 "Photo: Nick Esares / The Gamecock")
USC's football team has been here before, one win away from bowl eligibility heading into the final stretch of the season.
After beating Alabama on the road last year 20-3, the Gamecocks headed home two wins away from a bowl game. They put up a disappointing effort, losing to a depleted Ole Miss team 31-28 on a late touchdown pass.
This is familiar territory for a team that has failed to reach a bowl game for the past three seasons; entering November stuck at five wins.
After an unbelievable win at Tennessee last weekend, the Gamecocks' record stands at 5-3. They head to Arkansas this Saturday before coming back home to Williams-Brice to finish out the regular season with Florida and Clemson. A win in any of those games would send Carolina bowling this winter.
November has been quite a predicament for the Gamecocks in the past few years. The team has entered November with five wins each of the past three seasons, but has seldom been able to achieve that elusive sixth victory that would extend their season. The Gamecocks are an abysmal 1-10 when attempting to attain bowl eligibility in November, but that one win was overshadowed by the infamous brawl in Death Valley. As result, the Gamecocks were again home for the holidays.
But all that was before Cock 'n' Fire arrived in Columbia.
"We're not sitting around and patting ourselves on the back all week," USC coach Steve Spurrier said. "Our team's goal is to get to six wins."
Spurrier said he doesn't know much about teams who don't end up bowl eligible. A Spurrier-coached college team has not spent the holiday's at home since 1990, when his first Florida team was ineligible to play in the postseason because of probation. The last time Spurrier did not finish with six wins was his first college team, the 1987 Duke Blue Devils.
The Gamecock seniors, a group that has yet to experience a collegiate bowl game, looks for Spurrier to reverse the November trend.
"We're excited right now. We've got a great opportunity right here in our hands," senior wide out Kris Clark said. "Hopefully we can go down to Arkansas and come back bowl eligible. We're going to leave everything out there on the field."
The Arkansas match up has been the ultimate swing game for the Gamecocks. In the past four years, USC has met Arkansas on the verge of bowl eligibility each time. USC is 1-4 in those games and has had trouble winning games the rest of the season.
Yet, that too was before Spurrier donned a garnet visor and paced the sidelines of Williams Brice. There's a new aura around this team, and it would seem the players aren't smelling the usual stench of November.
"Knowing that we can win a big game like Tennessee, where we didn't play our best, gives us some confidence," Clark said. "That gave us some much-needed confidence."
According to the history books, the Gamecocks haven't won at Arkansas since 1997, posting a 1-5 record in the confines of Little Rock and Fayetteville.
Apparently, Spurrier and the Gamecocks didn't get the memo last week that the Gamecocks don't win in Knoxville. And a win this week would make almost as much history.
Spurrier would become only the third coach in Gamecock history to take a team to a bowl game in his first season. A win would also be USC's first in Fayetteville.
As the team learned last week, there's a first time for everything.
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