Damage Control
As previously mentioned, I ‘avoided’ the Blacksburg Beatdown by escaping to my bed after an errant throw gave the hokies the ball on the Tigers 35. I had a restless night of sleep with all sorts of scores running through my head ranging from a miraculous Wake Forest-esque comeback 3 point win to utter blowouts worse than the actual results. I awoke the next morning to the loss and was unusually calm. In fact I came into work and spoke to gamecock and Tiger fans alike with the now worn out excuses of the turnaround from GT, the lack of preparation and the buying into their own hype. Usually I am a raging inferno similar to that of Broken Gnomes entry a few below this one, but this time I somehow had accepted this loss before it even happened.
The Tigers have been on a great run, even Gamecock fans (the logical ones that I know) are rooting for the Tigers this season to get the state of SC on the map again. A single point was the divider between undefeated and a 1 loss team so far this season. The Tigers were on a 6 game winning streak and had just made the top ten for the first time in 6 years. The Tiger nation was in an uproar after a routing of #13 Georgia Tech and were looking forward to trouncing another Tech within 5 days to coast their way into a possible ACCCG showing. Unfortunately reality bit the Tigers in the butt and Virginia Tech came out prepared and showed the nation why they continue to be one of the hardnosed football programs in the ACC. I am not sure how they lost to Georgia Tech or BC but they decided to turn the game on Clemson at the right time in the season. And through it all I had a sensation that unranked VT would be the turning point but couldn’t figure out why that game had my gut wrenching more than the previously ranked Jackets. That was until I looked back in the season.
You see, earlier in the year whilst everyone was foaming at the mouth over the upcoming season with Anthony Waters, Tremaine Billie, Gaines Adams, James Davis and the supposed perfect fit QB Will Proctor coming into the game I had made some predictions on the season. I remembered this entry after the Tigers loss to Virginia Tech and thought I would look it up to see how the Tigers season is matching up and amazingly, we are right in line with what I expected. Check is out HERE. A loss to Virginia Tech was in the cards as I saw it and a 10-2 record is what I called way back when. So while I was sitting around wondering why I was so unusually calm with the loss to Virginia Tech, I guess in the back of my mind I had already accepted it at the beginning of the season.
So the Tigers are 7-2 with 3 home games left against a shaky Maryland and NC State team as well as Spurriers first visit to Death Valley. The Tigers are coming home folks for the ride to the bowls and the potential to go 10-2 and with a bowl win 11-2. Now is that so bad?! Yeah they looked like they would roll the rest of the season but maybe that VT loss is just what they needed to get into high gear. And now all the young guys on the team have that acrid taste of ”what could have been” to remember for the rest of their career. And as noted as response to my last post, the ACCCG could….could still happen, just hope Wake comes through. This VT loss may have a silver lining folks, let’s just make sure that we give the homefield advantage as much as we can these next few weeks and hope the Tigers get to 10-2.
Turtle Soup on Saturday!!!
I figured at the beginning of the season that we would realistically split the BC/FSU games and the GT/VATECH games. Hopefully we’ll rebound from this and finish out strong.