Terrier Wishes & Gamecock Dreams

Another post on the topic of perspective, folks, but this one slightly less serious.

The University of South Carolina Gamecocks played the Wofford Terriers yesterday. As predicted, USC won. But not by much. 27-20, as a matter of fact. Here’s where perspective comes in.

USC is a VERY large public university with an incredibly well funded athletics program, the expenses of which include the multi-million dollar salary of one Steve Spurrier. Wofford is a small, 1,2000 student private school (Husband’s alma mater, by the way) that has a very nice size endowment for a 1AA school, but usually has about 8,000 in attendance at their games compared to USC’s roughly 70,000. You’d have to superglue two of Wofford’s linemen together to get one of USC’s.

This match up was supposed to be a veritable bloodbath at the hands of USC. Husband and I joked as the game began- that Wofford was essentially entering the Coliseum and their players should watch out for those pesky lions. The injury report could read “Smith- decapitation by lion- out for season”. Can’t you just see Spurrier giving the emperor-esque thumbs down? The trainers could attach a laurel wreath to that @#$@#%$#@ stupid ass visor. We figured Spurrier could give some good playing time to the guy who replaces the urinal cakes. You get the idea.

AND USC ONLY WON BY SEVEN POINTS. Wofford was the David and USC was the Goliath. To make matters worse, there was some … um… sketchy officiating, shall we say? Wofford got mistreated by the refs a couple of times which should have only made the routing by USC even worse. But no. USC barely squeaked out the win by subverting a Wofford touchdown in the last moments.

As usual, the local media outlets refused to be bothered by reality. To hear “Gamecock TV” and other local sports reports tell it, the game went something like this:
USC showed up early, studied for a few exams, donated a kidney each, and had a prayer circle. They then proceeded to thwart a terrorist attack, save a litter of homeless puppies, help a few old ladies across the street, cure cancer, and win the game by about 700 points. Steve Spurrier was officially declared the second coming of Christ and the players were awarded Nobel Peace Prizes.

The delusional allegiance to USC football baffles me. They play like second-string high school kids and barely beat a team they should have stomped, but it’s treated like a bowl game win against Ohio State.

On another note, I’ve coined a new football term. You’ve heard of “coughing it up”, right? Here was last night’s conversation:
Husband: Uh-oh… he **coughing noise** coughed it up
Me: Oh, honey… that wasn’t a cough… that wasn’t some mild-mannered dry heave. He vomited that football. That was a SPEW.
Husband: Man, if I was a commentator, I’d totally use that. ‘Lee, he vomited that football like an airsick guy with a hangover at an exorcism!’