“I’m not going to be the Twitter police.”

South Carolina quarterback Jake Bentley decided to take a little pride in his team on social media and promptly got the kind of feedback that makes you proud to be a fan of college football.

South Carolina quarterback Jake Bentley made some waves in the offseason, giving a few confident thoughts about how his team stacks up with national champion Clemson. Predictably, this got him a fair share of flack on social media.

And a couple unlikely users led the way.

“It was crazy,” Bentley said. “These two elderly ladies always killing me on it. That’s part of the reason you stay off Twitter.”

Only in America.

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When playing “Sandstorm” twenty times a game isn’t enough

This’ll have ’em knocking down the stadium gates to get in.

South Carolina football coach Will Muschamp believes Gamecocks fans will see a more exciting product in their seven trips into Williams-Brice Stadium this fall. USC marketing director Eric Nichols believes they’ll hear a more exciting sound, too.

That’s thanks to the live disc jockey the school will hire and place in the stadium for pregame and in-game entertainment this season.

“Our music wasn’t where it needed to be. It just wasn’t resonating with any segment of the fan base. It needed a refresh. The new DJ will provide that refresh,” Nichols, the school’s senior associate athletics director for marketing and branding, told The State newspaper. “Everyone’s pulling the same direction that recruiting is our No. 1 focus. With that being the direction, it’s a natural fit.”

That’s what you get when you have a senior associate athletics director for marketing and branding.  This is the kind of branding I can do without:

The DJ also could interject music between plays, although all the details haven’t been decided on, Nichols said.

“It’s not like we’re going to play music between every play, but we will be learning from Game 1 to Game 7 what resonates with the fans and the players,” Nichols said. “I expect it to be very positive. The music is an area that we needed to improve, and we are putting human resources and financial resources into making it better.”

Better is a relative term.  Is it reasonable to expect that as the season tanks, the musical interruptions increase?

They’ve got another position called associate athletics director for new and creative media.  That guy’s gonna crank out more in-game videos.

Evidently, the brain trust in the South Carolina athletic department is sold on distracting Gamecock fans from watching the game.  I hope nobody in Athens gets similar ideas.

(h/t)

Making the world safe for coachspeak, one step at a time

I know you’ll be as relieved as I am to learn that another trite marketing expression is being preserved for the greater benefit of mankind.

Since the beginning of his tenure at South Carolina, head football coach Will Muschamp has used the phrase “Spurs Up” to signal new prospect commitments or as a general rallying cry for the fan base.

Muschamp has credited his wife, Carol, with thinking of the phrase. Since then, “Spurs Up” has been an integral part of the lexicon for USC fans on social media . Muschamp’s Gamecock Club speaking engagements were branded as the “Spurs Up Tour” and the football staff’s most significant recruiting events are labeled as “Spurs Up Day”.

Now, the university will look to protect the brand further with a trademark of the phrase. USC first filed for a trademark through the United States Patent and Trademark Office in March of 2016.

“Once Coach Muschamp started using it in earnest, we wanted to start to protect it,” said Eric Nichols, who is the Senior Associate Athletics Director for Marketing & Branding/CMO at USC.

Man, that’s a relief.  What a load off my mind…

 

Think of the reserve fund.

Greg McGarity emphatically does not approve of this message.

South Carolina athletics is undoubtedly a business as it expects to both bring in and spend more than $120 million in the 2017-18 fiscal year. Revenues are expected to increase but so are expense in the upcoming year, according to athletics director Ray Tanner, who gave his expected budget to the Board of Trustees on Friday.

South Carolina has expected revenues of $121,852,857 the upcoming fiscal year and are expected to spend $102,900,953 and transfer $18,254,306 back to the University. [Emphasis added.]

Not a penny retained?  Damn.  Makes you wonder if Georgia would pursue a uniform policy for all SEC athletic departments about profit retention.  Though I guess McGarity might settle for a state law…

Eh, but who’s counting?

I’m not sure if it qualifies as bulletin board material, but the South Carolina Department of Transportation is installing two more highway signs celebrating the Gamecocks’ national championship in women’s basketball than it did for Clemson’s football natty.

Then again, maybe that’s their way of saying South Carolina’s a basketball state now.

Three Gamecocks walk into a bar…

You know it’s probably not gonna be a story that ends well with a line like “The 24-year-old victim is described by a family member as an Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan” in it.

Everybody sucks in the SEC East.

I’d mock this…

The SEC East was terrible in 2016. Florida backed into the division championship only after Tennessee choked it away. Some metrics rated the division the worst in major college football and barely better than the top American Athletic Conference division.

Obviously, it’s been a fall from grace for the division with the departure of several notable coaches, including Urban Meyer, Gary Pinkel and Mark Richt. However, that means the division is wide open for the taking.

While speaking at the NFL combine to SEC Country’s Alec Shirkey, several former Florida players were clear.

“I think [Will Muschamp]‘s going to turn [South Carolina] around and they’re going to be a competitor in the SEC East,” former Florida defensive tackle Caleb Brantley said.

Muschamp, of course, was coached Florida from 2011 to 2014. He recruited most of the players involved in Jim McElwain’s back-to-back SEC East championship teams. However, Florida unceremoniously sacked Muschamp after a 6-5 season. Three of his four seasons were underwhelming.

However, 2016 was perhaps his most impressive coaching job. Despite having a severely under-talented roster, South Carolina went 6-7 and qualified for a bowl game. That included a shocking 24-21 win over No. 18 Tennessee and upset over Vanderbilt in the opener.

… but damn, that last sentence is more than Georgia was capable of last year.  Time to step it up, Kirby.