This is OUR State
Saturday, we left no doubt
Last season, at Williams-Brice, the Gamecock faithful collectively sat through one of the most difficult-to-endure games in recent memory. We had the wonderful privilege (note the obvious sarcasm) of watching Shane Beamer’s inaugural team (with no real Quarterback) get embarrassed by Clemson 30-0.
I was in the upper deck for that beatdown, freezing my ass off, not daring to leave before the final whistle, not out of loyalty, but rather out of frustration. I looked at the scoreboard over and over, letting it permeate my mind. It eventually became engraved there. When I closed my eyes that night, all I could see was that large 30 beside Clemson’s name.
Pain.
As the year has gone on, that numbered has followed us. Any argument with Clemson fans on Twitter, would often times result in a meme that reminded us that they scored 30 and we scored 0. Again and again, I’d see it referenced. We’d be talking about Dawn Staley and her accomplishments (something none of them can deny) and they’d drop mention of the 30-0 whipping. We’d discuss food, or bourbon, or golf, and they’d post that silly meme of Beamer with his mouth wide open (which formed the zero which sat beside their precious number 30). It was never ending and of course, this past week, it was plastered all over social media. A not so gentle reminder of how poorly we defended our home stadium; how poorly of a fight we put up.
30 to 0. 30 to 0. It’s all I could think of as the game began Saturday. And after Clemson quickly got up 14-0, I thought the only hope of erasing that dreaded 30 was for them to score even more than that, making me hate yet another random number.
But, that didn’t happen.
No, in the same way we couldn’t escape that big number 30 for a year, they couldn’t escape it for the entire 4th quarter, but this time, the Gamecocks were not satisfied with 0, no, they had an answer for the 30 points Clemson put up— 31.
This game had many moments that signified poetic justice (the special teams mishaps, the fumble by a player who snubbed our team, us being the one’s that snapped the home winning streak) but perhaps none felt as good to me as seeing that final scoreboard read Clemson 30- Carolina 31.
Make no mistake, this was not a one-off performance. As the national pundits said themselves, one team is on the rise and one team is scrambling, holding on tightly, trying not lose the momentum it once had. One team is resorting to historical record and one team is living in the present; the now.
In just his second season as head coach, Shane Beamer did something Will Muschamp couldn’t do— he beat Dabo Swinney, and made certain that everyone knows who owns this state.
May that 30 haunt them all year long, like it did us.
Go Cocks!