Scott Davis: What’s left to play for? Everything

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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Yesterday morning, I drove into the teeth of Atlanta rush hour traffic with absolutely zero expectations for anything good to happen to me.

It usually doesn’t where rush hour is concerned.

I was on the road at the Magic Hour: 7 am to 8 am, when things are at their ugliest and the interstates look like a crime scene. After more than a decade in metro Atlanta, I’m numb to this stuff. When you’re out there at the wrong time, you can always depend on your worst nightmares coming true. Much like an SEC schedule does to a football program, this city will bring you to your knees when you’re behind the wheel of a car. That’s just the way it is.

But then the first segment of my morning drive went better than expected, and by the halfway point, I was actually ahead of schedule. For a brief, shining moment, I unimaginably entertained the fantasy of stopping at Starbucks for a Pumpkin Spice Latte since it looked like I’d have a few extra minutes.

You know what happened next.

A portion of the drive that is usually the very least of my concerns turned into an unexpected snarl with all lanes blocked for reasons I was never able to discern. I turned around and tried another route…where I wound up behind a school bus that appeared to be stopping for every child in North Georgia. Then the traffic lights started conspiring against me, and then there was a crew working on a pothole and holding up orange signs, and eventually even the Waze lady announced, “Forget it, you’re never getting there.”

By the time I reached my destination, I was a whopping 25 minutes late. And I’d left early.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

The worst part was how I handled the situation. I let the morning drive ruin the rest of the day. I let it affect every interaction, let its memory taint everything that happened to me for the next six hours, to the point that I started feeling sorry for myself and blaming the universe for ganging up on me.

I couldn’t put it behind me.

The South Carolina football team faces a similar predicament today. They’ve got to find a way to put that excruciating loss to LSU from last Saturday behind them as they look towards the nine games that remain on the schedule.

They can’t let all of that ugliness and all of that misfortune and all of those bad vibes linger.

Because there is still plenty to play for in 2024.

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The Hangover

The Gamecocks’ players and coaches have said the right things this week.

They’ve pledged to look towards the future rather than back towards what might have been. They’ve declined to engage in woulda, coulda, shoulda conversations.

When previewing this weekend’s contest against Akron, head coach Shane Beamer reiterated that the team couldn’t let the LSU disappointment linger. As Gamecock defender Kyle Kennard said, “It’s out the window and just worried about beating Akron this week.”

But if the players and coaches are at all like the fans who root for them, they’re probably struggling to place those haunting memories from last Saturday in the rearview mirror.

As I wrote in my column from the LSU game, this particular loss – given the way it started, given the national stage on which it occurred, and given the stakes in Beamer’s fourth year with the program – feels like one of the most devastating gut-punches that Gamecock fans have endured in many years.

I received several notes from dazed and bruised fans this week, with a reader named Terrill speaking for most of them when he wrote, “I struggle to come up with a single regular season loss that just plain hurt the way this one did.”

Agreed.

The Hangover has been very real and very potent for Gamecock fans this week.

As for the team? We’ll learn just how ready they are to bounce back on Saturday.

[Win two tickets to the South Carolina-Ole Miss football game]

Everything’s Out There

Despite it all, South Carolina remains an early-season surprise for most national observers, many of whom predicted the team to be 1-2 entering the Akron game.

I, too, entered the season with tempered expectations. I’m always hopeful when Gamecock football kicks off a new season, but I wasn’t blind to the schedule that South Carolina faced. And much like I do when I get ready to square off with Atlanta traffic in the mornings, I’ve come to expect some slowdowns and unforeseen three-car pileups when it comes to a Gamecock football season.

But after that shocking, electrifying Kentucky blowout, and all those feelgood feelings emanating from the College GameDay set before the LSU game, and that exhilarating 17-0 start to the LSU game, the comedown that followed has shaken many of us into a state of exhaustion and uncertainty.

For a brief, shining moment when the Gamecocks built that 17-0 lead, I started having visions of South Carolina coasting into bowl eligibility with a few games to spare and some house money to play with.

I knew I shouldn’t have done it.

After all, I’ve been on this drive so many times.

I know that I’ll always see brake lights glaring up ahead, right when I least expect them to.

I know it.

But I’m a human being. I’m a human being who hopes. I’m a human being who loves South Carolina. And I’d started tasting that Pumpkin Spice Latte in my mind.

Fortunately, the players and coaches on this team don’t have to follow my lead. They don’t have to let this loss linger. They don’t have to let it affect everything they do going forward.

They can absorb it and move on to the next leg of the journey.

Because the journey’s not over. There’s still a bowl game out there for the taking. There’s still much more for the taking, in fact.

Here’s hoping they keep the foot on the gas and keep driving, until all memories of this past game have faded into the horizon.

Tell me how you’re handling one of the most difficult losses in memory by writing me at [email protected].

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