Set the Silver-Ware
posted by David Cloninger, 9/03/2009 07:48:00 AM
-------- THE ROLLING STONES
One cannot compare the 2009 South Carolina football team to the 1984 South Carolina football team.
Until one thinks about the beginning of the 1984 South Carolina football team.
Coming off a 5-6 season and with a coach in the second year of a rebuilding project, nobody expected that 1984 season to be great. Most just wanted something good – a 6-5 mark against the country’s second-toughest schedule might hit that expectation.
And then that team won, and kept winning, until it became a Gamecock team that won 10 games in a season for the first and only time. Even now, 25 years later, that team is held above all others in terms of greatness.
The reason I bring this up is I see many similarities between that team’s preseason and the 2009 preseason (and to offer a completely shameless plug for the series I’m doing on the 1984 team). Each had too many questions and not enough answers while preparing for battle.
Think about it.
* Allen Mitchell was the starting quarterback, although he’d thrown 18 interceptions a year before, but he was the most experienced QB on the roster. Mike Hold was expected to split time but had yet to take a varsity snap after separating his shoulder in the 1983 preseason.
Stephen Garcia is also the most experienced QB on the roster, and could give some time to speedy newcomer Stephon Gilmore, who will play his first collegiate game tonight. Garcia’s last performance was, like Mitchell’s previous season, not great, and that other guy was pretty good on his feet.
* The 1984 Gamecocks thought the strength of their team would be their running game (a five-headed option) and their defense (led by vicious linebacker James Seawright).
Coach Steve Spurrier said that the 2009 Gamecocks might have to be a running team, since it had five capable tailbacks, and the defense would flow through head-hunting linebacker Eric Norwood.
* The 1984 team was facing a schedule rated the nation’s toughest, with Georgia, Pittsburgh and Florida State at home and Notre Dame, NC State and Clemson on the road.
The 2009 team is slated against a schedule that some have called the country’s toughest, with home games against Ole Miss, Florida and Clemson and on the road at NC State, Georgia and Alabama.
I only bring this up because it seems worth it, in the midst of all of the fan swooning and somewhat tempered expectations of this year. A good team with these question marks facing this schedule could go 6-6, just like the 1984 team was predicted to go 6-5 at best.
A quarter of a century ago, a band of predicted nobodies decided they were sick of losing. Although the season didn’t end as they had hoped, they still are recalled as the best to ever walk across the Williams-Brice Stadium turf.
Moe Brown and Norwood recently spoke of the fun the 2009 team had had in the preseason, leaving plenty of time for work, mind you, but also realizing togetherness and chemistry will matter once the season gets underway. I don’t know if there were any groups of players talking about how they wanted to prove themselves as that 1984 team did, but perhaps there’s a few individuals or groups who have that mindset.
I consider it a blessing and a curse that I always think with my head and not my heart. My head tells me my beloved Atlanta Braves have a solid chance at the wild-card spot this year (despite Mike Gonzalez’s epic failure on Wednesday); my heart will not let me profess that my boys are out of the division race even though they’re eight games out of first with 29 to play.
As long as I’ve watched, interviewed and sympathized with USC fans, I have realized there is far too much heart-thinking going on. Most of you want success to happen so bad you ignore many facts, which is admirable – it’s the same reason I keep playing the lotto.
No matter how small the chance is that I will win $250 million (or that the Gamecocks will go 14-0), that chance is still there.
Twenty-five years ago, thinking with the heart achieved a level of success not seen before or since. That was before any of the current players not named Matthew Grooms was born.
It could happen again.
The chance exists because it has to.
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“Kick on the starter, give it all you got, you got, you got.”
-------- THE ROLLING STONES
One cannot compare the 2009 South Carolina football team to the 1984 South Carolina football team.
Until one thinks about the beginning of the 1984 South Carolina football team.
Coming off a 5-6 season and with a coach in the second year of a rebuilding project, nobody expected that 1984 season to be great. Most just wanted something good – a 6-5 mark against the country’s second-toughest schedule might hit that expectation.
And then that team won, and kept winning, until it became a Gamecock team that won 10 games in a season for the first and only time. Even now, 25 years later, that team is held above all others in terms of greatness.
The reason I bring this up is I see many similarities between that team’s preseason and the 2009 preseason (and to offer a completely shameless plug for the series I’m doing on the 1984 team). Each had too many questions and not enough answers while preparing for battle.
Think about it.
* Allen Mitchell was the starting quarterback, although he’d thrown 18 interceptions a year before, but he was the most experienced QB on the roster. Mike Hold was expected to split time but had yet to take a varsity snap after separating his shoulder in the 1983 preseason.
Stephen Garcia is also the most experienced QB on the roster, and could give some time to speedy newcomer Stephon Gilmore, who will play his first collegiate game tonight. Garcia’s last performance was, like Mitchell’s previous season, not great, and that other guy was pretty good on his feet.
* The 1984 Gamecocks thought the strength of their team would be their running game (a five-headed option) and their defense (led by vicious linebacker James Seawright).
Coach Steve Spurrier said that the 2009 Gamecocks might have to be a running team, since it had five capable tailbacks, and the defense would flow through head-hunting linebacker Eric Norwood.
* The 1984 team was facing a schedule rated the nation’s toughest, with Georgia, Pittsburgh and Florida State at home and Notre Dame, NC State and Clemson on the road.
The 2009 team is slated against a schedule that some have called the country’s toughest, with home games against Ole Miss, Florida and Clemson and on the road at NC State, Georgia and Alabama.
I only bring this up because it seems worth it, in the midst of all of the fan swooning and somewhat tempered expectations of this year. A good team with these question marks facing this schedule could go 6-6, just like the 1984 team was predicted to go 6-5 at best.
A quarter of a century ago, a band of predicted nobodies decided they were sick of losing. Although the season didn’t end as they had hoped, they still are recalled as the best to ever walk across the Williams-Brice Stadium turf.
Moe Brown and Norwood recently spoke of the fun the 2009 team had had in the preseason, leaving plenty of time for work, mind you, but also realizing togetherness and chemistry will matter once the season gets underway. I don’t know if there were any groups of players talking about how they wanted to prove themselves as that 1984 team did, but perhaps there’s a few individuals or groups who have that mindset.
I consider it a blessing and a curse that I always think with my head and not my heart. My head tells me my beloved Atlanta Braves have a solid chance at the wild-card spot this year (despite Mike Gonzalez’s epic failure on Wednesday); my heart will not let me profess that my boys are out of the division race even though they’re eight games out of first with 29 to play.
As long as I’ve watched, interviewed and sympathized with USC fans, I have realized there is far too much heart-thinking going on. Most of you want success to happen so bad you ignore many facts, which is admirable – it’s the same reason I keep playing the lotto.
No matter how small the chance is that I will win $250 million (or that the Gamecocks will go 14-0), that chance is still there.
Twenty-five years ago, thinking with the heart achieved a level of success not seen before or since. That was before any of the current players not named Matthew Grooms was born.
It could happen again.
The chance exists because it has to.
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David Cloninger. David is a full-time staff writer for GamecockCentral, and covers Gamecock football, men's basketball, baseball and recruiting. He may be reached by email at david(at)gamecockcentral.com. Replace (at) with @.