Scott Davis: Still time to cling onto spring

Where did these five weeks go?

Didn’t spring football practice just start five seconds ago instead of five weeks ago? What have I been doing with myself? What have you been doing with yourself?

Well, cheering on a national championship, for starters. There is that. Still, how time does fly.

Way back in the early days of March, I submitted a spirited column for this space in which I painted a rapturous picture of just how fired up I was to get started with South Carolina football’s 2022 edition of spring practice: Scott Davis: Super pumped for South Carolina spring football.

And I was fired up, too.

Who among us could fail to be fired up? The Gamecocks had closed the 2021 season with some unexpected beatings of some ancient SEC tormentors (Florida and Auburn, specifically), then routed, rolled-up and ridiculed the Tar Heels of North Carolina in the esteemed Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte.

Then coach Shane Beamer and his staff reeled in an impressive group of quality veterans in the Transfer Portal as winter took hold across the Palmetto State, and it was about this time that I started standing in front of the calendar that hangs from a pair of magnets on our kitchen refrigerator, staring at the days and trying to will them forward.

I hungered for September, for tailgates, for “It’s another Carolina…FIRST DOWN!” for 2001, for the rooster crow, for Sandstorm, for a bouncing student section, for “It’s Saturday in South Carolina…WELCOME TO WILLIAMS-BRICE!” and for all the rest of it. And since that still seemed a couple of decades away, I had spring ball.

I had fifteen practices and some press conferences. It would have to be enough. I would cling to spring football like a flea burrowing into a dog’s back.

But now the Garnet and Black game is approaching, and now the number of spring practices left on the docket is shrinking towards zero, and the press conferences are in their last stages, and soon all that will be left to us is one long, scorching, empty summer.

And by God…I STILL NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT MY FOOTBALL TEAM.

Fortunately, I still have the weekend: Final details announced for Big Gamecock Weekend.

Time to get strapped in.

What Just Happened?

I probably don’t have to tell you that it’s been a busy month or so for South Carolina athletics.

For weeks on end, most of us placed our hopes and dreams into the hands of Dawn Staley and the Gamecock women’s basketball program, hoping to receive a beautiful reward at the close of the NCAA Tournament.

That reward came when South Carolina – acting as the people’s champions – dismissed Connecticut to claim the program’s second national championship in half-a-decade (Start sculpting the statue for Dawn Staley).

Meanwhile, the men’s basketball program had what would normally have been an exceedingly eventful few weeks but for the run of Staley’s team: South Carolina parted ways with longtime coach Frank Martin, then moved into the future with the hire of Lamont Paris from Chattanooga. As if all that wasn’t enough, the inconsistent play of Mark Kingston’s baseball team to open the 2022 season also encouraged a period of puzzled reflection, soul-searching and rumination amongst the fan base.

The end result of it all was a news avalanche that left me feeling like I hadn’t spent as much time with my football team as I was accustomed to doing at this time of year.

We must ask: Do I know enough about this team’s offensive philosophies as I should coming out of spring ball? Am I prepared to create a PowerPoint presentation detailing defensive coordinator Clayton White’s third-down blitzing tendencies, should someone unexpectedly ask me to do so at a moment’s notice? Am I prepared to discuss which true freshmen and transfer players are ready to contribute on Day One?

In heaven’s name, who will kick for this football team after Parker White finally exhausted his eligibility: Who will replace Parker White?

These questions and many more are the ones I must answer by Saturday.

Searching for Points

Of all the questions we hoped the spring might help us solve, perhaps none of them are more nagging than this one: Will we see the Gamecocks put the football in the end zone in 2022?

Shall we – must we? – recount the team’s offensive struggles during the early portions of last season? There were sluggish outings against the likes of Troy and East Carolina. There was that ugly game against Kentucky when South Carolina could muster a meager 10 points. And the less said about that Texas A&M game, the better (remember the SEC Network running that terrifying graphic near the end of the third quarter of that game, highlighting South Carolina’s total offense of just six yards?).

Still, despite another forgettable offensive performance against Clemson to close the regular season, the unit seemed to be rounding into shape near the end of the year, culminating in a 543-yard offensive outburst in the bowl game. Mix in the addition of talented and experienced players like Spencer Rattler, Christian Beal-Smith and others during the offseason, and there’s reason to hope the Gamecocks will be a more efficient offensive football team this fall.

And that’s normally what I would have spent the past five weeks focusing and fixating upon. I’d have broken down every tidbit, every scrimmage observation, every nugget and practice rumor I could find (Beamer updates offensive progress after second scrimmage), and would have likely managed to convince myself that the Gamecocks would lead the SEC in rushing AND passing AND total yards AND points per game in 2022.

After all, that’s why spring football exists: To give us hope.

This year, we all got a little sidetracked.

But there’s still Saturday, thank God.

There’s always a little time left to hope.

Tell me what you hope to see in the Garnet and Black game and in the 2022 football season by writing me at [email protected].

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