After Saturday’s stunning moral victory over Georgia, the Gamecocks officially accepted a bid to play in the inaugural Moral Bowl. Moral Bowl spokesman Marv Levy commented on just how excited they were to land South Carolina.
“South Carolina is a team steeped with a tradition of almost beating good teams. In fact, this is their third moral victory over Georgia in the past 4 years including last year’s spectacular come from ahead moral victory. You can’t go wrong with a team like that,” Levy said
Optimism flowed from the Gamecock faithful filing out of Sanford Stadium after the 15-17 moral victory. While others might have been downtrodden, many were heard to say something never spoken by most USC fans, “wait until next year Georgia”. Interviews with several Gamecock fans provided valuable insight into the collective psyche of the supporters of the team. When asked how this moral victory was any different than the moral victories posted over Georgia with Brad Scott or Lou Holtz at the helm, one fan responded, “well, everyone knows that when coaching Florida, Spurrier owned Georgia.” When asked how this helped South Carolina or if the fan realized that Fred Taylor, Jevon Kearse and Danny Weurfel were not going to be playing in next year’s game, he replied, “#### and fire man, #### and fire”.
On the other sideline, UGA fans were having to come to grips with the fact that many of their season’s goals were now out of reach. Head coach Mark Richt commented, “It’s going to be hard to get the kids to focus this week. We are 2-0, whereas we were hoping to be 1-1 with an in conference moral victory of our own. Still, there is a lot of football left to be played and we can only hope that someone can come back and morally upset South Carolina.”
As for South Carolina’s opponent for the game, many are pointing to either Rutgers, which has now “turned the corner” a few times the past 10 years or the University of California, which almost beat Southern Cal last year and also almost went to the Rose Bowl.