The South Carolina game, for me, is a huge game with conflicting emotions every year. At least this makes 3 in a row. This weekend's game probably won't be fun for me, as much as it will be just a relief to get a win and move on. Or a potential disaster to my football-watching psyche, if we were to lose. Basically, I see it as a no-win situation.

I don't know if I can accurately describe what it's been like for me since last year's South Carolina game. For the record, I don't agree with Bernie Machen on most anything, and I really thought he disrespected Spurrier by trying to get him to interview for the job. So while I was certain Meyer was an upgrade over Zook, I still love Steve. I can't blame him for taking the South Carolina job, it sounds like something I'd do, if anyone ever bothered to make me a desirable commodity.

But as it was clear South Carolina was driving for a game winning score, and the HBC would move to 2-0 against Meyer, I really can't voice the negativity and disappointment I felt about the whole situation, (especially toward a certain motorcyle-riding university official who first waged war against my beloved Gainesville happy hours, then disgraced my favorite football coach). The game-winning field goal wasn't even fun for me. I was relieved, but still unsure about Meyer over Spurrier.

I really don't think I was a huge Meyer fan until we won the SEC, and even then I went to the BCS game mainly because I felt we sort of backed into it (how many times do you get a shot at a title, you could go undefeated like Auburn and not get a chance, so if you have the chance, you've got to go. Having the ability to finagle some student tickets didn't hurt, as I am not in a place where I could drop a couple g's on some tickets....) Basically, that fantastic game against the 'best team ever' (and probably the growing legend of Billy D, I'm spoiled) had my hopes high for this year, though, realistically, I knew with a young team we'd probably be looking at losing at least 2 games, and should feel like the season was a success if we got to Atlanta and/or a BCS at-large bid. I did fully expect to go undefeated at home. Once we looked unbelievable in the first 4 games, I probably had unrealistic expectations. Part of that was the way everyone else seemed to be getting upset, so I felt we could come out as a top team even if we dropped a game or two.

Needless to say, those early season expectations quickly crashed and burned. We starting giving away leads in the 4th quarter, wasn't that Zook's territory? During this stretch I was starting to wonder if I should be doubting our coaching staff. Not that I ever did, just that I wondered if I was giving them too much credit. We weren't handing the ball off to anyone consistently. We were running reverses at odd times. We lost to Georgia, which is the absolute worst, almost bad enough it made me glad I missed my first Cocktail party in the last 5 or 6 years (almost- only because I think we win if I go, I'm that important). I think the real answer is somewhere in between, that expectations were getting unrealistic, but that the future is very bright and we have an excellent coaching staff. I think the fact we couldn't win games, while troubling, was a necessary bump in the road for our young team.

All that being said, it took the legendary (mythical?) Rage Mode to get us out of our funk (we couldn't beat anyone without having a bye-week). But how much I can be absolutely sure that we're seeing a good year, and not an average year, I really don't know. I'm hoping this game will show us that. Which might be too high of a hope. As much as I love to knock BC, OSU, Kansas with the 'who have you beaten' argument, I really don't know who we've beaten. Do wins over Phil Fulmer count any more? Does a road win at Lexington really carry weight? Will one at Columbia? Does anyone care about a blowout home win over Vandy? (The answer to at least the last question is that I care. I was in the stands when Jay Cutler took us to OT. I was wondering who Chris Nickson was one year ago. And I saw this Vanderbilt team come into Saturday leading the SEC in sacks (one week after UGA's #38 spent more time in the backfield than Kestahn Moore). I saw they held the HBC without a TD.)

Basically my entire point is that I have no idea what it will take this Saturday for me to feel better about Meyer over Spurrier. I like a lot of Meyer's philosophies, and I think we have some great assistants. I'm a huge Mattison fan. I think our current LBs may end up better than the last spectacular group. But I will always be in awe of the fact that you can watch any Spurrier game, and there's at least those 2-3 times where no matter how good the opposing defense, he's called the perfect play and you've got at least one receiver all alone on a slant or fade. (I should mention here, I missed their Vandy game earlier this season) It's the same thing he's done for 20 years, how do they get that wide open (I mean with no one on them- not 'wide open' as in 'going one-on-one with Percy Harvin is a huge mismatch'... call it zero-on-one)? My main hope in closing out our regular season SEC schedule with a victory is Meyer realizes Spurrier's basically beat him both times they've matched up, so he'll get the team ready. My main worry is with what Spurrier can do with walk-on caliber talent against an all-SEC secondary, what can we expect out of our guys? No doubt he'll also keep the ball away from our offense as much as possible. And teams (before this past weekend) have been playing like the entire field is 4-down territory against our defense, not an advantage I want to give SOS.

My last thought on this game has to do with our relative lack of a traditional running game, and the way we just watched a traditional running game (albeit an extremely talented running game) completely destroy what I thought was a good defense. I have no idea what to expect, especially if we get in a hole from their potentially explosive offense. I miss Reggie Nelson.