magic on its side and will remain winfull (which is the opposite of winless).
Allstate Sugar Bowl: LSU vs. TCU – physical defenses and low-brow tailgating (you thought I was gonna say “offenses” didn’t you?)
Capitol One Bowl: Alabama vs. Ohio State – The Boredom Bowl, The Serious Coach Bowl, The Felony Doesn’t Make You Ineligible Bowl
Cotton Bowl: Mississippi State vs. Missouri – The Ugly Stepsister of the Conference Bowl. Maybe the Big 12 10 and the SEC should just make them play each other 12 times a year.
Outback Bowl: Florida vs. Michigan State – because they play each other in this bowl every year or at least it seems like it. What? They never have? Well, they should.
Chick-fil-a Bowl: Anyone-But-South-Carolina-No-Matter-How-Much-We-Have-to-Torture-the-Logic (Publically, the committee will simply say ‘Arkansas’) vs. Florida State.
Gator Bowl: South Carolina vs. Wisconsin – Logistics Man wants easy trip to Jax.
Music City Bowl [South Carolina sneers and quietly judges you in much the same way you treated us last year]: Georgia vs. Maryland – because Georgia always gets a cupcake for Christmas.
Buck says: USC 37, UT 20. If there was ever a must win for South Carolina since joining the SEC, this is it. Every scenario that leads to the SECCG starts with a win against UT. A loss doesn’t mathematically eliminate the ‘Cocks, but realistically would be a mortal wound. UT scares me, simply becuase they’ve been able to hang around with some pretty good teams for a while, and should’ve beaten LSU in Baton Rouge. But the Vols are seriously depleted and demoralized, so I think we jump on them early and often. Look for another big game from the offense, starting with the opening drive. The defense needs a lock down performance to get their confidence up with Arkansas coming up next. It will be good to see #21 on offense again, I’ve missed him so…
Tbone says: SC 38, UT 10. What Buck said, but with better D. I think UT might score once in their opening couple of series, but look for Travian Robertson, Ladi Ajiboye and Devin Taylor to have big days from then on. Notice a certain someone missing from that list? So do I. So. do. I. Anyway, on offense I think Garcia is due some props on the national level, and this might the game for it to happen. BONUS prediction: two weeks is not enough to fix what’s wrong in Gainesville, UGa rolls.
I’m not sure when it started. Maybe it was in 1992 when former walk-on Hank Campbell dropped UT just short of that game-tying 2 point conversion. That loss ultimately knocked the Vols out of the SEC East race that year, so it must have hurt. Maybe that was the beginning, but regardless, it always seems like the Volunteers particularly enjoy smacking South Carolina down. The numbers don’t help the perception, as Carolina has only defeated Tennessee three times since joining the conference.
But it goes deeper than the records. Tennessee has made many a career by stealing our best players and then beating us with them. It’s no secret that former head coach Philip Fulmer liked to raid the state for talent, and it’s also no secret that our coaches fought him tooth and nail. But regardless, the pattern established itself throughout the last two decades: Tennessee took the best two or three players from the state, and South Carolina was left to divide the scraps with C.T.U.
Just take a look at the following short (and not nearly exhaustive) list: Shaun Ellis, Dominique Stevenson, Darwin Walker, Albert Haynesworth, Jon Hefney, Anthony McDaniel, Eric Young, Robert Ayers. All from South Carolina. All spurned the home state school to play for the Volunteers. Most, if not all, went on to NFL careers.
[Speaking of Haynesworth, he will always be a pariah to Gamecock fans. No one will forget how he stood victorious in the end zone that year at Williams Brice and taunted our departing fans while waving a UT flag. It was classless, but it also particularly stung like a betrayal.]
The SC to UT pipeline was so understood, so part of the southern football landscape, that when Derek Watson spurned the Volunteers and signed with Lou Holtz’s Gamecocks, the UT coaching staff assumed that major NCAA violations were involved. After years of NCAA scrutiny brought about by Fulmer’s report, no major violations were uncovered (I think maybe Buddy Pough bought Derek a burger at the Williamston McDonalds when he shouldn’t have or something, but still).
Then came the defection of our former Recruiting Coordinator David Reeves. One day he was recruiting for us, and the next he was calling those same recruits and telling them Carolina was all wrong for them. Again, maybe it was part of his job, but for sensitive Carolina fans, it was another betrayal and another attempt to keep the UT jackboot on our state’s neck.
As a culmination of years of insults and defeats (both on the field and in the recruits’ living rooms), UT coaching wunderkind Lane Kiffin was overheard telling then-highschooler Alshon Jeffrey that if he went to South Carolina he “would pump gas for the rest of his life.”
To Carolina fans it felt like the nuclear option of insults, despite the fact that it backfired and Jeffrey signed with USC. The slight was all over the media, and stays with us still in the football zeitgeist even though young Kiffin fled to the west coast soon thereafter.
Then we saw the photo from the Byrnes High School game. You know the photo. The one with Corey Miller and the young ladies in it.
I, for one, understood the photo to be further evidence of just how far Tennessee would go to keep Carolina down.
So just after noon this Saturday, when toe meets leather and another UT-SC matchup begins, I want you to know this, Coach Dooley: you and your orange-clad soldiers are about as welcomed in Williams Brice as, let’s see, I’m looking for a historical analogy . . . . . . . . .
Question: What needs to happen for the Kentucky Wildcats to win the SEC East (Cheesy Biscuits not accepted as an answer)?
Answer: South Carolina loses to Tennessee and Arkansas AND Georgia loses to Florida and Auburn, AND Florida loses to South Carolina and Vanderbilt. Oh, AND Kentucky has to win out. Oh, AND Hell has to freeze over.
Question: What was so hard about getting out of that two floor elevator in Clemson, SC?
The Rubber Chickens Blog 
