Who's old enough to remember when...

gamecock stock

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Fans were ecstatic that NIL would level the playing field for teams like us?
And the Transfer Portal. What we have though is that we have gone back to pre-1973 when the rich and traditional powerhouses were able to sign as many recruits they wanted. Schools like South Carolina were on the outside being courted to be homecoming opponents.

The only solution is a cap. Whether that's legal, I don't know.
 

18IsTheMan

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And the Transfer Portal. What we have though is that we have gone back to pre-1973 when the rich and traditional powerhouses were able to sign as many recruits they wanted. Schools like South Carolina were on the outside being courted to be homecoming opponents.

The only solution is a cap. Whether that's legal, I don't know.
For many of us it was immediately obvious where NIL and the transfer portal would lead. But some were adamant that NIL opened the door for us to compete with the big dogs. All it really meant, though, was the stuff the big schools were doing secretly, they could now do openly and do more of it.

We simply don't have the horses to keep up in the NIL era. That's not a criticism. Just a fact of life.
 

PrestonyteParrot

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For many of us it was immediately obvious where NIL and the transfer portal would lead. But some were adamant that NIL opened the door for us to compete with the big dogs. All it really meant, though, was the stuff the big schools were doing secretly, they could now do openly and do more of it.

We simply don't have the horses to keep up in the NIL era. That's not a criticism. Just a fact of life.
Right, the ''bag man'' is now out there recruiting and our bag man works at ''Title Loans'' and is not the President of Chase Bank.
 

92Pony

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For many of us it was immediately obvious where NIL and the transfer portal would lead. But some were adamant that NIL opened the door for us to compete with the big dogs. All it really meant, though, was the stuff the big schools were doing secretly, they could now do openly and do more of it.

We simply don't have the horses to keep up in the NIL era. That's not a criticism. Just a fact of life.
Heck, I've been dead-set against NIL from the very first mention of it. It has always been a very unpopular take on msg boards, but....whatever. 3-4yrs the kids would have to wait to make that money (above the scholarships, food, nutrition, etc, etc ) that they're already getting. Waah..... sometimes life ain't fair. Of course, I guess you can also say that about our (Gamecock fans) current plot in the CFB life - life ain't fair. C'est la vie.
 
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PrestonyteParrot

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It really would have been just that if the transfer rules weren't changed at the same time.

Legalities aside, I think you could clean up a lot of the mess by limiting transfers again.
Yep, things went a bit too far, too fast by turning college athletes into paid professionals AND also giving them ''free agency''.
 

will110

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I knew NIL wouldn't level the playing field. What will level the playing field is completely eliminating the idea of amateur athletes, create an employee-employer relationship, and have a collective bargaining agreement with salary cap. Even that wouldn't completely level things out, because there are small market teams in pro sports that are never good.
 
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Gradstudent

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Fans were ecstatic that NIL would level the playing field for teams like us?

Not sure who was "ecstatic". but in 2020, we were 2-8 and since NIL came about in 2021, we are 20-18 overall and I don't think we get Spencer Rattler without NIL and we don't beat Clemson without Rattler, so yes I think NIL has helped our cause.

I think it also hurt the teams some, that were already paying players and you can see some drop in performance from the most accused schools at least on this board, which is another indication to me of the playing field leveling some.

We were 6 - 16 in our last 2 seasons of non NIL era, and lost our last game to Clemson 3-38 at home, in case you forgot since I know 2019-2020 - 2021 seasons were so long ago, LOL
 
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18IsTheMan

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Not sure who was "ecstatic". but in 2020, we were 2-8 and since NIL came about in 2021, we are 20-18 overall and I don't think we get Spencer Rattler without NIL and we don't beat Clemson without Rattler, so yes I think NIL has helped our cause.

We were 6 - 16 in our last 2 seasons of non NIL era, and lost our last game to Clemson 3-38 at home, in case your forgot since I know 2019-2020 - 2021 were so long ago, LOL

Not sure about that. 2020 was obviously an anomaly for a lot of teams We have not historically been awful. Just mediocre for the most part. I don't know that NIL played a huge factor in landing Rattler. As much as we loved him, he didn't have a ton of suitors coming out of Oklahoma. Certainly no big-time programs were courting him. I think it was just a perfect storm that Stogner was here, he was familiar with Beamer, we were in the SEC and he knew he could step in uncontested as starter.

Anyway, that W/L data from 2019/2020 had more to do with the head coach than anything with NIL. Not sure you can pick just 2 years out of our history to use as evidence. We are right now about what we always have been before NIL. Mediocre. You look at the over body of evidence pre- and post-NIL and we're no closer to the top than we ever have been.
 
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Gradstudent

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Not sure about that. 2020 was obviously an anomaly for a lot of teams We have not historically been awful. Just mediocre for the most part. I don't know that NIL played a huge factor in landing Rattler. As much as we loved him, he didn't have a ton of suitors coming out of Oklahoma. Certainly no big-time programs were courting him. I think it was just a perfect storm that Stogner was here, he was familiar with Beamer, we were in the SEC and he knew he could step in uncontested as starter.

Anyway, that W/L data from 2019/2020 had more to do with the head coach than anything with NIL. Not sure you can pick just 2 years out of our history to use as evidence. We are right now about what we always have been before NIL. Mediocre. You look at the over body of evidence pre- and post-NIL and we're no closer to the top than we ever have been.

You can spin things however you want, but if you compare the end of the non NIL era and the start of the NIL era we are better off so far. Your teh guy that was posting about how Muschamp was not that bad and then tried to clean it up after you saw how stupid of a take that was.

Spencer was a big get, top schools were recruiting him, but that gets back to the definition of "big time" and I would assume you could argue UCLA is not big time, that is where most people thought he was going, and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

His NIL deals here in his first season were not as public as the NIL deals to keep him for his last year, but he had them and got more to keep him here.
 

18IsTheMan

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You can spin things however you want, but if you compare the end of the non NIL era and the start of the NIL era we are better off so far. Your teh guy that was posting about how Muschamp was not that bad and then tried to clean it up after you saw how stupid of a take that was.

Spencer was a big get, top schools were recruiting him, but that gets back to the definition of "big time" and I would assume you could argue UCLA is not big time, that is where most people thought he was going, and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

His NIL deals here in his first season were not as public as the NIL deals to keep him for his last year, but he had them and got more to keep him here.

That's some classic cherry-picking of data, lol. So we're only allowed to look at 2019-2020 for pre-NIL W/L data?

Obviously, if you know our history, it is one that has been defined by long spells of mediocrity punctuated every so often by really bad years or pretty good years. That has not changed.
 

Gradstudent

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That's some classic cherry-picking of data, lol. So we're only allowed to look at 2019-2020 for pre-NIL W/L data?

Obviously, if you know our history, it is one that has been defined by long spells of mediocrity punctuated every so often by really bad years or pretty good years. That has not changed.


We only have 3 years of data since NIL started and we are 20-18 = 52.6 %

Last 3 years of non NIL we were 13-20, = 39.4 %

We started the NIL era at a fairly low point, worse then normal for us, Muschamp, or Covid (which every program faced) or a combination, or X,Y, and Z as the cause, but I think NIL has helped us recover, based on where the program ended the non NIL era at and where it has started, again just my opinion.
 

18IsTheMan

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We only have 3 years of data since NIL started and we are 20-18 = 52.6 %

Last 3 years of non NIL we were 13-20, = 39.4 %

We started the NIL era at a fairly low point, worse then normal for us, Muschamp, or Covid (which every program faced) or a combination, or X,Y, and Z as the cause, but I think NIL has helped us recover, based on where the program ended the non NIL era at and where it has started, again just my opinion.

Our all-time record is .509, so really no impact compared to the .526 post-NIL. Obviously, over the course of our history we've had blips of much worse than .500 (1998-1999) and blips of much better than .500 (2011-2013) but we always settle back around the .500 mark, which is right where we are.

Besides W/L which are virtually unchanged from our historical norm, there's is also the recruiting impact. We really haven't seen any impact there. We are recruiting right about where we always have.

I feel like I'm arguing with dabosits2peepee that our basketball team exceeded expectations in the '22-'23 season by finishing 12th in the conference instead of 14th lol.
 
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Gradstudent

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Our all-time record is .509, so really no impact compared to the .526 post-NIL. Obviously, over the course of our history we've had blips of much worse than .500 (1998-1999) and blips of much better than .500 (2011-2013) but we always settle back around the .500 mark, which is right where we are.

At the end of 2020, a prevalent argument on the old board was , it could not get worse, so why not see how we do with NIL, so far it has been better then it ended, based on improvements over a similar recent sample size first 3 years vs last 3 years or you can argue that it is the same as it was historically always was, no better and no worse.

We did bounce back from 2 wins or less with 1 win in 1998 to 8 wins, 2 years later in 2000, with Lou Holtz so there is a precedent for what the program did in 2020 to 2022. But I don't regard Shane Beamer as highly as Lou Holtz, so I attribute some of that quick bounce back to NIL.

We probably need a decade or so in the NIL era to really reach a conclusion, so far I think it has helped us dig out of a hole, and has been good for the program, but everything is relative, and time will tell.
 
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18IsTheMan

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At the end of 2020, a prevalent argument on the old board was , it could not get worse, so why not see how we do with NIL, so far it has been better then it ended, based on improvements over a similar recent sample size first 3 years vs last 3 years or you can argue that it is the same as it was historically always was, no better and no worse.

We did bounce back from 2 wins or less with 1 win in 1998 to 8 wins, 2 years later in 2000, with Lou Holtz so there is a precedent for what the program did in 2020 to 2022. But I don't regard Shane Beamer as highly as Lou Holtz, so I attribute some of that quick bounce back to NIL.

We probably need a decade or so in the NIL era to really reach a conclusion, so far I think it has helped us dig out of a hole, and has been good for the program, but everything is relative, and time will tell.
Seems we are just following historical pattern.

We were trending down the last bit of Woods' tenure, then started performing better under Scott, until we tanked the end of his tenure. Then we turned it around under Holtz before trending down again. Then turned it around under Spurrier before trending down again. Turned it around under Muschamp before trending down again. At least through Beamer's first 2 seasons what we saw just fit the historical pattern of the new coach bump.
 

Lurker123

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Seems we are just following historical pattern.

We were trending down the last bit of Woods' tenure, then started performing better under Scott, until we tanked the end of his tenure. Then we turned it around under Holtz before trending down again. Then turned it around under Spurrier before trending down again. Turned it around under Muschamp before trending down again. At least through Beamer's first 2 seasons what we saw just fit the historical pattern of the new coach bump.

Ha. You're making the argument to switch coaches more often. Ride their "new coach bump" and dump them before the downturn!

:)
 
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gamecock stock

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For many of us it was immediately obvious where NIL and the transfer portal would lead. But some were adamant that NIL opened the door for us to compete with the big dogs. All it really meant, though, was the stuff the big schools were doing secretly, they could now do openly and do more of it.

We simply don't have the horses to keep up in the NIL era. That's not a criticism. Just a fact of life.
Agree. We never have been a strong recruiting school even under the best of circumstances and never will be. As a fan, I have come to terms with that. I also am realistic as to what we can accomplish in football. I'm not certain that the "powers" at this university have, Our only hope to be a respectable football program is to have a coach with "coaching skills". Again, that's to just be respectable, not a "must be" playoff team. The chart that Rummenigge provided the other day showed that only Texas, Georgia and Alabama regarding team NIL values were well ahead of us. I hope Beamer is the one. Do I have my doubts about Beamer? Absolutely. This year's schedule gives Beamer a chance to show if he has coaching chops.
 

Lurker123

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Agree. We never have been a strong recruiting school even under the best of circumstances and never will be. As a fan, I have come to terms with that. I also am realistic as to what we can accomplish in football. I'm not certain that the "powers" at this university have, Our only hope to be a respectable football program is to have a coach with "coaching skills". Again, that's to just be respectable, not a "must be" playoff team. The chart that Rummenigge provided the other day showed that only Texas, Georgia and Alabama regarding team NIL values were well ahead of us. I hope Beamer is the one. Do I have my doubts about Beamer? Absolutely. This year's schedule gives Beamer a chance to show if he has coaching chops.

We haven't recruited well enough to compete for SEC titles, but we've done well enough historically (last 30 years) to be a consistent bowl team, imo.
 

gamecock stock

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We haven't recruited well enough to compete for SEC titles, but we've done well enough historically (last 30 years) to be a consistent bowl team, imo.
I agree. My suggestion to Beamer is that he better pick it up. 12th in the 16 team SEC won't cut it. If you count Clemson, we are 13th out of 17 teams. And I don't think he has the coaching skills to make up for it, unless he is coaching the cheerleaders. Right now, Beamer's recruiting is putting the program in "deep doo doo".
 
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SC95

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We haven't recruited well enough to compete for SEC titles, but we've done well enough historically (last 30 years) to be a consistent bowl team, imo.
South Carolina has participated in 25 bowl games, including 17 from 1995 to present. SC should qualify for a bowl game every year. It should win at least 3 non-conference games and 3 conference games annually.
 
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18IsTheMan

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We haven't recruited well enough to compete for SEC titles, but we've done well enough historically (last 30 years) to be a consistent bowl team, imo.

You would think so. Bowl eligibility is a very low bar these days. Considering we have Vandy and a couple cupcakes on our schedule every year, we really only have to win 3 games to get there.

Part of the problem is our positioning in the league. We are ranked respectably in recruiting nationally. Usually middle of the pack or worse in the SEC though.
 

gamecock stock

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I look at men's basketball. All of their 2024 commitments are rated 4 stars by at least one recruiting service. Paris' 2025 commitments find 2 of their 3 commitments being rated 4 stars by at least one service. You know Dawn Staley is getting the job done recruiting-wise. The new Women's Softball coach is enthusiastic about using NIL and the Transfer Portal to build a power house. I have a strong feeling that our new baseball coach will return SC baseball to glory days. It makes me think that maybe Beamer is not using NIL wisely. Maybe that had a little to do with the change in football recruiting coordinators. I'm not sure.
 

gamecock stock

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You would think so. Bowl eligibility is a very low bar these days. Considering we have Vandy and a couple cupcakes on our schedule every year, we really only have to win 3 games to get there.

Part of the problem is our positioning in the league. We are ranked respectably in recruiting nationally. Usually middle of the pack or worse in the SEC though.
If you compare recruiting since Beamer arrived to that of Muschamp, Spurrier and Holtz, he is actually doing worse than they did. Is it NIL? Or is it incompetence? I'm not sure.
 

Lurker123

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You would think so. Bowl eligibility is a very low bar these days. Considering we have Vandy and a couple cupcakes on our schedule every year, we really only have to win 3 games to get there.

Part of the problem is our positioning in the league. We are ranked respectably in recruiting nationally. Usually middle of the pack or worse in the SEC though.

This a whole other debate. Scheduling. It may be taken out of our hands soon with the 9 game schedule, but we should probably be scheduling 3 patsies a year, and stop with the UNC type games.

If we're worried about winning 2 or 3 SEC games, we probably need the 3 patsies just to start.
 

gamecock stock

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This a whole other debate. Scheduling. It may be taken out of our hands soon with the 9 game schedule, but we should probably be scheduling 3 patsies a year, and stop with the UNC type games.

If we're worried about winning 2 or 3 SEC games, we probably need the 3 patsies just to start.
I agree with that. However, think about some of the close calls we have had with patsies since Beamer arrived: Jax State, Troy, Vanderbilt and East Carolina. One of these days, we are going to get bitten in the rear end by a patsie. If we think recruiting looks bad now, we "ain't" seen nothing yet.
 

18IsTheMan

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This a whole other debate. Scheduling. It may be taken out of our hands soon with the 9 game schedule, but we should probably be scheduling 3 patsies a year, and stop with the UNC type games.

If we're worried about winning 2 or 3 SEC games, we probably need the 3 patsies just to start.
Yeah, but, man, it's pathetic that we can't scratch our way to 6 wins when we are spotted a 3-0 record.

This season, we are spotted a 4-0 record.

If we cannot somehow find a way to go 2-6 in our other 8 games, then just burn it all down.
 

18IsTheMan

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I agree with that. However, think about some of the close calls we have had with patsies since Beamer arrived: Jax State, Troy, Vanderbilt and East Carolina. One of these days, we are going to get bitten in the rear end by a patsie. If we think recruiting looks bad now, we "ain't" seen nothing yet.
Jacksonville State was very nearly calamitous. We won but tend to forget we were on the brink of disaster.
 

18IsTheMan

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I don't know why anyone thought NIL would level the playing field for South Carolina football.

There were plenty in the old forum. I was flatly told that NIL was the pathway for us to close the gap with the elites.
 

Blues man

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I went from a pretty high to a loss of caring all in the span of two years I think. I used to have an invested interest in getting kids into college to play sports. It would be an understatement to say I was thrilled to see the end of the rule requiring a transfer to sit out a year. The creation of the portal was a bonus. Then what, like a year later the NIL thing happens? That changed everything. Now they need to go back to sitting out a year if we are ever gonna put the student back in student athlete. Call me disappointed to say the least that I had to wait this long for a bad rule to end only to have them muck it up a year later. I never did like the NCAA and now I wish they would just blow up. I sure would have liked to have seen how the transfer rule change would have played out over several years. Too bad it never had a chance. As for thinking the NIL would be a positive for us, that wasn't me. I dont have a good thing to say about it. But I do think the transfer rule change alone would have benefited us.
 

USCBatgirl21

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Heck, I've been dead-set against NIL from the very first mention of it. It has always been a very unpopular take on msg boards, but....whatever. 3-4yrs the kids would have to wait to make that money (above the scholarships, food, nutrition, etc, etc ) that they're already getting. Waah..... sometimes life ain't fair. Of course, I guess you can also say that about our (Gamecock fans) current plot in the CFB life - life ain't fair. C'est la vie.
I think if it had been left in its purest form - letting these kids get paid for attending events and signing autographs, appearing in local commercials, and the like - many would have been ok with it. But the SCOTUS decision turned it into the wild wild west because they exhibited no forethought as to what they were allowing in their ruling.
 

gamecock stock

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There were plenty in the old forum. I was flatly told that NIL was the pathway for us to close the gap with the elites.
The only way, I THINK, it will close the gap is if there is a cap. But, then we are on equal footing and back to never having been a recruiting machine or power house, anyway. We have tried to get it done through coaches with super recruiting reputations (Muschamp, Scott, Woods and Bell). They all were unmitigated failures. We will never amount to much in the SEC, in the future, unless our Head Football Coach can be a good tactician and strategist, has above-average organizational skills and can motivate. We are a small state that we share with brand name Clemson, surrounded by traditional powers like Georgia, Tennessee and Florida. We are sharing a conference with Alabama, Auburn and LSU. To make matters worse, we now have to contend with historical powers Texas and Oklahoma. Our history should clue us in. To think we can become nationally relevant through recruiting is, I'm sorry to say, a fool's errand. That's not to say that recruiting is not important. Certainly, we want to do the best we can in recruiting. But, in our situation, it's crucial that we have a Head Coach with VERY good coaching skills. Hopefully, such a coach can do credible recruiting. Then, we have a chance to make noise in this conference.

Beamer has a chance, with this year's schedule, to show what he can do. We are reminded that this schedule is brutal. Every year will give us a challenging schedule. We won't be able to avoid Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Auburn forever. That is life in this football conference. If Beamer cannot produce 2 or 3 upsets this season, that should tell people what's in store under Shane Beamer. If that does not happen, I hope we become serious about football, for a change.
 
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gamecock stock

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Seems we are just following historical pattern.

We were trending down the last bit of Woods' tenure, then started performing better under Scott, until we tanked the end of his tenure. Then we turned it around under Holtz before trending down again. Then turned it around under Spurrier before trending down again. Turned it around under Muschamp before trending down again. At least through Beamer's first 2 seasons what we saw just fit the historical pattern of the new coach bump.
In none of those examples did we go with a YOUNG, SUCCESSFULLY Proven, at the FBS level, Head Coach. If Beamer fails, maybe we should try that for once. We have not tried that since joining the SEC.
 
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