dailygamecock.com UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
VOL. 116, NO. 31 • SINCE 1908
MONDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2014
AGAIN?
Jeffrey Davis / THE DAILY GAMECOCK
Despite junior running back Mike Davis (center) and his 183-rushing yard, three-touchdown performance, the Gamecocks could not put away Kentucky on the road.
South Carolina blows late two-score lead for second week straight Danny Garrison
@DANNYLGARRISON
The past three years have been almost unanimously recognized as the most successful in South Carolina football history. But now, all they are is the past. T h e G a m e c o c k s l o s t a g u tw rench ing decision at Kent uck y Saturday night by a score of 45-38, and for the first time in four years, they will not go 11-2. “I’m not going to yell and scream. Everybody saw what happened. They scored more points than we did,” head coach Steve Spurrier said. “Overall, as a team, we got beat. Simple as that. Got beat.” A loss to Kent uck y, u nder any c i rc u m st a nce s, wa s a doom sday scenario for South Carolina. But t he way in which t he
Gamecocks fell in Commonwealth Stadium will feed the hysteria that will now engulf the program. For the second-consecutive week, South Carolina had a two-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter. And for the second-consecutive week, it snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. After junior running back Mike Davis scored his third touchdown of the day with 11:45 left in the game, the Gamecock defense crumbled, as it had been all game. Kentucky marched down the field twice without an answer from South Carolina, tying the game at 38 after two Jojo Kemp touchdowns. The Gamecocks faced t he possibility of a game-winning drive with less than three minutes to go, then the unthinkable happened. Redsh i r t sen ior qua r terback Dylan Thompson unleashed a pass that was promptly batted in the air at t he line and secured by A lv in Dupree, a defensive end, who ran the interception in for a touchdown. Now down by one score, South
Carolina had the ball with a chance to tie the game. Then, from the Gamecocks’ 41 yard line, Thompson threw another interception. “You can’t turn the ball over three times on the road and expect to win,” he said. “A nd I was the reason for that.” For his three total interceptions, the quarterback will receive much of the blame for the loss. And for the most part, he’ll accept it. But there was much more at work Sat urday night, and it followed a pattern seen throughout the season. Davis ran like a man possessed against the Wildcats, averaging eight yards per carry and collecting a total of 183 on his way to his three scores. But with the game on the line, South Carolina would not run the ball. With his full complement of three timeouts, Spurrier called six combined passing plays in t he Gamecock s’ f inal t wo drives, completely and unequivocally abandoning the run. T he lu x u r y t h at w a s C on nor
Shaw is gone, and in game-deciding scenarios like South Carolina faced Saturday night, faulty play-calling won’t be sugar-coated by miraculous quarterback ing. Because after six games, we know that’s not who Dylan Thompson is. The worst has happened, and South Carolina has now off icially come down from the high of their ver y recent glory years. T here’s not h i ng t hat say s t he Gamecocks can’t run the table and earn themselves an upper-tier bowl game. But there’s logic that says they won’t. A nd af ter years of u nwavering praise, Spurrier suddenly finds himself under the gun, just like the rest of the team, as they go from keeping their season on track, to salvaging it. “We’ve got to find a way to do a lot better to try to have a winning season,” Spurrier said. “That’s where we are right now, trying to have a winning season.” DG
Courtesy of Preston Residential College and University Libraries
Preston College first opened 75 years ago as an all-male, all-white dorm, years before the Russell House University Union and Thomas Cooper Library existed.
Alumni celebrate 75 years for Preston Graduates, first in-resident faculty reflect on memories in residence Natalie Pita
@NATALIEPITA
Class of 1984 and 1985 graduates Tom Sliker, Jed Seay, Alan Shealy and Tommy Johnson stood on the back porch of Preston College Sunday and remembered the memories they made and pranks they pulled when they lived in the residence hall. For t hese fou r g raduates, com i ng back to celebrate the 75th anniversary of their beloved residence hall was a no-brainer.
Coming back together made it even better. “We’re like brothers. We’re like family,” Johnson, a former Preston College president, said. “I stay in contact more with people from Preston than people I graduated with in my class.” The friends shared stories about dropping each other in the reflection pool for birthdays, parties on the basketball court with the Women’s Quad and playing a stereo out the window. The four former students met each other on the fi rst day they moved into Preston, but they’ve noticed a lot of changes since then. When they fi rst moved in, Preston was known as the “Roach Motel.” There was no air-conditioning,
and they remember waking up in the middle of the night to Palmetto bugs crawling on them. Preston College was built during the Great Depression using $300,000 from the New Deal administration. It was built around the same time as the original Williams-Brice Stadium, Sims College and McKissick Museum. Back then, Russell House and Thomas Cooper Library didn’t exist, and the fountain was a football field. It started out as an all-male, all-white dorm, but now it’s much more diverse. Its 145 rooms originally held 290 men. PRESTON • 2