COLOMBIA – Misery loves company and comparisons abound. When South Carolina’s football is in a particularly violent slump, like six wins in the past two seasons, other painful seasons are remembered.
There was a run of 21 consecutive defeats from 1998-99. Gamecocks played their first bowl in 1946, lost and lost seven more in 1993.
So there was a very good season, culminating with the most miserable experience anyone has ever seen, which strangely started the best race that football has ever had.
It is the latter, the infamous PapaJohns.com Bowl 2010 that concluded the 2009 USC season, that some think that perhaps the same thing could happen again. That game was an apathetic performance in a freezing climate in terrible accommodations, which at least can be compared to watching USC beat six teams from 2019-20, one from Charleston Southern and two from Vanderbilt.
Shane Beamer was on the USC sideline for that 2010 bowling game, and a decade later is back as head coach.
Can the lightning strike twice?
Gamecocks are hoping so.
Dad is not home
Cold. Extremely cold, with a bowl game named after a pizzeria without pizza and hot chocolate, not much more than warm water with a hint of cocoa powder.
“I wore a ski suit,” recalls former season ticket holder Stephen McNair. “They ran out of pizza before the game started. And it was Pope John’s Bowl! The stadium was in very bad shape, the neighborhood was scary and the team played badly ”.
Gamecocks were being skunked 20-0 by Connecticut before partially blocking a fourth period punt. Quarterback Stephen Garcia completed a 38-yard pass to DL Moore and Brian Maddox ran for a 2-yard touchdown to ruin the shutout, but that’s where the highlights ended.
“The mood was unusual for us guys in South Carolina,” recalled the TJ Johnson center. “It felt like we were flat. I never caught a spark. “
Running back Jarvis Giles left the USC sideline before the end of the game. Receiver Moe Brown and position coach Steve Spurrier Jr. had a tense verbal argument in the locker room.
Garcia spoke in tears at the post-game press conference. Coach Steve Spurrier apologized to the fans who attended, a theme he repeated throughout the summer.
“Coming from that victory over Clemson at home (34-17 to start a five-year winning streak), you would think the momentum would have continued,” said McNair. “UConn looked like they wanted to be there. I refused to leave because I’m that guy. But I’m also an idiot.
“I boycotted Papa John’s for a year, in spite of it.”
The season ended 7-6, solid by USC standards, and there was victory over Clemson, a national television turnaround against No. 4 Ole Miss and defeating an NC State team that started Russell Wilson in the center. However, the stench of the bowl sent a cloud over everything.
Spurrier finished his fifth season and had only 35-28, with two hops in a consecutive bowl after a 2007 season in which there was no bowl.
Still, exactly a month later …
The franchise
“My friend Stephen Davis, he got it for me now,” said Marcus Lattimore.
Hearts jumped in the throat when Lattimore, one of the nation’s most coveted candidates, called Davis to the podium and made Davis open a bag containing the cap chosen by Lattimore College. Davis, a native of Spartanburg who attended Auburn, removed an orange cap with an interwoven “AU” logo.
Lattimore accepted, then pulled a USC Block C garnet cap from under it before pulling it over his head.
He posted one of the most impressive seasons in the show’s history by leading the Gamecocks in his only SEC East championship. A record of 33-6 followed in the next three seasons.
“I was very proud of that,” said Johnson. “I hope you will come back to that point soon.”
The decade
That bowling game, however bad it was, started the best race in USC football history and also started the best race in USC sport history. Ray Tanner’s baseball team won the first of two consecutive College World Series titles six months later. These two national championships were part of five from 2010-17 (the USC has won seven in its entire history).
There were three Basketball Final Fours, one in women’s football, three appearances in the CWS Finals, 18 regular SEC seasons or SEC tournament tournaments and eight bowl games, with five wins.
But in the late 2010s, success declined, especially in the three most visible sports (football, men’s basketball, baseball). Beamer is coming to the most visible program, which won two games last year and has already lost most of its known producers.
“This is a job of my dreams, because you have everything to win here at the University of South Carolina. So much has changed in the 10 years since I left, but the facilities here are second to none, ”he said. “It is exciting to have these resources and to be able to recruit here. I am excited to be part of a program that has such a high level of expectation of success in all sports. “
A decade ago, Beamer saw the birth of the best race in USC football history start from a rather poor start. Who said it couldn’t happen again?
“Shane is part of a winning program, he knows what it takes,” said Johnson. “I am excited to see the direction this will take.”
“I think the resources and facilities are better now than they were ten years ago. This is an advantage. You can’t say now that it can’t be done, ”said McNair. “For me, Beamer’s job is easier than Spurrier’s, because it has been done before. It will take a few years, but I don’t think it will take six years. “
And Beamer won’t have to spend the summer apologizing for the failure of a bowling game.