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 noticed a strange sensation in my chest while I was running errands with my wife early Saturday afternoon.

Butterflies.

As I stared at a rack of Santa Claus hats and stockings and snow globes at our local Hobby Lobby, I was finally able to wrap my mind around what I’d been feeling all morning: Nerves. Wild anxiety. A sense of excitement and hope and dread, all wrapped tightly in a ball deep in the darkest places of my stomach.

This was not something I’d felt in a long time in relation to South Carolina football.

Yes, I was apparently obsessing about an upcoming game between 5-4 South Carolina and 4-5 Missouri, two of the SEC’s most mediocre teams, a game that I suspect was not ringing alarm bells inside the bodies of anyone in these United States other than committed fans of the two programs. Maybe I was the only person in the world who cared about this game.

But I did care.

In fact, as I stood under the gleaming white lights amidst frenzied holiday shoppers, I realized that I couldn’t remember exactly when I’d last cared this much about an approaching South Carolina football game. Was it the Outback Bowl following the 2017 season? Was it as far back as the Clemson game in 2013, during that last great run of the Spurrier Era?

I wasn’t sure. What I did know was that I really cared, and that this was a good thing.

It had been too long since I had felt this kind of energy on a Saturday morning. My “Give a Damn” Meter apparently still operated. And it meant the Gamecocks actually had something to play for.

I’d spent long stretches of the 2019 and 2020 seasons watching the games with clinical detachment and almost admirable stoicism. I wasn’t quite in “I Wish Those Guys All the Best” Mode…but I was close. Losses stopped stinging. I became numb to routs and embarrassments. This? This was different.

After South Carolina’s unexpected dismantling of Florida the previous Saturday, the Gamecocks stood at 5-4, right on the precipice of bowl eligibility. If you’re an Alabama fan, you expect to be bowl eligible before SEC Media Days have ended, and it’s not an occasion worthy of celebration.

But if you’re a South Carolina fan who has been through everything we’ve all been through for much of the last decade – the unexpected and unceremonious retirement of a legend, the slow but profound descent into the abyss over the ensuing five years, the hiring of an enthusiastic but unproven Shane Beamer as head coach – you knew what this moment could mean.

Bowl eligible, with this team, at this time? In Year One of the Beamer regime, with inexperienced players dotting the roster at significant positions?

A bowl game – after 2-8 in 2020, after a pandemic year, after one of the most uninspiring five-year stretches in program history – would matter. And this game on the road against an underwhelming Missouri offered the best remaining chance for locking it up. The Tigers left on the schedule after Mizzou – Auburn and Clemson – hadn’t always conducted themselves with championship vigor this season, and the Bowl Dream wouldn’t be completely dead if the Gamecocks left Faurot Field without a victory.

Still, I knew what this game meant. This was the place to take a stand. This was the moment. This was the day to get this done. I wanted to sprint out of that strip mall, hop in the car and run 15 straight red lights en route to my house, where kickoff awaited on the SEC Network.

I cared. I really cared.

And though I’m glad I had a reason to do so, you and I both know what the costs of caring can be when a day doesn’t go as we’d hoped.

On the road in the Other Columbia on Saturday afternoon, the Gamecocks often looked like exactly what they are – a team under a first-year coach, with more than a few inexperienced players dotting the roster at key positions.

In a 31-28 loss, South Carolina seemed uncertain of itself, unable to find its footing for significant stretches. To a casual observer like me, they looked flustered, mistake-prone and overpowered by what the moment meant for the program. And while vague feelings like this that belong only to fans – “overpowered by the moment” – may not actually mean anything and probably drive coaches towards insanity, I found the mood hard to shake after Missouri finally sealed its win.

I made it through the rest of the evening without incident, largely impersonating a normal human being for much of the night. My wife and I even enjoyed an episode of “The Great British Baking Show” on Netflix after the game. I hadn’t punched a chair, stormed out of the house to walk alone through the suburban streets, or brooded while staring solemnly into the backyard. Had you watched me conduct myself on a live video feed Saturday night, you’d have thought I was a sane, healthy individual.

But I did notice a pinprick vibrating and pulsing through my body for the rest of the night after the game ended.

I was hurting.

I wanted this one.

Yes, 5-4 South Carolina vs. 4-5 Missouri in the Mediocrity Bowl. I wanted it. I cared. It mattered.

And the hurt we feel after games like this one is all too often the cost of caring.

But I will pay it.

I want to care. That, after all, is why we’re all here.

Let’s be honest, this wasn’t a Game Ball kind of evening. On that note, let’s toss a Ball to…

Emotional Investment – I got a few notes from readers in the days leading up to Saturday afternoon’s game, as well as a few texts from friends and family members, that suggested I wasn’t alone in feeling a yearning desire to win this Missouri game that was in wildly outsized proportion to what the game actually meant to the rest of the world. This was a game slotted for 4 pm on the SEC Network, the place where the TV Boys often store their least riveting matchups of the week. And yet for all the reasons I’ve described above, I awoke on Saturday morning with a similar feeling to the one I had before matchups against Georgia during Spurrier’s run of 11-win seasons. There’s just no other way to say it: For a Gamecock fan staggering and groping forward after the last few years, the idea of seeing South Carolina in a bowl game in 2021 represented unmitigated, untainted, unspoiled joy. It would be a completely good thing, untinged by any darkness. And it may yet still happen, but the road is now harder and longer. Come to think of it, that’s why we need to do this…

Emotional Investment – You think you want to care until you do. And you realize you’re not in control. And you’re just a tiny, solitary shipwrecked person on a life raft, a speck in the middle of an angry sea. On the whole, I’d rather care than not care. No doubt about it. But in the aftermath of a painful loss, it’s sometimes easy to reminisce fondly about games like that pasting a few weeks ago in College Station, which I watched in a pain-free, anesthetized daze, much as someone would watch a nature documentary of lions mauling zebras on an African savanna.

Split Personalities in the Running Game – A week after nearly rushing for 300 yards against Florida, South Carolina could do almost nothing in the running game against a Missouri defense that entered the contest ranked 129th in the country in rushing D. The Gamecocks compiled a puny 57 yards rushing against Mizzou – a staggeringly anemic total that somehow doesn’t do justice to just how powerless the running attack seemed on Saturday afternoon. Even if the numbers were compiled against an apparently apathetic Florida, it’s hard to understand how that performance against the Gators came from the same team that authored the no-show against Missouri just a week later. The inconsistencies with offensive line play and the running game in general seem like the most memorable qualities about this current Gamecock squad…and that’s not a good thing. Speaking of Florida…

Me, For Suggesting Last Week That the Florida Game Might Represent a “Signature Win” for New Head Coach Beamer – What a difference a few days make. Florida’s program responded to the South Carolina loss by immediately firing a few coaches. Then the Gators surrendered an astonishing 52 points against an FCS team and played from behind for much of a game against mighty Samford on Saturday. Meanwhile in Missouri, South Carolina’s offense bore a frighteningly uncanny resemblance to the unit that had appeared in just about every other football game this season other than the one against UF. I think we’ve answered the “Signature Win” Question in the negative (and have done so emphatically). Keep the Signature Searchlight burning.

Arm-Tackling Follies – It was apparent early that South Carolina could do little to stop Missouri’s rushing attack (Tiger back Tyler Badie rolled up a gruesome 209 yards rushing), but the Gamecock defense didn’t help itself by repeatedly attempting to use arms, hands and fingers (and even fingernails) to bring down the Tigers. This was the opposite of a Tackling Clinic. Time and again the Tigers bounced off stiff-arms and grasping fingers, churning out gains on plays that should have been stopped for little or no positive yardage. Few experiences are more frustrating for a football fan than watching a defense arm-tackle its way through four quarters.

Boos Turning Into Cheers – With a little more than nine minutes to go in the first quarter, I heard the first boos from the Missouri crowd. It’s hard to remember this now, but Tiger fans were ready to turn on their underperforming team, and in the first few minutes of this game, it looked like they’d have every opportunity to do so. After the Gamecocks took a 7-0 lead, Missouri’s offense sputtered, prompting a scattering of boos from the home faithful (more than a scattering, actually). South Carolina immediately drove near the red zone and looked poised to score and possibly even sprint off into the distance to bowl eligibility. You know what happened next. Quarterback Jason Brown and running back MarShawn Lloyd couldn’t connect on a handoff, Missouri recovered the ball (and the Gamecock offense never recovered its footing). Within minutes, Missouri’s crowd was roaring like the booing episode never happened.

When it was all over, I almost felt like booing myself for caring so much.

But I didn’t.

I’m here to care. You are, too.

And now we have two games left to care about. We may wish that we could watch them without feeling anything.

But we won’t.

We care. We always have.

Check out my weekly newsletter, arriving on Friday to in-boxes everywhere, and tell me how you handled the loss to Missouri and what the reading is on your “Give a Damn” Meter by writing me at scottdavis@gamecockcentral.com.

Gamecock Central is introducing a free text alert service later this year.

Text USC to 877-462-6257 to sign up.

By texting this number, you agree to receive promotional messages sent via an autodialer, and this agreement isn’t a condition of any purchase. I also agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You'll receive approx. four messages/month. Message & Data rates may apply. To unsubscribe, text STOP to 8774626257.