Christmas came 4 days late this year....

And on that day, the Gamecocks won our bowl game and Clemson lost theirs. What a marvelous day in our household and Gamecock nation. There is a certain feeling of pride the next day when you are out and you see all the alumni or fans wearing their Gamecock gear and chatting them up about the game. Plus, Clemson also losing to a bad SEC team made this all the more sweet.

Clemson lost before our game began, and my girlfriend, knowing how foul I become when USC loses its games, asked me if Clemson lost and we lost, if it would make it okay? It doesn't, but it certainly helps. So, when they lose and we win it is doubly sweet. Also, maybe our rivalry is starting to get some more national attention. The announcers of our bowl game got a hint of it. They were like, "This morning there were a lot of cheers erupting in the lobby of our hotel as if the USC game had just started and we couldn't figure out why it was so loud. Then we got down to the hotel bar and we saw that Clemson had just lost. Man, there is some kind of hatred between South Carolina and Clemson." Damn right. We also got a shoutout in the Charlotte Observer in the list of top 10 sporting events in the Carolinas (ranked even higher than the Duke/Chapel Hill basketball rivalry). Now that we've got Spurrier, I'm predicting a new winning streak for the Garnet and Black.