Scott Davis: Check Your Head

Scott Davis has followed Gamecock sports for more than 30 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective. He writes a weekly column that appears on Gamecock Central each Monday during football season.

In addition, Scott writes a weekly newsletter that's emailed each Friday year-round. To sign up for the newsletter, click here.

I had surrendered, man.

With about two minutes to go in the South Carolina-Vanderbilt game on Saturday evening – and the Gamecocks on the verge of going down by six or even 10 points to the Commodores – I had already started thinking about what this loss would mean.

It would mean that first-year coach Shane Beamer would likely finish his first campaign without winning a game in the SEC. It would mean that South Carolina was officially in the worst shape of any team in the league. It would mean that Vanderbilt won a football game at Williams-Brice Stadium for the first time in 13 years.

Vanderbilt.

Mostly it would mean that 2021 would be remembered as a lost, “walking in place” season – a season that doesn’t drag the program forward to anywhere good.

My brother-in-law and I had already exchanged somber “We’re really going to do this, aren’t we? We’re going to lose to @#%^^ Vanderbilt” texts. All that was left was for the clock to run out and for me to spend the rest of the evening sifting through the wreckage looking for anything hopeful to cling to my chest.

As a horror movie fan like me knows all too well, there’s a classic scene in Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby” where the titular Rosemary is paid a nighttime visit by the Prince of Darkness, and the moment is hazy and out-of-focus and surreal, but there’s just enough clarity for her to realize, “Hey, that really is the devil, and he really is standing in my room,” and suddenly she screams, “This is not a dream! This is really happening!”

That’s what I thought, watching Vanderbilt’s field goal attempt sail through the uprights to make it 20-14, Commodores, with less than two minutes left and the Gamecocks out of timeouts.

This is not a dream. This is really happening.

And it was happening, too, right there on the field inside our stadium.

And then it wasn’t.

As you know by now, former graduate assistant, former North Dakota State Bison, former Iowa State Cyclone and current South Carolina backup quarterback Zeb Noland stepped off the sidelines in relief and calmly completed five passes for 75 yards and a touchdown in the waning moments to seal one of those rare “what in the world just happened” wins that you’ll talk about for a long time.

Final: South Carolina 21, Vanderbilt 20. Now this was not dream and this was really happening. Who could keep up with it all?

This was one of those games where you had to run through a type of Survivor’s Checklist when it was over, like: “OK, am I still currently alive? Check. Is my head still on my shoulders? Check. Is my brain still inside my head? Check. Is my soul still inside my chest? I’m not sure? Is South Carolina still technically alive for a bowl game berth? (Skin melting, body turning into ash).”

I’d written this column in my head 14 different times by the beginning of the second half. After the Gamecock offense surged to life for the first time in weeks and roared out of the gates with two easy touchdowns in the first quarter, I’d decided to commemorate the attainment of another first for Coach Beamer.

He’d had his first win as a head coach back in September. He’d logged his first win on the road. He’d taken care of his first “I guess that was a win, but my God…wait, was that actually a win?” win against Troy.

Now he’d get the first SEC win of his tenure.

And then the game wore on…and then the column in my head took a darker turn: Commodores on the Williams-Brice turf celebrating and high-fiving for the first time since 2008. The Gamecocks going winless in the SEC for the first time in the 21st Century. Me bruising my hand after punching a piece of furniture for the first time since…well, since the first quarter of the Tennessee game last week.

Ninety seconds later, it’s the Zeb Redemption and South Carolina is 4-3 and has a Southeastern Conference win to show for its 2021 season and Vanderbilt is still Vanderbilt and exactly how is anyone supposed to translate all of this into English?

I’ve said it in almost every column I’ve written this year: We knew it.

As South Carolina fans, we knew this season would be a test of the almighty patience. We knew next year probably would, too. We knew that we didn’t know when exactly things might get better. We knew where the program stood after five years of falling into the Grand Canyon.

And knowing all that, we still came to the quick realization that it’s a lot easier to talk about struggling than it is to watch struggling actually take place.

The ridiculous thing is, if you’d said to me back in August, “We’ll be 4-3 after seven games – you think you can live with that?” I would have absolutely lived with that. Four-and-three just doesn’t sound like an unfolding catastrophe when you talk about it in August.

But football fanhood is founded upon feelings and not reason.

And the feeling of watching this team through seven games has been a bizarre cocktail of bewilderment, hope, frustration, occasional pride, occasional despondency, occasional satisfaction, occasional belief, occasional surrender, occasional helplessness, and then a surge of hope again.

No matter what, we can say we survived it.

Regardless of how we got there, we’re 4-3.

And it’s not a dream. It is really happening.

Get thee behind me, Satan.

Seven games have been played, my wife still owns the Game Balls and there is no end in sight. Let’s hurl a few Christies to…

Zeb Noland – Noland wound up unexpectedly starring in an Inspirational Sports Movie scene at the end of the Vanderbilt game. Not gonna lie, I didn’t see that one coming. We hadn’t seen him in weeks, then he emerges from the shadows of the bench and reenacts the last 10 minutes of “John Wick 2.” Was that a dream? Did that really happen?

Xavier Legette’s Game-Winning Catch in the End Zone – Somewhat lost amidst Noland’s John Wick impersonation was Legette’s “reaching backwards while leaping” grab of a bullet in the farthest reaches of the end zone, which led to the SEC Network’s Deuce McAllister yelping in disbelief that the Mullins receiver had gotten not just one, but both feet down. The degree of difficulty on that catch was a 17,000 on a scale of 1-10. (May I admit here that I couldn’t tell in real-time whether the catch was clean, so I spent the brief moments between the catch and the extra point walking in circles, talking to myself and half-expecting the officiating crew to wipe away the touchdown just as the Gamecocks were hugging each other on the field? We keep it honest around here).

Quarterback Controversies – Come on, it just wouldn’t be a South Carolina football season without one!

A Bye Week Coming at Just the Right…Wait, We’re Playing This Saturday? – My God, has a team ever been in greater need of a Bye Week than this squad? Instead, they’re heading to College Station, where they’ve never won, to face a Texas A&M team coming off a stunning win against Alabama and a rout of Missouri. On that note, let’s usher in the…

We Still Haven’t Made it to a Bye Week Yet? – I need a breather, you need a breather, this team needs a breather. Everyone needs a breather. Instead, Texas A&M. Get thee behind me, Satan.

The Discipline Dilemma – It’s OK to say it out loud: South Carolina is not a disciplined football team. Not right now. Not in 2021. It doesn’t mean it will be this way forever. It doesn’t mean it will never get better. It doesn’t mean this is the template for the next five years. It does mean that this is a frustrating team to watch play college football in the here and now. It’s hard for those of us on the other side to tell if the program is making progress or not, because the weekly hit parade of unforced errors and mind-melting miscues has a way of crowding out everything else that transpires. The Gamecocks committed a stunning 10 penalties on Saturday night (if they haven’t set a single-season record for double-digit penalty games already this year, then I’m not sure I trust the record books), to go along with four turnovers. I’m don’t know how you overcome a 10-penalty, four-turnover night and still win a football game unless you’re playing the Vanderbilt Commodores.

Vanderbilt’s Offense Being the Only College Football Team in the United States to Not Have a Play of 40 Yards or More This Season…Then Getting Two in a Row in the First Quarter Against South Carolina – The SEC Network announcers felt this was a spectacular achievement. Did I mention Vandy had lost 15 straight SEC games leading into this one, and that they had not beaten South Carolina since 2008, and…yes, I’ve mentioned that. Sorry. While we’re here…

Me for Briefly Feeling Sorry for the Vanderbilt Commodores – I know Vandy isn’t a typical SEC school, and that they don’t have legions of bloodthirsty fans like the rest of our conference brethren do, but still. Somebody somewhere cares about this team. And whoever that person is, my heart goes out to you. My heart bleeds for you. I’m serious. I won’t remember I said this when baseball season gets here.

Me for Just Re-Running this Paragraph From a Few Weeks Ago – After the Troy game, I gave a Deflated Ball to the following: South Carolina’s Inability to Convert Turnovers Into Points – It happened last week, and it happened again this week. Unless the Gamecock defense scores on their own, not much seems to transpire when our opponents turn over the football. No field position is good enough to guarantee a scoring drive for South Carolina. That shoe still fits. After an interception return gave the Gamecock offense the football in the red zone at the Vanderbilt 20, South Carolina promptly started going backwards, then went for it on fourth down in a woefully ill-conceived screen pass play that seemed like it lost 85 yards. A few minutes later, Vanderbilt recovered a fumble at the Gamecock 13-yard line and punched it in for a touchdown in seconds.

Is my head still on my body? Check.

Am I sure I’m still alive? Check? Maybe? I guess?

All of the above.

Check out my weekly newsletter, arriving on Friday to in-boxes everywhere, and tell me whether you survived the Vanderbilt game and let me know anything else on your mind by writing me at scottdavis@gamecockcentral.com.

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