Scott Davis: War is what I'd like to see at Williams-Brice Stadium

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.

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Take a journey back with me to your high school American history class.

You can see it all right now, can’t you? The dusty classroom, a chalkboard blurred with long-erased words of wisdom, a US flag near the front, your high school crush chatting with friends in the corner.

Somewhere in the background, a teacher is droning on about the earliest days of the grand old Republic, something about a congressional solution to forestall a civil war.

The Missouri Compromise.

Was that what they called it? In one ear and out the other, if you were like me.

But the details don’t matter. The long and the short of it is: The Compromise kept the union afloat for another 40 years, but eventually, war arrived anyway.

War, as it happens, is precisely what I’d like to see break out at Williams-Brice Stadium this weekend when South Carolina takes on those pesky, profoundly annoying Missouri Tigers on Saturday.

War could be the start of something beautiful for Shane Beamer’s up-and-coming program.

Once upon a time, South Carolina fans didn’t even think about Missouri enough to worry about declaring war on the school or its supporters. The Gamecocks won five of the first seven contests against Mizzou after the Tigers joined the SEC in 2012, and it appeared – at least briefly – that the South Carolina program was simply operating with more consistency than the one located in the other Columbia.

Near the end of the Will Muschamp Era, the bottom suddenly fell out.

Starting in 2019 and continuing since, Missouri has owned the nascent rivalry, winning five straight. The Mayor’s Cup – created to honor the champion of this game each year as a tribute to the schools sharing hometowns with the same name – has resided in the Midwest since before any of us had ever heard of COVID-19.

South Carolina’s early dominance in the Missouri series has been, alas, compromised.

That’s why it’s time for war.

That’s why Williams-Brice Stadium needs to become the place the Gamecocks make a stand, the place to fight back and regain the upper hand in one of the more interesting SEC rivalries over the last decade.

This time, there can be no compromise.

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Pleased to Loathe You

Within a few short years of Missouri’s joining the SEC and showing up on South Carolina’s schedule annually, I realized something that surprised me.

I hated them.

I wasn’t planning on having any particular feelings about the school one way or the other. The universities had almost no history of playing each other in any of the major sports, and I didn’t know a single Missouri fan anywhere. My expected emotion when it came to Mizzou was utter indifference.

Let’s just say my mind changed quickly. And there were a couple of reasons why.

For starters, the Gamecocks and Tigers wound up playing some of the most spirited and entertaining SEC games of the 2010s. None of us will ever forget the “Connor Shaw Flu Game” in 2013 when South Carolina’s winningest quarterback – ailing from a lethal case of the flu – led the Gamecocks back from a 17-0 fourth-quarter deficit on the road in Columbia North to stun the Tigers and their fans in double overtime.

Sadly, we’ll also never forget what happened in Williams-Brice Stadium the very next season, when South Carolina carried a lead into the fourth quarter only to falter by one point, 21-20 – the first signs of cracks in the Steve Spurrier Era.

What annoyed me perhaps more than anything was that the Tigers won the SEC East in just their second and third seasons in the league, quickly getting their program to the SEC Championship Game more than South Carolina had in two decades in the conference at the time. As a fan who felt (at the time) that South Carolina ought to be superior to the University of Missouri in football, this development tangled me up in frustration.

The creation of the Mayor’s Cup added a little juice to the game, too. When you see celebrating players carrying a trophy off the field, all of the sudden, you find yourself wanting your team to win that game more than you thought you did.

By the time the University of Missouri’s athletic director started a feud with none other than Dawn Staley (resulting in a lawsuit), I’d had it with Mizzou. You don’t mess with Dawn without feeling my fury.

And now that the Tigers have won five football games in a row against South Carolina, I feel comfortable making this startling pronouncement.

I want this game on Saturday as much as any I can remember.

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Restart the Rivalry

Shane Beamer knows all too well about South Carolina’s recent struggles against Missouri.

He’s winless at 0-3 when facing off with the Tigers.

In Beamer’s three-plus years at the helm of the Gamecock program, he’s defeated names like Tennessee, Florida, Auburn, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Clemson, and North Carolina, and the team reclaimed its rightful ownership of the Kentucky series under his watch.

But he has not yet been able to solve Mizzou.

Two years ago, Gamecock fans were soaring after watching their team finally take down Texas A&M, with most of us looking toward the next game against Missouri, expecting our momentum to swallow the Tigers alive. Your final: Missouri 23, South Carolina 10, in a game that didn’t feel that close.

Last year, it neither felt nor was that close, with Missouri dismantling South Carolina to the ugly tune of 34-12. Going back to his time as head coach at App State, it feels like Mizzou’s Eli Drinkwitz is now 78-0 against South Carolina.

And that’s why this rivalry needs a reset.

That’s why this Saturday is a time to declare war, to end all compromises, and to take back that trophy.

If the Gamecocks can do it, this surprising season just might end with more trophies to come.

Tell me how you’re feeling as the Missouri Tigers once again come to town by writing me at [email protected].

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