In 2010, South Carolina beat Clemson by a score of 29-7. Clemson fans probably don’t want to remember that game, but the Tigers were thoroughly dominated at home after scoring on the game’s first drive.
In that game, the Gamecocks looked like a superior team. More than that, they looked like a superior program with a supply of talent that could win for years to come against their in-state rivals.
Convinced an era of inferiority was well underway, Tiger fans lamented the state of their program. They openly questioned its direction and the ability of a second-year head coach in Dabo Swinney to take Clemson where they felt it should be.
It’s hard to believe that was five seasons ago. Things have changed a bit since then, don’t you think?
Sure, South Carolina won three more matchups with Clemson in the years following, but its only division championship came in 2010. The team that thrashed the Tigers to close out the season was the only one from that era to earn any meaningful hardware.
Furthermore, upon closer inspection, South Carolina’s program might not have been that much better than Clemson’s anyway, even as the Gamecocks were winning year after year on the football field. Here are the Vegas point spreads in the five games South Carolina won in the series:
2009: Clemson -3
2010: South Carolina -2
2011: South Carolina -4
2012: Clemson -4
2013: South Carolina -3
In two of those five games, Clemson was actually expected to win. Vegas point spreads aren’t gospel, but they do provide a decent indication about outside perception. According to oddsmakers, the Gamecocks won five straight coin flip games in a series it felt they dominated.
Make sense? Good…now, we can move to this year.
See, I thought about writing that this season’s Palmetto Bowl feels like the most inevitable game since that 2010 matchup, but it just doesn’t seem right to compare the two. After all, that game wasn’t really inevitable, was it?
At the time of this writing, the Tigers are favored by 17.5 points, and the spread keeps growing. It’s the largest spread in this rivalry in the past 20 years. Just five short years after South Carolina’s rise seemed inevitable, Clemson lording over its rivals in oppressive fashion seems equally inevitable—if not even more so.
Clemson has enjoyed its best season in decades. Next season, most of the Tigers’ offense will be coming back, and the defense looks loaded for bear. If anything, the program might actually get stronger in 2016.
South Carolina, meanwhile, is an absolute dumpster fire, a joke, an embarrassment. Its fans grovel at the feet of the coach who walked away rather than reap the negative consequences of his own failures in the form of an awful 3-9 season, which will be reality after Saturday’s bludgeoning.
The Gamecocks were duped. They were tricked into believing they had a lasting program when it was really all smoke and mirrors. They were deceived by a man they worshiped, and now their lack of vigilance has now resulted in the implosion of their briefly-proud pseudo-program.
Heck, they lost to FCS foe The Citadel on Saturday in the least fluky way possible. The Bulldogs didn’t use misdirection, trick plays, or a playground scheme. They just lined up and ran the ball right at the Gamecocks, even overcoming a fourth quarter deficit on the pathway to victory.
Even at its lowest point, Clemson has never lost to an FCS opponent. Ever. In history. At any moment in time.
That fact alone demonstrates the primary difference between Clemson and South Carolina. The Gamecocks at their best were only considered slightly better than their in-state rivals—even when that team was about to undergo major structural changes.
Remember that 20-year window I mentioned? Typically, this matchup garners a point spread within three or four points. Only twice has that spread been more than a touchdown: In 1999 and 2000, Clemson was favored by 13.5 and 7.5 points, respectively.
Counting this season, that’s three large spreads in basically two decades in Clemson’s favor. The Gamecocks have none.
“Little brother syndrome” is often referenced within this rivalry—really, it’s mentioned in a lot of places around the country. South Carolina has that feeling of inferiority against Clemson, even if it didn’t feel like it for a few years.
That feeling is back with a vengeance because now the Gamecocks and their fans know who they are. South Carolina isn’t an elite program, and it never was. The Gamecocks lose to FCS teams sometimes, and Clemson doesn’t. Even when they should dominate their rivals, people don’t seem to think so, and now it seems like Clemson has been put on a pedestal as one of America’s top programs.
There’s that word again: program. South Carolina thought it had one, but it didn’t. Clemson has one that looks and feels capable of reloading over and over again into the future.
Welcome to the world of the Palmetto State’s little brother. When big brother comes to administer a beatdown on Saturday, just remember what it was like to be proud of a castle built on sand. It really wasn’t that long ago.
God Bless!
WQ
*Point spreads courtesy of VegasInsider.com, TheGoldSheet.com, and TeamRankings.com.