Hit the Piggies while they are down!

I give credit to Arkansas where it is due:  they have owned us.  Whatever the spin, whatever the excuse,  they have been better over the years.  That’s why I don’t care what anyone says about them being down this year:  for once we are clearly the better team and we need to show it this weekend.  Closing out the SEC season at 6-2 for the second straight season isn’t perfect, but it would certainly be our best 2-year stretch in the conference so we’re making progress.  It wasn’t that long ago that we were more than happy with 4-4.  

 

To isolate this in terms even Georgia fans could understand, here are the numbers on Spurrier’s  eight seasons at Carolina compared to before.  In the 13 seasons we suffered through before Spurrier’s arrival, we had a grand total of 37 wins, 0 seasons of more than 5 wins and 0 titles of any kind.  Spurrier has 30 wins already, and two straight seasons of six wins and an SEC east championship.  

Who cares how that compares to how other schools did in the 70s, 80s or 90s?  The bottom line is that we’re trending up in the conference and we’re in great shape.   Yes, our expectations are higher as a result and they should be.  It’s good that we’ve left “winning season” and “bowl eligible” in the ash heap of former goals.  But don’t pretend that we shouldn’t enjoy where we are compared to where we were during the ride. 

If you had told us all in 2004 that we were just a few years away from winning the Citrus Bowl, consecutive 6-win SEC seasons and winning streaks against Clemson and Georgia I think most folks would have laughed at how silly that sounded.  So yeah I wanted more this season but if we finish strong this year we’ll be right back in everyone’s faces again in 2013.  

I remember the 1998 and 1999 seasons.  Honestly, if it weren’t for the Taneyhill run to our first bowl win I would have long since burned any memory of the 1990s period!  The 2000s started promising and then crashed with the brawl in 2004.  Then Spurrier started the slow but steady building process and the results speak for themselves.  

Who knows what will happen after the Spurrier era ends?  We’ll cross that bridge when we get there but in the meantime it’s a pretty good feeling to know that whoever replaces him is walking into a great situation.  One that is FINALLY free of all the old baggage. 

What a great time to be a Gamecock!