Scott Davis: Welcome to the Broken Hearts Club

Scott Davis has followed South Carolina athletics for over 40 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective. He writes a weekly newsletter year-round and a column during football season that’s published each Monday on GamecockCentral.com.

Following is this week’s Scott Davis newsletter. To receive it each Friday, sign up here.

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Can you break a heart that’s already broken?

That’s what South Carolina fans are wondering after watching their team fall behind, then race ahead of, then carry a fourth quarter lead against, then lose to the defending SEC champions last Saturday. Friends, a successful onside kick wasn’t enough to secure a win – that’s what kind of loss this was.

Having never quiiiiiiiiite recovered from a soul-crushing home defeat to the LSU Tigers earlier this season (heretofore referred to as “The Most Devasting South Carolina Football Loss in a Generation”), Gamecock fans hung on through a win over Akron and a ho-hum loss to Ole Miss before watching the team take the field in Tuscaloosa for what many thought would be a Crimson Tide tune-up.

Instead, the Gamecocks messed around and flirted with winning the football game.

For roughly the 17,000th time in the Shane Beamer Era, South Carolina did just about the exact opposite of whatever it was we were predicting they’d do in an upcoming contest.

The loss to Alabama may not have delivered the exquisite, pristine torture that the LSU game did, but it was painful enough that Gamecock Nation started to resemble a Broken Hearts Club this week. What do you give the fan base that has already suffered through everything?

You can almost hear one of those old TV game show hosts from the ‘70s taunting us: They’ve just endured an agonizing loss in one of the most storied venues in college football – what do we have for our beleaguered contestants next, Johnny?

How about another game in one of the most storied venues in college football?

Is that something I can interest you in?

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One Last Stand in the October Onslaught

We’re not done, but we can see the finish line from here.

South Carolina’s football team started the month facing one of the most absurd stretches in the program’s history: A home contest against Ole Miss, which had risen to No. 6 in the nation earlier this season. A road game against the defending SEC champion Alabama Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa (repeat: the home of the Alabama Crimson Tide). And up this Saturday, a stop in hallowed Norman, Oklahoma, to face the legendary Oklahoma Sooners.

That’s one way to earn your paycheck, folks.

As of now, the Gamecocks are 0-for-October, a development that has surprised few observers nationally or locally, and yet remains startlingly, powerfully frustrating for the fans who love the team.

South Carolina didn’t play well at home against the Rebels…and yet they hung around in that game juuuuust enough to keep the fans from descending into one of those all-bets-are-off freakouts that we see once a season or so.

And in Tuscaloosa? The game that looked the most out of reach from this Triumvirate of Terror was one that South Carolina’s players, coaches and fans walked away from feeling like a victory had been left on the table.

Which leaves us right back in the same place we were when this whole season started back before Labor Day: Wondering exactly what we have on our hands when it comes to this edition of the South Carolina Gamecocks.

Is this a bowl team? Is it a team that could defeat or lose to almost everyone left on the schedule?
I don’t know. And yes.

You ready for November yet? No one’s ever had their hearts broken a third time, have they?

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Eyes on the Prize?

I know how I feel after six games of this wild, ridiculous, intriguing and exciting season.

I feel like I’ve been on a supersonic jet ride that has included both breathtaking views and gut-melting turbulence. I have jet lag. You have jet lag. And we’re only halfway through this thing.

So, I can only imagine how the players and coaches are feeling right about now.

We could forgive them if they’d started talking to themselves and looking towards the heavens in disbelief after all they’ve endured in these last six games. And yet they said all the right things this week. As Gamecock receiver Nyck Harbor put it, “We’re right on the doorstep. We’re right there. We just gotta kick the door down.”

For some weird reason, I believe these guys. I believe that they believe this.

And I’m the same guy who wrote in my column following the Alabama game that I wasn’t in any particular mood for any “This Team is Close” arguments over the last few days. Somehow, as the week has worn on, I’m starting to let it happen again. I’m starting to think these Gamecocks might still have a run in them.

I’m either insane, incurably hopeful, or absolutely right.

It feels like the Gamecocks – somehow, some way – still have their eyes on the prize right in the here and now of 2024. Getting bowl-eligible will require some work. But it feels like a tangible goal with six games remaining.

The first of those six, alas, is in Norman, where the Sooners will be seeking redemption after a deflating beatdown at the hands of rival Texas last weekend. The boys from Oklahoma will be ready to rumble. Their fans will be ready to scream about something good again.

The Gamecocks? Call me crazy, but I think they’ll be ready, too.

Here we go again.

Tell me how you’re feeling as October concludes by writing me at [email protected].

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