Christmas has come early for our founding editor, who has been waiting for months (literally) to ridicule whatever crappy postseason bowl game the University of South Carolina football team winds up being invited to this year.
Poulan Weedeater Independence Bowl, anyone?
Nope. With its 7-5 record, even a bowl named after a gardening implement was a “Bridge Too Far” for USC’s Steve Spurrier and his chronically-underachieving football team.
We speculated on South Carolina’s bowl outlook a few days ago, but based on where the “chips have fallen” the Papajohns.com Bowl (yes, you read that right, the Papajohns.com bowl) in Birmingham, Alabama has become the Gamecocks’ postseason destination.
In case you were wondering, that’s the lowest-rated of all bowls with an SEC tie-in – which means it’s the game that takes whatever bowl-eligible SEC team the better bowls didn’t want.
Speaking of better teams, LSU is headed to the Capital One Bowl (in Orlando), Ole Miss is headed to the Cotton Bowl (in Dallas), Tennessee is headed to the Chick-fil-A bowl in Atlanta (where USC originally hoped to play), Auburn is headed to the Outback Bowl in Tampa (where USC played a year ago), Kentucky is headed (back) to Nashville to play in the Music City Bowl, Georgia is headed to the Independence Bowl (in Shreveport) and Arkansas is headed to the Liberty Bowl (in Memphis).
Obviously, SEC East Champion Florida and SEC West Champion Alabama are playing in BCS bowls.
“If it’s a Birmingham bowl, we’ll be fired up to come to it,” said Spurrier. “We’re not doing a lot of campaigning like other schools. We’ll go where they tell us to go.”
Yeah …
USC will likely play the winner of the Connecticut-South Florida game.
UPDATE: In fairness, the “Advocare 100 Independence Bowl” hasn’t been named for Poulan in more than thirteen years. But it’s still worse than the PapaJohns.com Bowl.
By CNSYD December 2, 2009 at 10:32 am
FITS, contrary to what the media and fans may think, bowls are really about asses in the seats and heads in the beds. The host bowl cares not who plays as long as they bring dollars and spend them. Do you recall what the Orange Bowl said many years ago (not publicly of course) when a hue and cry was raised over them not inviting FSU? “Their fans will bring a copy of the ten commandments and a #10 bill and never break either one of them.” Coaches don’t care either as what they get out of bowl games is additional practice to develop their players for next year.
By fromupstate December 2, 2009 at 10:43 am
Fits…. there was one part of your analysis that was incorrect in the last article concerning bowls for USC. While the Gamecock fans are very very loyal in turning out to Williams Brice for their home games…. when it comes down to it, they historically don’t travel well to bowl games. I’m not trying to knock the USC fan base, it’s just that the Gamecocks rarely sellout their allotment of bowl tickets. Granted…. they would have for the Chick-Fil-A Bowl, but the Chick-fil-A bowls sells out every year on its own merit.
I’m a Clemson fan, and I’ll go ahead and admit that we got man-handled this past Saturday. No excuses, the Gamecocks were just the better team by far…. I’m not going to blame it on motivation, looking ahead, players worried about draft status, etc..etc… We just got beat.
This post isn’t about sour grapes, I just wanted to point out that there are many fan bases that travel better than the “greatest fans in the world.” The “taters” are one of those fan bases…. BCS or Boise…we travel better than 90% of the teams in the country. Isn’t it amazing how far all those “tater” farmers are willing to drive their tractors? ha ha…. you people don’t know many farmers… most make over $200K and it good years can clear more than $500K.
By Liberty For Me December 2, 2009 at 10:48 am
USC – South Florida would be a great game.The bulls are not having the best year because of a freshman QB, but still would be very intresting.Spurrier is right…be happy you could be sitting at home watching.It also gives SC more exposure to the Tampa audience (where spurrier is always recruiting)which has huge amounts of football talent…
By rascalcity December 2, 2009 at 11:46 am
I heard it was against the rules for the Chick-fill-a bowl to invite a team with a chicken as a mascot. How can you say “eat more chicken” when one of your teams is one? On the other hand, a large with sausage and double cheese is OK. This makes perfect sense, don’t you think?
By CNSYD December 2, 2009 at 11:54 am
fromupstate, I will tell you a true story about a farmer in Kingstree, a close friend of mine (USC grad) was visiting his wife’s family over Christmas many years ago. One of his wife’s brother-in-laws was a farmer. He was lamenting to my friend the sorry state of farming. He said “I have worked all year and all I have made is $10,000″. My friend asked how was he going to pay off all the farm bank loans he had. The farmer said he had paid them off. Well what about all that new equipment he had purchased. That had been paid off also. As they went down the list the bottom line was that the year was over, he owed no one any money and all he had left over was $10,000. He was headed to the poor house.
By Just a good ole boy December 2, 2009 at 12:46 pm
FITS–I hate to jump on the bandwagon and kick someone when they’re wrong but this time you missed. My dad used to take me with him on the tobacco burly market to Kentucky and Tennessee as a kid and I can tell from personal experience Memphis and Nashville are not warm weather spots in January. As far as Shreveport goes, I remember watching a bowl game a couple years ago where it started to snow as kick of time approached.
If USC fans want they can stay in Atlanta and drive the 90minutes-2hours to Birmingham and then drive back and party in downtown ATL (trust me lived there,done that,the Crazy Horse in ATL ROCKS). Maybe, just maybe the taters could get the Chicken Bowl. What could be better than USC winning their bowl then watching the pussy-cats lose theirs?
As far as who will will draw in the bowl, if USC plays their bowl the way they did against Clemson it could resemble Little Big Horn(and let’s hope USC looks more like the Indians than Custer)!!…In the meantime GO COCKS!!!
By ICEMAN December 2, 2009 at 1:04 pm
So tell me, what could USC done to get a better bowl? They finished the season with the same record as Auburn, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and Arkansas. The only reason USC is going to the Pizza Bowl is geography, and the fact they didn’t play enough politics to get a better bowl.
By fitsnews December 2, 2009 at 1:11 pm
What could USC have done to go to a better bowl? Let’s recap …
Beat Arkansas (7-5). Beat Tennessee (7-5). Beat Georgia (7-5).
Or hell, take your pick of the three.
We’re going to Papajohns.crap because we “don’t play enough politics?”
PLEASE!
Again, win f*cking games.
-FITS
By OhNoNotAgain December 2, 2009 at 1:23 pm
The Clemson fan stating as fact that USC fans historically don’t travel well to bowls speaketh with a forked tongue, kemosabe.
I went to the ’87 Gator Bowl and we had the place packed. They picked us because we traveled well. Bowl officials said so at the time. They considered us in ’88 when we had the same record, but didn’t want the same teams one year after the next. But I understand we packed the Liberty Bowl that year.
That was when USC was 0-8 in bowls. We went to one more in the past century, the Carquest, won it. Don’t know how well attended it was.
But we got the invite to the 2000 Outback Bowl despite being 7-4 because we had a reputation of traveling well. I went to it.
We traveled VERY well. A guy who ran Moses White & Sons BBQ said, “I thought this was a Bucs town, but all I see is Gamecocks.”
We got the invite to the 2001 Outback Bowl because we traveled SO well, and we had a better record, 8-3.
I don’t know how well we traveled to the Independence Bowl and the Liberty Bowl under Spurrier in 2005 and 2006. Just don’t.
But we got the invite to the Outback Bowl last year, despite being 7-5, because of the reputation from the 2000 and 2001 fans who traveled so well. And I think we traveled pretty well again.
I think our inability to move ourselves up into a better bowl slot has a lot to do with what happened on the field last year. We literally stunk up the joint. I hate to admit it, but it’s true.
By Toyota Kawaski December 2, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Keep your sorry tail home fits. Go devote all your energy to getting one of Payton’s jock straps that you can hang on your wall and um…. worship or better yet fits instead of running your pie-hole get your rubber checkbook out and buy some extra tickets to the game and let some local B-ham charity use them.
By fromupstate December 2, 2009 at 3:18 pm
OhNoNotAgain….. here’s is your quote….”But we got the invite to the Outback Bowl last year, despite being 7-5, because of the reputation from the 2000 and 2001 fans who traveled so well. And I think we traveled pretty well again”…..
and here is reality
USC sold 7,284 of its 11,000-ticket allotment and used another 1,342 tickets as comps for players’ and coaches’ families, athletics department staffers, university trustees and others. Per USC AD
not exactly the “all I see is Gamecocks” scenario you mentioned. I’m not certain, but I believe you guys traveled a little over $5,000 to the Carquest bowl which was obviously your first bowl win and I’m pretty sure also came after a thorough Clemson beatdown (only that one was in Death Valley).
CNSYD…. one other rule about farmers is that they belly ache every single year. Any farmer will tell you that they have never really had a “good year” in farming as they ease into their Cadillac Escalade. Entirely possible the farmer you mentioned really only cleared $10,000 just as you said, that would make him the exception. What he probably didn’t mention was that his net worth is several million dollars because of the land and other assets he owns.
by the way… I wasn’t talking about the guy that raises 100 cattle part-time to finance his 90 acres. I’m talking about a real farmer…. that has hundreds upon hundreds or thousands of acres.
Here, I will say it again. This past Saturday we got DESTROYED by the Gamecocks. No question. We looked Div I 2A at times. The only satisfaction from the game was all the “kick it to Spiller talk” that was silenced 19 seconds into the game……. dang.. I always write really long posts.. my apologies.
By Wallaman December 2, 2009 at 5:15 pm
A bowl game is a bowl game.
Sure a bigger one would be nice but given what the closing stretch was starting to resemble, I’m perfectly happy with the Whipping of Clemson and what could be a bowl victory as well. I’m more interested in carrying the excitement over into 2010 and winning over some recruits versus which fast food bowl we attend.
Fits, keep you sorry a** attitude to yourself. That’s not going to help anything now or in the future.
By LIstenUp December 3, 2009 at 12:47 am
Fromupstate: here is your quote –
“they historically don’t travel well to bowl games.”
We’ve been to 13 bowl games.
You cite two where attendance wasn’t great. I cite three where attendance was great, and a stated reason for us GETTING those bowl games was we have a fan base that travels well in prior years.
I admit I was guessing and guessed wrong about the Outback Bowl attendance = last year, but I was one of the fans scrambling to get a ticket to the other ones.
Here’s some numbers I pulled up.
Last year’s bowl attendance, wasn’t just us. It was everybody.
“Iowa fans bought 18,000 and 20,000 tickets for the school’s Outback appearances against Florida following the 2003 and ’05 regular seasons. This year Iowa has sold 12,700 tickets.”
“It’s down a lot,” Iowa ticket director Pam Finke told The State, the daily newspaper of Columbia, S.C. “We were out of tickets last time.”
It’s slightly less than 500 miles from Columbia to Outback Bowl site Tampa, Fla., but that doesn’t mean South Carolina fans are stampeding to the ticket windows, either.
Carolina fans bought 25,000 and 20,000 tickets, respectively, to watch USC’s Outback Bowl wins over Ohio State after the 2000 and ’01 regular seasons.
As of Friday, USC had sold about 9,000 of its 11,000-ticket allotment for the Outback Bowl, according to Eric Hyman, the school’s athletics director. That includes up to 1,500 seats the athletics department purchased.
Those reported numbers are just for the tickets bought through each school’s athletics department. USC attendance was estimated as at least 30,000 in the 50,000 plus Raymond James Stadium for the 2000 and 2001 bowls.
And the 87 Gator Bowl had 82,119 fans in attendance. More than half, I’d say, were wearing garnet.
So, to put it in HISTORICAL context, you’re full of beans and so’s your old man.
By Statesman December 3, 2009 at 9:47 am
Fromupstate. Them farmers love the government handouts called Farm Subsidies! I know one that gets paid not to grow a crop! Can’t blame him. He has learned to play the government with low interest loans and subsidies. He inherited the land too! Best of all, he can say he is working and not on welfare! He gets cash, not food stamps!
Is that a class they teach at Clemson? Gov. subsidies and loans 101?
By CNSYD December 3, 2009 at 10:42 am
Statesman, not a class at Clemson that I know about. I do hear that at bottom feeder school at USC aka law school they teach lying 101, cheating 201 and stealing 301. Not to be outdone by the law school, the Moore school of business aka as the Madoff school teaches many of the same subjects.
What exactly did the BOT member resign for recently? Does fraud ring a bell?
By OhNoNotAgain December 4, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Yeah, thought the little tigger would bounce away once presented with the truth. Sure, the last bowl was bad. But that’s about it.