Scott Davis: Trying to move mountains
Scott has followed South Carolina athletics for over 40 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective. He writes a weekly newsletter (sign up here) year-round and a column during football season that’s published each Monday on GamecockCentral.
Saturday morning, it all made sense.
I awoke on Saturday within the borders of the state of North Carolina. I was, officially, in enemy territory.
But I wasn’t there to attend the South Carolina-North Carolina football game in Charlotte. I was in the mountains of Sapphire Valley, staying at a cabin near Highlands and Cashiers with my parents, my wife and my sister’s family. It’s a trip we started several years ago around the Labor Day weekend, and it’s now become as much of an annual tradition as eating turkey for Thanksgiving: We go on a trip somewhere beautiful as football season dawns and we watch the first South Carolina football together.
And as I started out on my morning walk amidst the splendor of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the hills stretching endlessly on either side of me, I knew I was in the right place.
Sure, I felt a twinge of sadness about missing it all – missing out on being with my fans, my people, missing out on being part of that garnet mob that thronged ESPN’s College GameDay set in front of Bank of America Stadium. This was a game I’d waited for since the clock melted to zero in Clemson back in November of last year.
This was a game you’d waited for, too.
We waited through a hopeful but ultimately saddening Gator Bowl on New Year’s, through another gray winter, through the fool’s gold rush of spring ball, and on into summer’s relentless, punishing heat. And at last, we were here – gasping, barely moving, but still alive and climbing out of the waves to stumble upon the shores of another college football season.
What better place to watch the Gamecock football program officially arrive in Year Three under Shane Beamer than right here inside these eternal hills?
About halfway through my morning walk, I noticed a sign peeking out from the woods beside me. “Old Bald Rock Trail,” it read, hovering above a skinny track that rose into the forest and was quickly swallowed by the trees. I can’t resist a trail. So I breathed deeply, turned onto it, stepped into the woods, and walked.
Within minutes, I was climbing.
It wasn’t long before I could no longer see the road behind me. Or much of anything else except for trees and rock. There were trees forever, trees with a whiff of the ancient world about them, and unyielding rock beneath my feet, rock rising up and up and up.
The trail seemed like it kept getting smaller the further I climbed.
At one point, I turned a corner after what seemed like 20 straight minutes of pure ascent and looked directly into a pathway that rose straight into the air like a Manhattan skyscraper. “Turn back,” I whispered to myself. I didn’t know where the trail was going. There were no signs telling me how much farther I had to go. There were only trees and rock and a trail. Shouldn’t I turn back?
I walked. Up and up and up.
I wanted to sit, I wanted to lie beneath a rhododendron bush, I wanted to kneel and cry. I wanted to do anything except walk.
I walked.
After a while, my shins felt like they were in splinters, and I was no longer entirely sure I still had ankles. At one point, I stepped face-first into a vast spider web and suddenly yelled out loud to no one, “Come on, give me a chance out here!”
Who was I arguing with? God? Myself? I walked on.
Eventually, I stopped thinking at all. My body was simply moving forward. And then I turned a corner and saw it.
The mountains.
A clear view of a rolling range of mountains, unimaginably grand, hazy blue, pouring out into the far world beneath my feet. I was at the top of the hill, and this was the view I received in return. This was my reward.
I felt giddy, almost drunk, skipping back down the hill in the direction of the cabin. How long had I been walking? Two hours? Two weeks? It was a happy blur.
Then I did something I’ve only done a few other times in the years that I’ve written for Gamecock Central, something anyone with even five minutes’ worth of experience as a writer knows they should never do: I started writing this column in my head, almost 12 hours before the game kicked off.
What a glorious metaphor for triumph this will be, I thought. Perseverance! Keep climbing! Never stop until you reach the top!
It would be perfect. I’d come home, relax in the mountains with the family, cue up the game, then spread the “Just Keep Climbing!” gospel after Beamer and the Boys dispatched North Carolina in Charlotte to let the world know we were gunning for the mountaintop and the summit in this sport. This was going to be the football weekend you waited an entire life for.
Shall I even continue, friends?
After a glorious day roaming the hills amidst crisp, fall-like temperatures (the very first person I saw upon getting out of my car at the Cashiers Farmers Market was wearing a Gamecock jersey), my family and I sat down on Saturday night in front of a big-screen television. Laid out before us was a feast of burgers, fries, slaw, chips, dips, and every imaginable snack.
And then we turned on the TV and starved.
Forget about climbing mountains. I’m sure for those who are trying to transform this program into something else, something new, something it has never been, it often feels like they’re trying to move mountains.
And as for you and me, in the wake of Tar Heels 31-Gamecocks 17, we find ourselves muttering the same half-crazed cliches we often find ourselves muttering (“When you can’t stop the run or run the football, you’re not going to win many games!”). It feels like we’ve been here before. It feels like we’ve always been here. It feels like we always will be here.
Another season has begun and it seems like we’ve come so far, and yet we look in front of us and it feels like we’re not climbing this trail at all. It seems like it stretches on into the sky, into infinity. There is no sign telling us how much further there is to go. We aren’t entirely sure we even know what’s at the top, or if there even is a top.
The mountain is before us, still unclimbed and most certainly still unmoved.
We want to sit, we want to kneel, we want to cry.
So now…what are we going to do next?
We’re going to do what we always do.
We’re going to keep walking.
The “Cocks, Cocks, Cocks…All I Saw Was Cocks” Game Balls of the Week
If this is your first time reading this column, I should probably tell you that we always close the show by handing out Game Balls to worthy winners (as well as a handful of Deflated Balls to an unlucky few). Occasionally, there are more Deflated Balls than Game Balls – look, it is what it is. Why delay the inevitable? Game Balls to…
South Carolina Football Fans…Again – It just doesn’t take much to get us fired up beyond all recognition, does it? After beating Tennessee and Clemson to end the 2022 season, Gamecock fans occupied Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl like an invading Viking army. Even the loss in that game didn’t dull the fever, which only intensified during a long offseason. By the time the Duke’s Mayo Classic arrived on Saturday, South Carolina fans had descended on Charlotte in such confounding numbers that they inspired the extremely caffeinated GameDay analyst Pat McAfee to note that while walking the Queen City’s streets, he found nothing but “Cocks, Cocks, Cocks…all I saw was Cocks!” (McAfee said this while wearing a shirt unbuttoned to his belt buckle, which was extremely large, extremely round and extremely shiny. Just thought it should be mentioned). This outpouring came after a two-game winning streak, folks. It’s hard to imagine what this fan base would do if the program ever attained Alabama or Georgia levels of winning. Maybe it’s best we never find out.
Darius Rucker – The GameDay guest picker, Gamecock superfan, and country music superstar picked South Carolina “by 90.” Does anyone not love Darius Rucker?
Frustrated Fan Cliches – They’re going to have an absolute Renaissance in the Palmetto State this week. We’ve already touched on “If you can’t stop the run…,” but get ready to hear all the classic nuggets of Frustrated Fan Wisdom that you’ve enjoyed since childhood! Can I interest you in “The reason we don’t win consistently is because we don’t control either line of scrimmage, and we haven’t since the 1980s”? I’m sure I can. I’m sure you’ve already said it! So have I!
Spencer Rattler – At times on Saturday night, it felt like Rattler would have received as much protection against North Carolina’s pass rush if you’d tossed a collection of throw pillows in front of him instead of the actual human bodies who were there to keep him upright. Still, he managed to piece together a 30-for-39, 359-yard night that kept the Gamecocks alive for much of four quarters.
Xavier Legette – Many program-watchers tabbed Leggette as a player to keep an eye on this year, and Saturday night, he officially had his coming-out party. The receiver pulled down nine catches for 178 yards and was largely the only difference-maker on offense for South Carolina.
Deflated Balls: South Carolina-North Carolina
Here We Go Again… – It’s no secret that inconsistent offensive line play has tormented Gamecock fans (and coaches and administrators and everyone) for decades. In the last ten years or so, the torment has been especially cruel because it’s usually arrived after members of the media and even some members of the coaching staff have touted the O-line as “the strength of the team” coming into the season. Then the season would arrive and the O-line’s struggles would swallow up the narrative surrounding the entire program.
That wasn’t the case this year. The coaches mixed and matched several starting options along the line throughout preseason practice, and while there was some cautious optimism that the unit might be able to blend together and eventually build into a solid bunch, no one was hailing them as a strength of the team.
What you hoped coming into Saturday night was merely that a worst-case scenario would not emerge.
It did. The Gamecocks allowed an astonishing, breathtaking nine sacks and rushed for negative-2 yards. It’s unclear what the pathway forward is now, at least in the early hours after the North Carolina game. All I know is that “if you can’t run the football and you can’t…” I can’t even finish.
Red Zone Blues – South Carolina probably wasn’t going to mount a fourth-quarter comeback in this game, but after the defense finally stiffened and collected a few turnovers late in the contest, the Gamecock offense stalled in the red zone to officially seal the deal. Which leads us to…
More Missed Opportunities – The Gamecocks electrified the stadium with an onside kick recovery to start the second half, then followed it up by failing to secure a single first down on offense to give the ball right back to the Heels (who scored soon after).
Writing a Column In Your Head Hours Before a Football Game Has Even Kicked Off – I don’t recommend doing it.
Meanwhile, if you’re tired and ready to stop moving your feet, I know exactly how you feel.
I know. I’m tired, too.
That’s why I’m saying this directly to you. I’m saying this to you because I know how you feel. I feel how you feel.
Listen to me. Listen to somebody who feels like you do.
We are going to keep walking.
We are going to keep walking even though we don’t know where we’re going. We’re going to keep walking even if walking is all we ever do, even if there’s no summit to reach.
The mountain is eternal. It is unclimbed. It is unmoved. It always is.
We are walking anyway.
We are walking because that is what we do.
Tell me how you’re feeling about the rest of the season by writing me at [email protected].
