Gameday At The Liberty Bowl
GAMECOCKS LOOK TO CONTAIN KEVIN KOLB - WHO APPARENTLY DOESN’T THROW INTERCEPTIONS
FITSNews - December 29, 2006 - First of all, there are easily 13,000 Gamecock fans in Memphis for today’s Liberty Bowl, another impressive showing for South Carolina’s football program.
Then again, there are also tons of Houston fans here to watch QB Kevin Kolb’s final game for the Conference USA Champion Cougars. According to an editorial in this morning’s Memphis Commercial Appeal, the game is going to have a $15 million economic impact on the City of Memphis.
FITSNews spent some time chatting up some of the Cougar faithful this morning and uncovered the following tidbits:
*DOES THIS GUY MISS? - Kevin Kolb’s impressive touchdown-to-interception ratio (27 TD’s to only 3 interceptions), is apparently even more impressive than it looks. Which we guess makes it “ridonkulously” impressive. According to the Houston fans we spoke with, all three of Kolb’s interceptions hit Cougar receivers on the hands and then deflected to defenders. “All three?” we asked again to make sure. “Yup, all three.”
*MUTUALLY ASSURED DEDICATION - Apparently, the road trip from Houston is just as long a haul as the road trip from Columbia, S.C. Basically it’s a nine-hour trek, just like the one we suffered through yesterday with Sic Willie. Seriously, it was near Tupelo, Mississippi, where we almost had to kill him. He was going on and on and on about the 1984 Gator Bowl and how instant replay would have won the game for South Carolina because “Thurman Thomas clearly stepped out of bounds.” Geez.
*PURPOSE-DRIVEN COACH - Houston’s head football coach, Art Briles, has an inspirational story. The former Cougar player lost both of his parents in a car crash while they were traveling to watch him play a game against Southern Methodist University. Briles has turned the Houston program around since taking the reins four years ago, leading the school to its first C-USA Championship this season.
*GIVE US LIBERTY - Like the Gamecocks, Houston got beat the last time it played in the Liberty Bowl. The Cougars lost 30-17 to Syracuse in 1996, while the Gamecocks lost 34-10 to Indiana in 1988.
