Scott Davis: Hold the Heartbreak

You are not alone! Like you, Scott Davis is passionate about the Gamecocks and not afraid to admit it. Join him on this wild ride called the 2018 Gamecock Football season by signing up for his new weekly email newsletter.

Scott has followed Gamecock sports for more than 30 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective. His columns appear on Gamecock Central each week during football season and other times throughout the year.

After the South Carolina football team allowed Florida to run 21 unanswered points onto the scoreboard to squander a 17-point lead in The Swamp on Saturday, I stood up from my den chair and walked upstairs, where I did something unexpected.

I calmly flossed my teeth.

Then I brushed them, then gargled with mouthwash. And then I sat back in my den chair and quietly read a book.

What I didn’t do was fire the remote control across the room. Or walk outside to the patio to scream into the void for a couple of hours. Or tear off my Gamecock T-shirt and light it on fire over the stovetop.

In fact, I didn’t even say a single word. I just stoically absorbed the stomach punch and moved on to the rest of my afternoon.

Wait…what?

In years past, losses like this one would have hurled me into an immediate vortex of rage, followed by a period of ugly, biting sarcasm, followed by outright grief that would have lingered well into the following week. My wife would have sprinted out of the house to go shopping and would have stayed gone until Tuesday. My dog would have hid under the guest room bed. Even my neighbors would’ve looked for ways to escape the looming trauma.

All of that should have happened because losses like this one are supposed to be devastating. Put simply, the South Carolina Gamecocks almost never beat ranked SEC rivals on the road in football, and they almost never win in Gainesville, Florida, either.

They had a spectacular opportunity to do both on Saturday and couldn’t find a way to close the door despite the benefit of a three-score lead near the end of the third quarter. And despite facing a Florida offense that has been almost enjoyably inept for much of the 2018 season. And despite playing in front a dazed group of Gators faithful who were genuinely looking for reasons to boo their own team.

A loss like that should have sent me reeling and left me lying on the side of the road like an animal carcass in the sun.

It should have foreclosed on my soul.

It should have forced me on my knees.

But it didn’t.

Do you want to know why it didn’t?

Because I actually watched the football game from beginning to end.

And I saw South Carolina’s defense give up more than 530 yards of total offense to a Feleipe Franks-led unit that had scared exactly zero opponents this season. I saw missed tackle after missed tackle after missed tackle. I saw Gator running backs bouncing outside and punishing USC linebackers and safeties again and again to the staggering tune of 370 yards rushing.

And after watching that happen for three hours or so on a Saturday afternoon, I came to the fairly logical conclusion that the South Carolina Gamecocks deserved to get beat in Gainesville.

So they did.

Heartbreak?

Hell nah, man.

There was nothing heartbreaking about it.

Deebo Samuel – Deebo’s had an undeniably quiet 2018, at least by Deebo standards, but he looked like DEEBO M__________ING SAMUEL out there on Saturday, catching four passes for 120 passes, including one that went almost the length of the football field. If that wasn’t enough, he sprinted downfield on special teams and fell on top of a Florida fumble after the Gamecocks had punted, bringing Jake Bentley and company back on the field for a drive that ended up putting points on the board.

Hey, Is That a Tight End Catching a Football???? – Gamecock fans have been asking their offensive coaches to “get the tight ends more involved” since somewhere around the Age of Enlightenment, so they had to be pleased to see little-used players like Jacob August and Kyle Markway catch USC’s first two touchdown passes. Even K.C. Crosby chipped in with a critical catch. Who knows, maybe we’ll actually see those guys get a chance to contribute again before the season ends.

Feleipe Franks Shushing His Own Fans After He Ran for a Touchdown – After Florida fans relentlessly booed their own offense for much of the first half, then tried to backtrack and cheer them after the Gators began moving the ball, UF’s quarterback Feleipe Franks literally told his own boosters to talk to the hand by throwing up an index finger in the universal “shhhhhh” symbol after scoring. For some reason, I enjoyed this immensely.

ESPN Announcer Greg McElroy Repeatedly Hollering “That is NOT Targeting!!!” After Referees Inexplicably Tried to Flag Gamecock Safety RJ Roderick for Targeting – If you’ve ever read my column, you know that targeting calls often leave me howling at the moon and contemplating burning down and pillaging entire neighborhoods. There’s no rhyme or reason to how they get called at this point – sometimes it seems to depend on whether or not the referee enjoyed his breakfast before arriving at the stadium.

In this instance, a scampering Franks lowered his helmet in an attempt to drive Roderick backwards (with the Gamecock safety leading with his shoulder). After an absurdly long pause, a nearby referee suddenly dropped his yellow flag on the ground and looked around at his colleagues in the hopes that they’d back him up.

Considering that targeting results in the flagged player’s ejection, and considering that the already undermanned Gamecock secondary would have needed to pull in fans out of the stadium to play defense had Roderick left the game, you’d hope there would be a little more consideration before a flag came out. Fortunately, McElroy kept shouting – and shouting – that the play wasn’t actually targeting, and finally the crew agreed with him and wiped away the penalty.

TJ Brunson Attempting to Single-Handedly Will the Gamecock Defense to Success – Sixteen tackles, two sacks and a forced fumble. He tried.

Me, for Finally Solving the Age-old Dilemma: Is it Worse to Follow a Team That Has a Bad Defense or One That Has a Bad Offense? – I actually used to think this was a real debate. After all, I endured a whole lot of ugly Lou Holtz offenses back in the early 2000’s. But after watching the Gamecocks play about as well as they’re capable of playing offensively and still lose on Saturday, I’m officially ready to declare this debate dead once and for all. There is, in fact, no greater despair than that felt by the football fan who follows a team with a bad defense.

How does Webster’s Dictionary define “helplessness”? When you’re watching your team and you know – know, without a single shadow of a doubt – that they cannot stop an opposing offense under any circumstances. That’s the way I felt on Saturday, and it’s the way you felt, and the way the Gamecock coaches felt. There was no scenario in the final 20 minutes that was going to include South Carolina stopping Florida’s offense.

After our game ended, I watched Oklahoma State do what it always does when it plays archrival Oklahoma – score a ton of points and lose anyway. The Cowboys lost 48-47 to the Sooners and gave up more than 700 yards of offense, this after they lost to their in-state enemies by the ridiculous score of 62-52 last year. I can’t imagine what that pain feels like.

Bad defenses are, firmly and unequivocally, more frustrating than bad offenses. I can’t believe I ever questioned this.

Me for Forgetting How Much I Don’t Enjoy Florida Head Coach Dan Mullen – Mullen’s like one of those loathsome “Game of Thrones” villains – there’s just something smug and self-satisfied about him that makes you want to drop him into a pit filled with rabid wolves. I mean, not really, but you know what I’m saying. He gyrated and gesticulated all over the sidelines Saturday as a follow-up act to the bizarre press conference he gave after UF’s loss to Mizzou last week (A sample statement to a reporter: “If you want to go run stadium steps right now, I’ll kick your a$$ in running stadium steps, OK?!”) I’d forgotten how not fun it is to lose to him.

The “South Carolina Just Can’t Win Big Games/Beat Favored Opponents/Win on the Road” Thing Becoming a Universal Truth Along the Lines of the Ten Commandments – As a famous Gator once said, it is what it is.

Florida Converting the Luckiest Play in Southeastern Conference Football History to Keep a Touchdown-Scoring Drive Alive – With absolutely nothing going right for the Gators in the third quarter, the Florida center sailed a snap over the head of Feleipe Franks. Right about the time I leaped out of my chair in excitement, the ball bounced directly back into Franks’ hands as though it were a basketball.

A panicked Franks then hurled the ball behind his intended receiver…who batted it into the air, where it fell into the arms of a nearby Gator for one of the most ludicrous first downs I’ve experienced in decades of watching football. Yes, I absolutely did think “That’s the kind of play that ignites a comeback right there.” Which is, you know, exactly what happened.

South Carolina Somehow Being Under the Impression that It Made Sense to Run the Ball on Offense Over and Over Again While Clinging to a Three-point Lead in the 4th Quarter – Especially considering that the Gamecock defense was committed to arm-tackling and running away from Florida ball carriers throughout much of the second half. Look, injuries have decimated the Carolina defensive unit and no one can deny it. I’d become so numb to injury stories in 2018 that I actually started nodding when I read that linebacker Bryson Allen-Williams was likely done for the season and wouldn’t play in Gainesville.

I give the Gamecock coaching staff credit for trying to hold this defense together with duct tape and Super Glue for weeks at a time. Still, why would anyone have been relying on that unit to make a critical stop at any point on Saturday? South Carolina needs to score on offense almost every time it has the ball to have a chance to win this year. Period.

After the Gamecocks spent most of the game building what appeared to be an insurmountable lead, they surrendered it in a matter of minutes, and in doing so, surrendered any hope of appearing in a New Year’s Day bowl game. But there are still some milestones to play for this year.

So if you’re thinking about feeling heartbroken, don’t do it. At least not now.

There’s still plenty of time left for that.

- Five Takeaways: Gamecocks choke away win in Gainesville

- Grading the Gamecocks: Florida

- Muschamp talks controversial non-fumble in second half

- Gamecocks without big defender the rest of the regular season

- Muschamp addresses fourth-quarter play calling

Scott records a podcast each week. To make sure you never miss one, get the Gamecock Central Radio app in the App Store and Google Play, subscribe (for free) on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio and YouTube, search for Gamecock Central Radio on popular podcast services, or use our RSS feed.