Just when you thought the Gamecocks had turned the corner and become a real, live football team, those awful Shamecocks show up instead to ruin the party.

Even Sports Illustrated displayed due caution, when it relegated its coverage of the Carolina win over Alabama (something which normally would entail several pages in a full article) to a college brief page. They knew better than to fall into that trap. One can only imagine what the roundtable discussion was like.

Editor: “Wow, what a win. We need to really play this up.”

Veteran Sportswriter: “Uh, you may want to re-think that chief. These are the Gamecocks. They are just as likely to lose to unranked Kentucky on the road this week as to beat Bama at home. They’re young, they turn the ball over too much and you never know which Garcia you’re gonna get from half to half. And if that Lattimore kid ever goes down what’s going to happen to the offense?”

Editor: “Yeah, you’re right. As great a story as this is with the surge in the East of the Gamecocks and Spurrier taking second place in SEC wins with a victory over Alabama we just can’t put ourselves in that position. We are a responsible news organization, after all, and handing the Gamecocks a spread at this juncture would be irresponsible and too great a risk. Let’s see if they can win an SEC road game they’re supposed to win.”

Seven days later …

Editor: “Whew, boy you sure did call that one. Thanks.”

Veteran Sportswriter: “Well chief, that’s why they’re the Gamecocks. They play like Superman at home and turn into the Tin Man on the road – no heart.” 

All jokes aside (and I’m not saying those conversations didn’t happen), what took place at Commonwealth Stadium on Saturday night was an absolute disgrace to the university and should be treated as nothing short of that. Anyone handling the matter as less than that is either a politician or a liar (and maybe both).

There are simply no other words for it. There is no positive spin which the radio folks and Gamecock executives may place on it. It was just a shameful disgrace. For it’s timing, I’d place this game right below the Navy game in 1984. That’s how bad this loss was.

The high and low experienced in the last seven days is why being a Gamecock fan is so hazardous to your health. A week after posting the biggest win in school history, with every television screen in the country screaming about a letdown that same team must now spend a week with Cock-A-Poo spread all over their faces.

And they have no one to blame but themselves. If they don’t like the vitriol that fans and writers will fire in their direction this week then look in a mirror and yell at him. 

Here are the painful lessons Gamecock fans learned from Saturday’s loss.

This team has all the talent in the world, the Alabama game has proven that. That excuse (a dearth of talent) may have sufficed in the past, but it no longer applies. And what many have debated online is really no argument at all – this team IS a one-trick pony.

With Marcus Lattimore, the Gamecocks are a Top 10 team capable of beating anyone in the country. Without him, they are an average football team which struggles to move the ball and which is capable of being overrun in the second half of a game which should have been cinched up at halftime. What the talented freshman did in the first half alone should have been enough to secure the win. But these are the Gamecocks. If the opposition doesn’t have what it takes to compete (especially on the road) they will give them what they need.

Kentucky won the game because the Gamecocks opened the door and welcomed them back into it.

The other concern for Steve Spurrier is perhaps more telling. This football team has no leader and has no heart – unless it’s being kept on life support by 85,000 garnet-clad fans at Williams-Brice Stadium. Unplug that lifeline and the Gamecocks drift around aimlessly like they did on the Bluegrass on Saturday night.

For all his obvious talents, quarterback Stephen Garcia (or anyone else, for that matter) had every opportunity to grab the reins of leadership last night and instead passed. The brilliant throws he makes the receivers can’t catch (Ace Sanders), and when the receivers are open he flubs the pass (to Maddox). The sequence in the first half when he overthrew a wide open Maddox that would have been a touchdown and then followed that up with an interception was classic Garcia – sending Gamecock fans rushing for the Maalox again.

And so the image we are left with is a desperate Steve Spurrier over at the trainer’s table as the final minutes wind down, begging a freshman football player for just one more series of plays to help save his team from ultimate embarrassment.  

The coaching staff calls timeout after a first down, Garcia throws a pick after targeting a freshman receiver who is being double covered and the Gamecocks lose, becoming the laughing stock of the entire nation. Sometimes, being a Gamecock football fan is akin to having the power of foresight – you see a train wreck coming a week away but are powerless to stop it.

All of which leads me to the point of this column. I have resolved never to watch another Gamecock football game. Ever. That’s right. I have reached my breaking point.

I don’t care if they win the remainder of their games this season (which they won’t), I don’t care if Marcus Lattimore rushes for 20 touchdowns and 1,500 yards (which he might), or if Stephen Garcia suddenly finds his heart and a crown in the back of his locker and becomes the leader the team needs (at this point, highly unlikely). I am done. 

I’m done with the anger, the frustration and the terrible headaches I get after most games. I already take medication for high blood pressure and watching the Gamecocks has become too much. My wife doesn’t deserve the rage. My kids don’t deserve to live with a strange father for several hours on Saturdays. I wish them the best, but I’m moving on. There are other things more important to me than riding the Gamecock-Shamecock Roller Coaster.

Perhaps they will truly turn the corner someday soon. I hope so. The fans certainly deserve better than this sort of national humiliation. But I won’t be watching.

Call me a fair-weather fan if you want (and my brother will), but I know better. If you think Saturday was the last time the Gamecocks pull this sort of maneuver the Joke(r) is on you.

Besides, I’d rather have my health.