Scott Davis: Dancing in the moonlight
Scott Davis has followed the South Carolina football program for more than 40 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective each Monday during the season. Scott also writes a weekly newsletter that’s emailed each Friday; sign up here to receive it.
In the crisp fall air in Lexington, a near-full moon hung above a sold-out Kroger Field, home of the Kentucky Wildcats.
Autumn. Full moon. Cool temperatures. Sellout stadiums. The SEC. Yes, yes, yes.
Glancing at the scene, I had to physically stop myself from saying, out loud, in my den, to myself: “My goodness, this is what it’s all about!”
I did stop myself, perhaps ensuring that I’ll remain married for another week or two. But there could be no doubt: This was what we wait all year for. Could our boys in garnet and black rise to meet such a moment?
A full moon in the season of spooks and spirits left the impression that mysterious energies were floating in the night. I was prepared for anything. And the words of that old bluegrass standard kept pattering in my head.
Blue moon of Kentucky, keep on shining.
It did keep shining, from the first quarter all the way to triple zeros, but it did not shine its autumn light on the Big Blue faithful of Kentucky. When it was all over, most of them had long fled for the exits, having had their fill of the upstart South Carolina Gamecocks dancing their way to a surprising road win against a top-15 SEC team that has had their number in recent years.
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And what had those Kentucky fans seen on this delightfully weird evening?
They saw Gamecock defenders dancing into the Kentucky backfield all night, where they sacked beleaguered freshman quarterback Kaiya Sheron six times. And in the second half, they saw the Gamecock offense finally put their dancing shoes on, too, enough to keep the chains moving and the scoreboard ticking in the opposite direction of their hometown Wildcats.
Halfway through the fourth quarter, many of those fans had begun to shimmy and shuffle, as well…straight in the direction of the parking lot.
Meanwhile, the Gamecocks and their youthful, grinning head coach reconvened the dance party inside the visitor’s locker room after putting the finishing touches on a 24-14 victory.
“At SEC Media Days, he talked about stupid sunglasses, and dancing,” an exuberant Shane Beamer said to his players, before donning a pair of admittedly goofy-looking sunglasses, then dancing with awe-inspiring vigor as the rest of the team joined in.
“He,” of course, was a clear reference to Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops, who, for reasons that continue to remain unclear, decided to take an unprovoked potshot at not only Beamer, but the trajectory of the South Carolina football program itself during a radio interview over the summer.
“It’s easy to change a climate,” said Stoops, whose overall record in the SEC in his 10th season as Kentucky head coach is now 30-47. “You just change a uniform, talk a little game, dance around, put on some stupid sunglasses, and you can change a climate. But to change a culture is at the core.”
Saturday night, it was Stoops’ own program that received a culture shock, courtesy of a South Carolina team that has now put itself in a strong position for a second straight bowl game appearance under Shane Beamer.
And unfortunately for Stoops and those who root for his football team, Beamer seems to have done a memorable job himself of changing his program’s culture at the core.
Here’s what Gamecock quarterback Spencer Rattler had to say after the game about his head coach. “We believe in everything he’s saying and doing,” Rattler said. “If he’s serious about something, we’re serious about it. He emphasized this game this week and we came here expecting to win this game. Not just hoping to win but expecting to win.” (Read the quarterback’s full comments here: “It’s a great night for all Gamecocks”.)
We came here expecting to win this game.
That’s what I’ll remember more than anything from this game, those words.
We came here expecting to win this game.
I’ll remember it more than the sacks, more than the big plays, more than even the dancing, which I enjoyed about as much as I have enjoyed anything related to Gamecock football in the last five years.
These Gamecocks – losers of seven of eight games to the Kentucky Wildcats, depleted by injuries, winless thus far in the SEC, facing a Top 15 nemesis on the road – came here expecting to win this game.
And they did.
That feels like a culture change to me.
All the way down to the core.
Dance on, boys.
A winning season, a bowl game, maybe even more, is all still available to you.
Dance on.
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The “Stupid Sunglasses and Dancing” Game Balls of the Week
Y’all know the rules around here. Once you’ve had the weekly Game Balls named after you, they’ll stay in your name as long you continue to deliver special performances. And for several weeks, the Balls have been christened in the honor of Gamecock running back MarShawn Lloyd, who has been the best player in a South Carolina uniform through the first half of the season.
Lloyd did absolutely nothing to lose this esteemed honor on Saturday night – in fact, he had another sterling effort to help kickstart the Gamecock offense in the second half. Unfortunately, his own head coach managed to come up with an extraordinary locker room performance for the ages that must be commemorated for posterity. Still, let’s start things off by tossing a Ball to…
MarShawn Lloyd – He just keeps doing what he does. Against Kentucky, Lloyd ran the ball 22 times for 110 yards and, for good measure, hauled in a couple of receptions for 31 yards. Almost any other time, an effort like that would ensure you’d be reading the MarShawn Lloyd Game Balls of the Week right now. It’s not that Lloyd gave up the Balls, but that someone else reached out and snatched them.
SACKS! – If it feels like you’ve been watching Gamecock quarterbacks getting chased around the backfield and crunched into the turf for the last 25 seasons or so (and it certainly does), then you had to enjoy seeing someone else’s quarterback getting harassed, hurried and hammered throughout Saturday evening. Kentucky redshirt freshman Kaiya Sheron was pummeled into the Kroger Field soil on an astonishing six occasions by Gamecock defenders. Sheron was filling in for UK’s lethal and experienced starter Will Levis, and there can be no doubt that Levis’ absence left the Wildcats in disarray offensively. Still, why couldn’t Kentucky get its running game going? It must mean we need to hurl a Ball in the direction of…
Stopping the Run – Throughout much of the first half, SEC Network announcers Tom Hart and Jordan Rodgers kept talking – and talking, and talking – about how Stoops had done so much to change that @#$%ing culture by building strong, muscular, manly men lines of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. The Wildcats had become contenders in the SEC East by getting tougher in the trenches, Hart and Rodgers told us (again and again). And yet by game’s end, Kentucky’s rushing attack had done little to help Sheron’s cause, amassing just 121 total yards on the ground.
Spencer Rattler’s Second Half – We won’t be sending shockwaves through Gamecock Nation by acknowledging that Rattler’s play has been inconsistent through the first six games. Indeed, the quarterback’s first half against the Wildcats was not one he is likely to savor, as he committed two turnovers and oversaw an offensive attack that mustered just 90 total yards in the first 30 minutes. But the second half gave us glimpses of what can happen when Rattler gets into a rhythm. If South Carolina can get its passing game going at all, this team has a chance to notch another surprising win or two the rest of the way.
Stupid Sunglasses and Dancing – Here’s what I wrote in my weekly newsletter for Gamecock Central back in August, when the Great Sunglasses Controversy first began to make the rounds of social media and the SEC Internet. “As for me, I love this stuff,” I wrote at the time, regarding Stoops’ bizarre comments. “Feuds are good. If teams and coaches are taking shots at you (then denying they did so), then that means they’re worried about you. You don’t take shots at teams you don’t care about.”
Despite having won seven of eight games against the Gamecocks (including against Shane Beamer’s first edition of the team in 2021), Stoops had apparently seen just enough things happening in Columbia – just enough positive storylines, just enough smiling, just enough feel-good vibes – to get that tingly feeling of dissatisfaction rising up through his chest over the summer. He probably made those radio comments before he even realized he was saying them, or who he was specifically referring to. But something about South Carolina’s upbeat offseason had rankled him long enough, and the words suddenly started spilling out, and then we had a good old-fashioned feud brewing.
Good.
Here’s what else is good: Shane Beamer will now be a hated and despised figure throughout the Bluegrass State. Kentucky fans will now pine for the next year to race by so that they’ll have another opportunity to take a crack at the Gamecocks and their coach again. Good, good and good. They felt the same way about Steve Spurrier. College football is a zero-sum game – if someone’s deeply unhappy, then somebody else is ecstatic. Keep dancing, coach.
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Deflated Balls, South Carolina-Kentucky
I’d love to spread unlimited high-fives around when my team wins a game on the road against a Top 15 SEC opponent. But honesty compels me to hurl a few Deflated Balls in the direction of…
Turning the Ball Right Back Over After You Just Blocked a Punt – This was the very definition of a momentum killer. South Carolina – leading 7-0 after recovering a fumble on the game’s first play from scrimmage and then turning it into a score – unleashed a healthy dose of Beamer Ball by blocking a Kentucky punt and putting its offense back in the red zone with a chance to go up by two touchdowns. Instead, the Gamecock offense sputtered almost immediately, culminating in a Rattler fumble that brought the dormant Lexington crowd to life and looked like the kind of gruesome turn of events that would normally doom an underdog on the road. Speaking of that Lexington crowd, we can’t forget to hand a Deflator to…
The Kentucky Crowd (!!!!) – With nearly seven minutes left in a game that was still very much in doubt, my wife glanced at the rows of empty seats at Kroger Field and looked at me with a confused glare. “Where did all their fans go?” she asked. I didn’t have an answer. The Wildcat fans sold out the stadium to welcome home their 13th-ranked team (a team that, quite frankly, looked like the better squad in a grueling road loss last week against 9th-ranked Ole Miss). And they had the place rocking and rolling early in the night to create an intimidating, SEC-worthy environment. But as South Carolina began to extend its lead, those stands began emptying at an alarming pace.
Look, I get it. Gamecock fans fled Williams-Brice Stadium like it was on fire a few weeks ago when Georgia spanked them. When you pour your hopes into a team and then get those hopes doused – especially in a game in which you’re expected to win, as Kentucky fans did Saturday – the parking lot starts looking like a good place to be.
But the Wildcats still had a pulse in the fourth quarter of this game, even as Kroger Field was being emptied of all but the South Carolina fans who’d made the trip up. I have a healthy respect for Kentucky’s fans (particularly the way they take over the basketball arenas of every single SEC opponent they face on the road, including South Carolina’s), but this wasn’t Big Blue’s finest hour.
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Hart and Rodgers Spending the Last Half of the Fourth Quarter Discussing Penalties They Believed South Carolina Should Have Been Called For Rather Than What This Win Might Mean for the South Carolina Program – As the Gamecocks stretched their lead to 17 with a Jalen Brooks touchdown, the SEC Network’s Hart, Rodgers and sideline reporter Cole Cubelic commemorated the brewing upset by spending an interminable stretch deciding whether the Gamecocks should have been flagged for one of the blocks during Brooks’ run. After reviewing the replay again and again, Cubelic finally admitted it was a borderline play that could have gone either way…which would seem to negate the need to discuss it for minutes while an underdog team was upsetting a Top 15 opponent on the road at night. My wife finally reached her breaking point with Hart, and noted of his brown-checkered jacket and brown tie, “What is he trying to do, be Thanksgiving?” I think we all felt that way.
In the end, the moon shone its warm light down on a Gamecock team that now has four wins at the halfway point and has set itself up to make a run for another bowl berth under their smiling young coach.
Sounds like a culture change to me.
And that’s music I can dance to.
Tell me what you thought about the Gamecocks’ upset over Kentucky by writing me at [email protected].
