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My Thoughts on Declining the Bowl Game

GregoryHouse

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The Gamecocks were invited to the Gaspirilla Bowl to face Virginia Tech and declined the invite.

I am very okay with the gamecocks declining their bowl invite.

The Gaspirilla Bowl will be December 26th. While it is usually great to get those extra practices and swag that comes with bowl games 2020 has just been a terrible year all around. Let the guys go home and be with their families. Let the new staff come in and hit the recruiting trail (remember the recruiting cycle for us means not only signing high school players but also reaching out to players in the transfer portal and talking to players we want to come back to the program as well). RB Kevin Harris has his 1000 rushing yards - that was our victory this season. Accepting this bowl invite would have meant Mike Bobo likely continuing to interim coach and hold practices while Shane Beamer is trying to establish his office and reach out to coaches and talk with players. I would rather we start the Beamer era as soon as possible with as little other distractions as possible. 

I have a lot of hope for us to be a lot better next year. We had a lot of talent on the team this year but much of that talent was focused on doing what they could to get to the NFL. I think that may have had a negative effect on team development and team chemistry. I thank those players for coming here anyway and I hope they have the careers in the NFL that they wanted. If we still have some of those players, I hope we can convince them to love the gamecocks and their teammates but if they don't I hope they chose to leave as well. Lets run a college program whose goal is primarily college football success. College football is a business but it can be fun as well.

There are quite a few former players that want to come back to the program and LEARN how to coach. I am all for it. Give them the opportunity to come back and be assistants, consultants and advisors. Give them increasing responsibilities and opportunities to show their aptitude for coaching. Then if there are coordinator or coaching positions available, they are more prepared to go into those roles (whether with the gamecocks or other programs). I would love to see Orth or Scarnecchia or Victor Hampton or Holloman or whomever prowl any of the SEC sidelines in the near future. I would cheer them and their success on.

Alright I am just ranting and raving now. Listen, this year was very terrible. We had to get rid of Will Muschamp and we have to clean out the selfish personnel. Lets hope that our bad era ended last night and that we can have a golden age of Carolina football from here on out.

Go Gamecocks.

 
I think Beamer's trajectory here will be like that of Shawn Elliott at Georgia State.

He will not know everything, but will get us to a better place fairly soon.

The rub on Elliott was that he didn't know how to generate offense.  He has done that at GAST, but lack of defense is what is killing them right now.

Beamer will shore up our offense pretty quickly, but will need a solid DC just like Elliott does now at GAST.

Anyone with decent people skills will attract good assistants as well.

...and he wants it.  He could have stayed at OU, but he wants it anyway.

 
I think Beamer's trajectory here will be like that of Shawn Elliott at Georgia State.

He will not know everything, but will get us to a better place fairly soon.

The rub on Elliott was that he didn't know how to generate offense.  He has done that at GAST, but lack of defense is what is killing them right now.

Beamer will shore up our offense pretty quickly, but will need a solid DC just like Elliott does now at GAST.

Anyone with decent people skills will attract good assistants as well.

...and he wants it.  He could have stayed at OU, but he wants it anyway.
it feels like we haven't had a good defense since 2013-2014

 
Who made this call?  The only person that this should have been up to is Shane Beamer

 
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, I just wonder if you could elaborate on who/why ... I would be interested to know this from your perspective.
I takes me a few minutes to respond here because I am contemplating naming names just based on some of the stories I have heard from people closer to the program than I can. I will say that if you feel like you can make one or two great plays every couple of games and then fade into the background in other games and game situations, then you are probably hurting the team more than you are helping the team. We had a handful of guys like that this year and last year. I want to make clear that I don't mean Kinlaw, Izzie, Burch, Pickens, Brown, Sanders, or Mo Kaba. nor a few other players that missed parts or whole games for unspecified reasons. 

 
I takes me a few minutes to respond here because I am contemplating naming names just based on some of the stories I have heard from people closer to the program than I can. I will say that if you feel like you can make one or two great plays every couple of games and then fade into the background in other games and game situations, then you are probably hurting the team more than you are helping the team. We had a handful of guys like that this year and last year. I want to make clear that I don't mean Kinlaw, Izzie, Burch, Pickens, Brown, Sanders, or Mo Kaba. nor a few other players that missed parts or whole games for unspecified reasons. 
Oh OK, you were referring to players not coaches. got it.

 
I agree with you GH. The focus needs to be on building for next year, and a meaningless bowl game will distract from the work at hand. Beamer needs to be able to focus on recruiting and staff right now, and not a worthless bowl game for a 2-8 team. 

 
How many of the new staff could be in place by then, and would Bobo be retained? If the answer is "a good bit and yes," then it would make sense to play it if only for getting a feel for his players. If the answers are "very few and no," then I agree - no point to it. All that said, the dept. could use the revenue, for sure.

 
I can see the value on both sides here where we have the opportunity to give the players that stuck it out some more practice/game experience and the other side of circling the wagons to build the foundation for next year.

Bowl experiences in a Coof year are going to be nothing like they were in the past with teams likely flying in for the games to play without all the lead up events and then playing in empty/thinly filled stadiums.

Whatever decision is made in the clubhouse I fully support.

 
Things may have just become a little more interesting...


 
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Good chance the SEC offices made a call to our admin offices.  If offered you will go.
I saw some scuttle about that. Basically it boiled down to there being contractual obligations to accept bids to bowls with an SEC tie-in. I don't know how true any of it is, but it makes sense.

 
Good chance the SEC offices made a call to our admin offices.  If offered you will go.
I can see that. 

https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/sec-football/sec-bowl-game-payouts-keep-getting-bigger-bigger/

The remaining SEC schools will collect a combined $60.5 million for their bowl games, according to collegefootballpoll.com. The schools below keep anywhere from $1 million to $1,475 million, with the rest going to the league and then disbursed back out in 15 equal shares, one share for the league and each of the 14 league members.






$1.125 million
 





The Gasparilla Bowl is an annual NCAA-sanctioned post-season college football bowl game played in the Tampa Bay Area.


 
If this is true and the SEC home office is compelling us to participate things are going to get real interesting real fast in regards to current and new coaching staff.

 
Slightly off topic. Last week someone called into the PF Show and wanted to talk bowl games for South Carolina. PF in his infinite.......infant wisdom told the caller before he cut him off " USC has a losing record and are not going anywhere. He knows so much to know so little. The season record would not be enforced ,so said the NCAA months ago, right?

GH, I agree, but if the SEC has a $$ hand in it we may be tied to the money tree. I think these guys have been through enough sure they will play if ask but at some point you have to ask when is enough, enough. It also give a certain part of the fan base weeks more to bitch and moan before Shane takes over.

 
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