The hurricane winds descended on Columbia last week and did $50 million worth of improvements.
What, you've heard that one? Please understand, I'm in trouble here--it's a Gamecock game. These things are UGLY, unless, say, the air wizard Greyson Lambert is there to set an all-time NCAA record. Other years, not so much.
Sunday wasn't the kind of stirring, operatic victory it's easy to write about.
I've always called Columbia a little taste of New Jersey in the Deep South. It's just kind of there, because it has to be somewhere. The laws of spatial physics require it. The University of South Carolina is a century-plus study of how not to do college football. Begin with the genius who decided to use a chicken as a mascot. Just the image to strike fear in the hearts of, say, the Presbyterian Blue Hose. A flightless barnyard bird whose life is spent functioning as a cheap alarm clock in the morning, peck-fight sporting events for rednecks in the afternoon, and the Colonel's dinner bucket at night (which, of course, is why South Carolina actually loses regularly to Kentucky).
You want more? Not enough chicken-trolling for ya? Well, the idea was to call their stadium the Cock Pit, but we all know it looks more like a cockroach that has expired on your basement floor; those girders thrusting into the air, simulating the lifeless legs. Traditions consist of a "fight song" called "Step to the Rear" which is actually a failed Broadway show tune dating all the way back to 1967. The musical was called "How Now, Dow Jones."
I'm betting you didn't know that. You're welcome.
The lyrics of the "fight song" begin, "Would everyone here kindly step to the rear?" Before and after 1967, South Carolina and its fans have kindly (sometimes unkindly) stepped to the rear more times than any of us can count. Last year's 3-win season offered an opportunity to step to the rear nine times, with the bonus of a Hall of Fame head coach doing so himself mid-season.
A better choice of bird would have been the swan, because Columbia was the swan song for over-the-hill championship coaches ready to curl up on the basement floor of college football, thrusting their clipboards and athletic shoes skyward before heading to that great after-game press conference in the sky. Paul Dietzel, Lou Holtz, and Spurrier all won national championships before stepping to the rear, a rear end that was not a rare end.
And Spurrier was, by every measure, a rear end, surely tops in the chicken pecking order, as well as being one of the great peckers in the game in other ways. Before he arrived on the lowest of the low country fence post to crow the dawning of a new day for Carolina, the chickens averaged about a bowl for every decade or two, about like eclipses but less common than locust plagues. However, there were bowls aplenty under Spurrier, and even one golden appearance in the Dome, though it ended in yet another bucket dinner for Cam Newton (56-17). Awwwwwk! Buck, buck buck.
No champions were available this coach-hiring go-around, but the next best thing was: a guy with "champ" in his name, which at least makes for good bumper stickers. Will Muschamp, or Muschicken, as I'm henceforth deciding he'll be known, has one other good trait. He's long-time buddies with Kirby Smart. And, see, Kirby didn't want to show up his buddy, particularly it being the Lord's Day and all, so he told Jacob Eason to go Easy-On his friend. (See what I did there? Words are fun!)
This is absolutely why Eason went 2 for 57 or something like that, and I defy you to prove otherwise. I win. Only problem was that Nick Chubb laughed when asked to do the same thing.
Recruiting lore says that Chubb made campus visits in Columbia twice, and Spurrier wasn't there to wow him. This was the third time, and Spurrier still wasn't there. Neither was the rushing defense. Or any semblance of an offense. They had all stepped to the rear.
Let the record show that Columbia got off relatively cheaply from Matthew, both hurricane and last-decade quarterback, but Chubb and his leather-totin' friends did another several million dollars worth of improvements. What, you've heard that one? Up in the first paragraph? How was I to know you'd still be reading this thing? It's your life, dude.
