Look, I know it's played. And I know it's easy. But there's a reason that almost every situation in football can be compared to an incident in our dating lives - it's because most of us have had that experience.
And man, on Saturday night, I felt you, Gamecocks fans. I really, really did.
I know what it feels like to give everything you have to a team. I know what it feels like to make sacrifices, to make changes, to give all you can give .. and to realize that the entity you were giving it all to wasn't going to be willing (or able) to give it back to you. We've all woken up one morning after putting everything we had into a relationship, looking your significant other into the eyes, and realize - you're done. You can't give anymore.
Saturday night I got invited to attend my first football party here in the Upstate. A group of friends, South Carolina fans, invited me over to watch the Gamecocks play the Volunteers. (It didn't hurt that there was a dedicated bourbon room, but that's a story that is not for another time.)
The game was exactly what I expected it to be - a back and forth effort between a couple of programs working to climb back into the national discussion, led by a couple of coaches who are fighting for their lives.
The Volunteers led the Gamecocks by a pair of scores, and South Carolina had the chance for a game winning drive as the Volunteers lined up to punt with less than a minute and a half less. And, more importantly, they had something the fans weren't full of when the game started.
Confidence.
And then, disaster.
With inside of a minute and a half left on the game clock, the Tennessee punt popped off the back leg of a Gamecock player engaged in a block. The Volunteers recovered, and Jeremy Pruitt had stolen a win away from Coach Boom that was sorely needed.
The party was silent. Heads were shaking, and a number of surrender cobras made sudden appearences amongst the garnet-clad friends I had made.
And then, minutes later, the conversation started again.
It wasn't about the game. There was no diagnosing of gameplan. There was no criticism of a defense that gave up a late game field goal and deep ball touchdown for the lead. There was no talk about USC making a move on Will Muschamp.
In fact, it was about anything else. It was about boyfriends and wives. It was about bourbon and bratwursts. It was about Halloween decorations and costume parties.
It was about everything except Gamecock football.
But, hey. We were in the moment. No one wants to acknowledge immediate failure. It's human nature. It's that moment when you realize your relationship is over, that it's time to move on - but you don't want to acknowledge it in the moment.
Monday's show started, and I was prepared to talk about the loss. I had my breadown of the game - and it was most certainly not the kneejerk reaction of other hosts. I wasn't ready to beat the hell out of them. In fact, I saw a lot of good. Shi was every bit the gamechanging wide receiver I expected him to be. There were plenty of adjustments made specifically along the offensive live, that showed me Muschamp could make necessary changes in game. Colin Hill took some time to get going but once he got comfortable at game pace and the line was giving him time to read his progressions the ball was finding its way on target.
But, I got nothing.
I asked USC fans for their reactions. I all but begged them to call in and talk football to me. And I got nothing.
In fact, in the entire first hour of the show, the ONLY feedback I got was one text message.
I was, to say the least, surprised. I assumed, for all the preseason chat about coaching changes, recruiting news, which direction the team was pointed in ... that there would be at least some reaction to the game. There were more calls about Clemson's win over the Citadel then USC's loss to Tennessee.
And, before I hear one more "but you guys ONLY talk about Clemson!" I want to make one thing clear: I don't. And today, I quite literally structured the entire opening portion of the show JUST to talk about USC football. I wanted Gamecocks fans to have their time to break down and respond to what happened on Saturday. The show belonged to you today. And I got nothing.
"But Rob, people don't like you. If no one is listening, no one will call."Yeah. I know that. Except for, here's the thing. Last week, Diesel and I talked about mayonnaise. I asked, out of genuine curiosity, why it was that Duke's mayo was such a sacred substance in this area. It's just mayo. Mayo is the mayo of condiments. It's the most bland, indistinguishable thing you can eat. It's so bland that literally everything else that is bland is described as "the mayo of that topic."And I got more texts and phone calls about that than I could keep up with. (You guys are VERY passionate about your mayo.)
So, I have to ask Gamecock fans (and these are supposed to be opinions, not questions - but here we are) a question:
Are you done? Are you over it? Are you done investing in this team and this time?
You shouldn't be. And here's why.
There were positive takeaways from that game. The L might sting, but let's be honest - this wasn't a case of losing a game that you were supposed to win. This was a case of a freak football accident, something that happens to even the best teams, against a squad that was in the same situation that you find yourselves in. Nothing more, nothing less.
And the game itself wasn't awful. For a team coming into the season with a ton of questions about multiple positions, the Gamecocks took what could've been a disastrous two score deficit and placed themselves in a position to win. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic that this team improved.
But have the most recent years taken the ability to be optimistic away?
So, Gamecocks fans, I ask you: knowing that you're outgunned on the road at Florida, in another dogfight against a team with a coach fighting for his job in Vanderbilt, and hosting an Auburn team trying to prove it deserves conversation in the west ... are you hopeful there's a spark in this team to walk out of that stretch with an upset and two of the three?
Or ... are you done?
Leave your thoughts, and I'll address them on the show!