Anyone remember how exciting it was just to be ranked in the polls?

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Sure do. I remember being excited after a few decent wins to look at the rankings just waiting on them to be released.


And then we'd promptly lose the very next game and drop back out.

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We'd been doing that forever ... and we continued to do it under Holtz and Spurrier until just recently.

I remember those days too ... heck, 1969 and we go into the Peach Bowl to face Bowden and Carlen as a big favorite and a chance to finish in the Top 20 in both the AP and UPI polls ... and we fell on our faces.

But I do believe we've gotten over the proverbial hump in that regard. At least I am hoping so.

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I remember becoming bowl eligible and celebrating like crazy

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Absolutely.

Back in the day it used to be a real achievement to make a bowl. You played ten games a year and there were maybe ten bowls total.

When we jumped to eleven game seasons the bowls jumped to 15 and then twenty ... they've kinda gotten out of hand now.

They need to cut the bowls back to around 25 and stop there. 25 at the most.

Six win teams should not be bowl eligible.

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I remember being excited about being bowl eligible in 2000 even when there were quite a few bowls.

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That was our first ever New Year's Day bowl. Plus we were playing Ohio State. Plus we had just completed the biggest turnaround in NCAA history and it stood until Auburn surpassed that last season.

I remember looking around a fans in the stands when we realized we were going to win that game and a lot of our fans were crying ... most people cannot comprehend how passionate and long suffering our fan base was ... but being in those stands drove it home for me.

We've grown, as a fan base, since then. Holtz got us on the right path but Spurrier is trying to lead us to the promised land. He let it be known, that Thursday night after the Auburn game, that he was going to demand us to come up to his level ... he wasn't coming down to ours.

Y'all's generation have very high expectations and you'll never know what it used to be like ... thankfully we are past those days.

Y'all need to demand, in coming decades, that we never go back to where we were. It was too hard getting here to go back.

Some of us old guys used to joke, when we were much younger, that we could die happy men if we lived long enough to see the Gamecocks win a national championship.

These days I spend more time wishing for good things for my kids and grandkids ... but I'd still like to see the Gamecocks win a national championship in football before I die. The difference is, unless it's a mirage, it's trying to come in sight ... seems more reachable than it ever has.

Now, having us ranked is a program expectation. We've really turned the corner.

Arian Foster lost the '05 Bama and '05 USC games by fumbling into the endzone for a touchback.

In consecutive weeks. Thats rough.