Interesting column earlier this week by The State's Ron Morris, who says the Clemson-South Carolina rivalry should be moved to the start of the season.
I'm not totally against the suggestion, but not for the reasons Morris outlines.
He believes the importance of the game is diminished when one of the teams advances to its conference title game.
Last year, did Clemson's ACC title game date with Georgia Tech negatively affect the Tigers against South Carolina?
This year, will the Gamecocks be affected by the fact that the biggest game in their history looms seven days away in Atlanta?
You could make the case.
But my response to that is: Welcome to big-boy football.
Morris called for Dabo Swinney to sit C.J. Spiller for last year's game at South Carolina, and now he's saying Steve Spurrier should consider sitting Marcus Lattimore on Saturday.
Nothing at all against Morris. He's a friend, and we think enough of him as a colleague that we asked him to do this week's "Enemy Lines" segment (stay tuned for that; it's a good one).
But this notion of sitting players for a rivalry game is something I'll never understand. It's almost preposterous.
I'm trying to imagine the reaction in Alabama had Crimson Tide coach Gene Stallings opted to sit Shaun Alexander against Auburn in 1999. Alabama had already wrapped up the SEC West title by the time of the Iron Bowl, which the Crimson Tide won 28-17 in Auburn.
Auburn won six straight over Alabama from 2002 to 2007, allowing Tommy Tuberville and his fans to use the "one for the thumb" taunt that probably continues to this day. Imagine the reaction had Tuberville sat one of his star players for the Iron Bowl and interrupted the dominance over the Crimson Tide.
I was around the Georgia-Georgia Tech rivalry a good bit earlier in my career, and I'm trying to imagine the reaction of Bulldogs fans had Mark Richt opted to sit David Greene and/or David Pollack against the Yellow Jackets the week before Georgia played in the SEC title game in 2002 and 2003.
This is not college basketball, where you play for something like five months before most people start giving a rip. This is not the NFL, where it makes some sense to sit players in anticipation of a long playoff grind.
This is college football, a game full of weird quirks, routines and idiosyncrasies. A game that's built on tradition and rivalry.
They run down a dang hill before games at Clemson. Some strange bird flies from the stands to the field at Auburn. Some dude dresses up as an Indian and hurls a spear into the turf at Florida State.
And it's great. Every bit of it.
It's dangerous to view this game, and all the passions that fuel it, with a clinical eye. People in the Palmetto State still talk about Jerry Butler's catch in 1977. They still talk about Rodney Williams getting rattled in 1987. They still talk about Rod Gardner's catch in 2000 -- or push-off, depending on your point of view.
It'd be a travesty if, 20 years from now, they talk about the year Swinney sat perhaps the best player in school history. Or the year Spurrier kept his best weapon on the bench.
Try telling Clemson fans last year's loss to South Carolina wasn't that big a deal. The Tigers squandered an exquisite opportunity to deal a major blow to the Gamecocks' program, and perhaps inch Spurrier closer to retirement.
Try telling Gamecocks fans that beating the Tigers in back-to-back years for the first time since 1970 -- and sealing a tumultuous offseason for Swinney and the Tigers -- would not hold the value of a pot of gold.
Swinney was asked earlier this week about playing the rivalry game the week before the conference championship.
“I think it’s a great way to end the year and go from there. The state championship game is about all the focus you need. It’s a huge game for everybody. It always will be.”
Exactly.
Counting this season, Alabama and Auburn have combined for 11 trips to the SEC title game. I can't recall anyone from either side complaining about two monumental games in back-to-back weeks, or demanding that a coach sit his best player, or calling for the game to be moved to a different part of the season.
It's a part of life in high-stakes college football. It's what you do.
Spurrier see things differently, and that's largely the result of his poor record against Florida State in the years when his Florida Gators were headed to the SEC title game the next week.
At Florida, Spurrier was 1-5-1 when his teams faced Florida State the week before the conference championship. But concluding that the Gators "overlooked" the Seminoles would be a bit too simplistic given that fact that Florida State was beating everyone in those days.
And it's not as though the results were dramatically different when Spurrier's teams didn't have a title game to worry about.
1990: L 45-30 in Tallahassee
1997: W 32-29 in Gainesville
1998: L 23-12 in Tallahassee
2001: W 37-13 in Gainesville
I'd like to see the profile of the Clemson-South Carolina rivalry elevated as much as possible, and that's why I believe there's some merit to moving it to the start of the season. Officials at both schools believed shifting it to the Saturday after Thanksgiving would give it more prominence, but that hasn't happened because plenty of other rivalry games also fall on this date.
You think the anticipation for college football season is big in this state already? Imagine a summer preceding a season opener between these two.
I'm far from sold on the idea, though. The traditionalist in me says to keep it right where it is.
The traditionalist in me says suck it up and embrace playing big-boy football when you have a chance to play it.
LW
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