Dear South Carolina fans,
With the South Carolina-Georgia game on the horizon, I'm here to represent the Bulldogs. While trash talk can be good-natured and fun, facts can be cruel. We're going to deal in facts.
In objective journalistic fashion, I'll start with two things I like about you: Your gas prices and the best college football prank ever pulled.
To be clear, that is all there is to like about South Carolina and Columbia.
Let's start with South Carolina's lack of identity. Dabo Swinney, beat him as soundly as you may, was irrefutably correct when saying that Carolina was in Chapel Hill and USC was in California. Hey, if I had to identify with the state of South Carolina, I would have an identity crisis myself. Do remember, your's is a state best-known for Myrtle Beach, a place that makes Panama City look like a quaint Mediterranean villa by comparison. So your next coping mechanism is to shroud yourself in "S-E-C!" chants. This is funny to me for two reasons:
1) When the conference expanded to 12 teams, you were the third choice (behind Florida State and Miami) for inclusion among Eastern teams! Said another way, you were the last moderately viable choice.
2) You have never won the SEC. You came close once, if 39-point losses qualify as close.
The phrase "act like you've been there before" would apply to your fanbase, but the fact is ... you haven't been there before. It's fitting that you won the ACC title in 1969, given that man walked on the moon the same year. As with the moon landing, it could be fake and nobody knows for certain that it happened. The mighty Gamecocks went 6-0 against an otherwise hapless conference and 1-4 in their other games, with a 14-3 Peach Bowl loss to West Virginia the closest among those four.
South Carolina's first bowl win came in 1995. A full half of your bowl appearances (18 in total) have come since 2001 in an era where you only have to win six games (out of 12) to get to one. You even screwed that up one year with the Clemson brawl in 2004.
As for recent history, South Carolina's success under Steve Spurrier is commendable. He was the man to finally get the program over .500 all-time even though it's still under .500 against the ACC, Big 10, Big XII, SEC, and get this: the Big East/AAC. South Carolina's 1-1 against the Pac-12, so...congrats. You've played Sandstorm before kickoffs since 2006, even though it hit the airwaves in 2000 and was played out by 2004. Unfortunately, this correlates directly with your program's success.
You play Georgia this week. The fact that the Ol' Ball Coach has won three in a row against the Dawgs should make you feel good, but those triumphs raised your win percentage against Georgia to just over 26 percent all-time. Your Heisman candidate defensive end, coming off a stellar three-tackle performance against a hapless North Carolina team (in which over half of your offensive yards came on three broken plays), is set to be silenced again. When he is, we know you'll complain that he was sick, injured, held or tired, because he should get a sack every time the opponent's quarterback drops back to throw, right?
I'd say "good luck," but historical precedent is clearly not on your side. Your best bet is to remain the rudest and least successful fans in the SEC and to do so from your concrete-and-abandoned-warehouse Detroit Jr. of a city you call home.
However, if you do show up, you'll notice a couple of things unfamiliar to your university:
1) Grass: A herbacious plant with narrow leaves growing from the base, normally the ground. We have it on our campus.
2) Class: Instead of waving a white towel (international signal for surrender, but I bet you knew that) and yelling GO COCKS in response to everything you say, we'll actually try to engage you in conversation at the University of Georgia.
3) We do have a robust bar scene with more than 70 watering holes within one mile of the stadium. Enjoy your time in an actual, honest-to-goodness, college town while you're here.
-- Chad Floyd is a contributor and editor at the blog Dude You Crazy. Follow him on Twitter @Chad_Floyd.
