South Carolina puts its best foot forward, onto the SEC East's throat

South Carolina 36, Florida 14. If you had to paint a picture of the contenders at the start of the de facto SEC East title game, it probably would have been of two teams moving in opposite directions. South Carolina came in off a 41-20 trouncing at the hands of Arkansas on the Gamecocks' own field, the first step in their annual November collapse. Florida's sinking offense, on the other hand, had turned itself around out a bye week with its best efforts of the year in back-to-back wins over Georgia and Vanderbilt, the first step in the Gators' surge to reclaim dominion over the division they've owned under Urban Meyer.

But you would have been a lot closer to the reality with a snapshot of both teams on Oct. 9 instead. That's the day South Carolina snapped Alabama's 29-game regular season winning streak with the best all-around performance of the Steve Spurrier era, just a few hours before Florida's ongoing offensive struggles achieved DEFCON 2 in a home loss to LSU. The Gators had been held to six points in an ugly beating by the Crimson Tide seven days before, and achieved DEFCON 1 a week later in a 10-7 humiliation against Mississippi State. That's the offense that showed up tonight for the last chance to save the season – conservative, predictable, one-dimensional – and it didn't take long to be met with a chorus of boos and renewed calls for coordinator Steve Addazio's head.

It wasn't Florida's worst offensive effort of the season – that title still belongs to the opening day debacle against Miami (Ohio). But it's not far behind: The final tallies show the Gators with fewer yards on fewer plays and fewer yards per play than in any game since the opener. After Andre Debose's 99-yard touchdown return on the opening kickoff, the offense proceeded to punt on six straight possessions, turn the ball over on downs twice and serve up an interception before finally putting more points on the board in the fourth quarter.

They held the ball for barely 20 minutes of actual game time. Freshman jack-of-all-trades Trey Burton, two weeks removed from ripping Georgia for 110 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 17 carries, carried one time against the Gamecocks, for one yard. Fellow freshman Jordan Reed, a week after delivering 204 yards and two touchdowns against Vandy in his first significant action at quarterback, barely touched the ball before the game was out of hand late, at which point he connected with Chris Rainey for Florida's only touchdown with less than eight minutes to play, briefly cutting the lead to 29-14. It was a textbook regression to the three-game midseason losing streak, and has officially rendered 2010 a lost season in the Florida books.

But the focus on the Gators' all-to-familiar failings obscures what may be the most validating night in South Carolina history, even exceeding the upset over Alabama. All of the things the Gamecocks have never been – physical, resilient, comparably athletic with one of the conference's heavy hitters – they were tonight, and then some. Hyped freshman running back Marcus Lattimore was a revelation of an entirely new order, out-producing the entire Gator offense with 248 total yards and three touchdowns on a Herculean 46 touches. Quarterback Stephen Garcia was efficient and didn't give the ball away. Receiver Alshon Jeffery loomed over Florida's corners. The league's No. 1 run defense stopped the Gators' surging running game cold. They won at Gainesville for the first time. They won a big road game, period, in November, with tangible stakes on the line.

The triumph may have come in a down year for the East Division – arguably the worst in its 19-year history – but after years as a perennial darkhorse, this is the team Carolina has been waiting for. It's the best the school has produced in the SEC era, and emphatically delivered a statement in an environment where its predecessors could be counted on to fight but eventually fold. If the division isn't able to summon one of the usual powerhouses from Florida or Georgia to send to Atlanta, at least the crown falls to an outfit that stepped up to take it in the end.

- - -
Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

Source: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/South-Carolina-puts-its-best-foot-forward-onto-?urn=ncaaf-285316

soccer manchester united baseball