Is there anything more reliable in the world of college football than South Carolina fans’ preseason confidence that their school is headed to the SECCG? Oh sure, the reasons for optimism change, but the final destination is always a lock.
And they know that the road to Atlanta runs through Athens. No doubt it’s been a tightly contested series during the Richt era, but Georgia has won far more often than it’s lost during that time.
Things are going to be different in 2010, though. Georgia will be starting an inexperienced quarterback. The Dawg defense gave up a lot of yards in the game last year. Three defensive tackles graduated. Georgia’s offense will be one-dimensional. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
But mainly it’s that quarterback situation.
Simply, all of UGA’s QB problems mean one thing – the stakes have risen for USC on Sept. 11.
I would come back with the obvious set of rejoinders here (Carolina’s issues at linebacker, offensive line and running back come to mind, as well as the Spurrier-Garcia relationship), but I won’t because it’s already been carefully considered and discarded by the author.
For the first time in recent memory, I can pass the snicker test with the claim USC has just as much talent, if not more, than Georgia in 2010.
The 2010 offseason has officially commenced in Columbia.
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UPDATE: Yeah, it’s just you.
Get The Picture 
Death, taxes, Tech lying and cheating, and South Carolina January-August SEC Championships. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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Lololololz
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Snicker test FAIL. South Carolina is not un-talented. But with the exception of a few players scattered about, I would be hard pressed to say they are as talented as UGA.
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Gulp
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Oh good lord. South Carolina is as talented as Georgia? You’ve got to be kidding me. A.J. Green (with no e), a veteran offensive line, the best running backs in the conference other than Alabama…but sure, the cocks are just as talented.
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Don’t forget our (current) #1 QB was #3 in the country in his year, and I’m sure Garcia wasn’t that highly rated. Similarly, we have Brandon Smith, Vance Cuff and Bacari Rambo. I’ll take those three anyday over the current crop of DBs on the Gamecock team.
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I’ve said for the longest time that the only way to squelch this nonsense is that we’ve got to punish them at their place. We’ve won handily a few times in the last decade, but most of them tend to be in Athens, and even most of them are close. But the ones in Columbia have been downright nailbiters.
’08 – Rennie’s fumble & Reshad’s pick save the day
’06 – It was 18-0, but it really wasn’t. Very close game.
’04 – Greenie wakes up in the 2nd half to rescue us
’02 – Basically ends on the last play of the game
’00 – loss
’98 – Quincy plays well and we eek out a win against a team that would go 1-10.
’96 – loss
’94 – Tight one till the buzzer. Tanneyhill almost brings them back
’92 – We’re down 0-6 at the half, but blast them 28-6. That was the last beatdown in Columbia.
We need to beat them down. Come Sept. 11, I’ll take a 1-point victory, but we need to send 80,000 of their fans a 3 hour reminder that they are not in our league and it might flip that series into a sleeper for a few years.
I feel boatloads better about playing them w/o Eric Norwood. Dude was a beast.
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I realize you were only looking at games in Columbia but you left out ’09 (in Athens) where Rennie tipped a pass headed for the winning USC TD to preserve victory for the Dawgs. Can’t get much closer than that.
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South Carolina as talented as UGA?!?
Aww…bless their little chicken hearts.
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Now all we need is the annual “The Ol’ Ball Coach has something up his sleeve” column and we’re good to go.
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According to all the experienced Gamecocks here on the Grand Strand, this is the best part of the season. They’re still undefeated.
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The Dawgs aren’t getting much respect from anyone. I think a trip to Vegas is in order, to put some $$ down on the Dawgs for this season. I wonder what the odds are? LG certainly gets a lot of press for a guy that was never likely to see much playing time in ’10.
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Do they still have Garcia on the team?
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The Cocks & the Dawgs will still finish ahead of the Gators in the SEC east this year.
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Why are all articles involving South Carolina and Georgia the same? Blah blah blah blah blah the Gamecocks are ready for a run at Atlanta. Blah blah blah blah finally have Georgia’s number blah blah blah. Spurrior has his quarterback blah blah blah tightly contested game blah blah blah…
The following is the Senator’s preview of this game from the years 2001-2342:
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And the review of the game will be:
Tight game, close score and you can take your pick from:
1. Cocks found a way to screw up a late scoring chance
2. Dawgs made a play to prevent a late SC score and seal the game
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Boy did that game fuck us in 2007, though.
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I love how he just assumes that our D is going to be terrible and the same as last year
Yet there is no talk about Garcia blowing for most of the season and Spurrier hating his QB play
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This idea that the Cocks are always preseason champs when looking in the mirror is another tired old meme that’s past bogus. Too lazy and easy to repeat (just like the your-rival-is-a-cheater trope).
After all, which team isn’t heady going into the summer? Most chicken fans I run into think an 8-4 outcome is likeliest or (for the grandious) 9-3. No real chicken fan thinks a SEC title is within reason. True chicken fans know the rug is always going to be yanked, just when the stakes are high.
Let’s just take care of bidness in Cola.
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This is exactly right. There are people saying that this will be the best chance we’ve had in the last few years to win it (UGA and UT at home, UT and UF down), but no one thinks it’s likely that we win more than eight games. I’m not really sure where this idea that we all think we’re going to win it all is coming from. Most ‘Cocks fans believe that’s about as rational as…well, believing UGA will blow us out in Williams-Brice this year. There’s little to no historical precedent for either.
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