So close it hurt....

The USC football team gave a heck of a performance in "the swamp" over the weekend. We lead the whole game and yes take away 3 blocked kicks and well.....

This season has taken a toll on the gamecock faithful. We have five losses. All to Top 20 teams. Four of them by a touchdown or less. Three on tipped passes. And one of them - a emotionally-draining 17-16 loss to No. 5 Florida in "The Swamp" - by a fingertip.

I watched 'gameday' in the am on Saturday and saw Corso pick UF to win by 3 touchdowns....what. Let's give SC some credit. This is a 'new' SC that when everyone thought (national media) that Spurrier was making a crazy decision for coming to SC and that he can not win.....well he is slowly putting together a winning program. Last year, we got some breaks and won some big games with lesser talent. No one predicted the season we had last year.

So this year some had high expectations but this year was truly a rebuilding year if you look at it on paper. We have like 10 freshman playing pretty regularly on our team.....unusual in NCAA Div I.....hardly any Seniors besides White, Newton and Bennett. Took some hits with guys going pro in our secondary and our O-Line was a disaster in the beginning of the season. I mean we had 4 out 5 on the line with hardly any game experience. Two current starters are true freshman.....Wow....these kids were playing high school football this time last year.

I could go on and on but I truly believe that the tide is changing. I have said it before though that before we reach the mountain top we have to have the team 'believe.' Holtz tried and got us to a certain level but now is time to "take it up a notch."

We have in place a AD that is going to improve our current program which in today's world is very important to getting good kids to play for your teams. We need better buildings, academic center, etc. We have in place a stellar coach....yes I said stellar. We are getting the recruits in place and as long as the Ole' Ball Coach is coaching no matter the game we always have a fighting chance to win. My only hope is that Spurrier is thinking long term b/c it will take more than 2-3 seasons to change things. We need him to stay at least 7 years (by that time he could be the winningst coach in our history). The fans and media must be patient with USC. All of the losses this season "we had our chance." Yes there has been evidence this season of a talent gap but he are closing that gap. If SC could "buy" a break we all would be singing a different story but it seems that those little things are not going our way (chicken curse?), like a tipped pass actually falling to the ground and not being caught by the opposing team.

So despite the heart breaks this season, I think our "glass is half full."