Scott has followed South Carolina athletics for over 40 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective. He writes a weekly newsletter (this email) year-round and a column during football season that's published each Monday on GamecockCentral.com.
Scott Davis: Indiana Obliterates All Excuses
For as long as I've been a Gamecock fan, I've heard from them.
They aren't the majority of us, and they may not even be a particularly large minority of us. But they're vocal, and they're stubborn and for the more than 40 years that I've followed this university's football program, they've been whispering the same solemn mantra in my ear.
We can't win here.
They'll trot out the same shopworn, threadbare excuses, clinging to them like rosary beads they rub to get through the day. Each and every one of these excuses is easily dismantled upon even the slightest examination, but that doesn't matter.
What matters is that these people can't explain why the South Carolina Gamecocks have never won it all…so they try to make it make sense the only way they know how.
You've heard all the excuses before, but just for fun, let's run through them again.
We don't have a history – great players only want to play at Alabama or Notre Dame or Michigan or Southern Cal, and it's an endless cycle where we'll always get left out.
Kids don't want to play in a mid-size capital city like Columbia.
We don't pay enough to attract the top coaches, so we'll never be able to compete with the likes of Texas or Florida.
The SEC schedule's too tough. We're always going to face an uphill climb playing Georgia and Alabama and LSU most years, especially when we're already facing a talent gap with them.
Uh huh.
Sorry if I couldn't hear the rest of the excuses, but my ears are still ringing from the loud voices of all of the national analysts who've spent most of this week proclaiming Indiana Freaking University's 2025 national champions as one of the greatest college football teams of all time.
You know Indiana, right?
It's the university with an all-time football record of 529-719-46 (even after going 27-2 the last two years). In 2022, the Hoosiers became the first major college football team to lose its 700th game in the record books. You could make a strong case that until two years ago, Indiana was the worst major football program in the country historically. This program wasn't just in need of a rebuild when coach Curt Cignetti arrived before the 2024 season – it had never been built in the first place.
There was no Indiana football program as recently as the summer of 2024.
Just two seasons later, it's easy to find a national college football analyst who will tell you that this year's 16-0 Hoosier squad was the greatest to ever put on helmets and shoulder pads. They're everywhere.
Now…
Are you really sure we can't win here?
Just the Facts
You ready to dig into the numbers?
If you're a member of the We Can't Win Here Club, it's gonna be a grueling couple of minutes for you. Let's don't delay.
South Carolina – for all the hand-wringing about its everlasting mediocrity and occasional outright ineptitude – actually has a winning overall record in the fine sport of football, at 648-623-44. What that means is that even if the Gamecocks went winless for the next eight years, Cignetti and the Hoosiers would need to go 16-0 for the first seven seasons and then still win a few more games in the eighth just to match South Carolina's victory total.
Remember back in the '90s when you kept hearing that the Gamecocks were an embarrassment because they'd never won a bowl game? Yeah, that's a problem for the We Can't Win Here Club, too: The Gamecocks have won four more bowl games in their history than have the Hoosiers.
Conference championships? The programs are now tied, at three, after Indiana won the Big 10 this year. Before that happened, South Carolina's 1969 ACC title was still more recent than Indiana's last conference championship.
How about fan support? I've been reading for the last few weeks about how bloodthirsty and rabid the Hoosier fan base is, having invaded and taken over all of the cities in which the team has played en route to its title.
But way back in the Year 2023, Indiana averaged just over 44,000 per game (nearly 10,000 short of its stadium's capacity) for football games. Williams-Brice swallows that number and then some for games against the likes of Akron and Coastal.
And believe it or not, we're not even finished yet.
History Crumbles
Still doubting?
The "Columbia's not charming enough" crowd will struggle to help me understand why elite football players suddenly decided to spend their formative years in scenic Bloomington, IN (not to mention that the two college cities that most remind me of Columbia are Baton Rouge and Knoxville, both of whom are home to historically good football programs).
Paying coaches? The Hoosiers stumbled into the 64-year-old Cignetti precisely because he wasn't a hot coaching commodity when they hired him and they could get him relatively cheaply. His initial contract with Indiana ranked 15th out of the 17 Big Ten coaches in total compensation, so it's not like the university went for broke to claim him, like LSU just did for Lane Kiffin.
Do you even remember Cignetti's hiring? I had never heard of him until late in the 2024 season, and I'm a lifelong college football obsessive. Cignetti is the Anti-Kiffin.
Finally, there's the big one, the "we just can't ever win enough games in a brutal SEC to compete for titles" excuse.
Oops, Indiana competes in the Big 10. You've heard of that conference, right? The one with defending national champion Ohio State and recent national champion Michigan (not to mention all those other football-obsessed schools with massive stadiums, infinite resources and maniacal fans)?
You do realize that almost every major college football analyst in the country now calls the Big 10 the most powerful conference in the sport, ahead even of the mighty SEC?
The challenges of a Big 10 schedule didn't stop Indiana from becoming one of the greatest teams ever.
Neither did fan support, or coaching contracts, or perception.
And most importantly, neither did history.
After Indiana, there are no more excuses.
It doesn't mean it will be easy for South Carolina to move into the upper tier of college football.
But it does mean you can no longer say it can't be done.
Tell me what you think about Indiana's title by writing me at scottdavis@gamecockcentral.com. (Please do not reply to this email.)
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