As Clemson game nears, bragging rights still on the line for Gamecocks faithful
The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “To live is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”
For University of South Carolina football fans — a tribe to which I’ve belonged all the days of my life — the 2025 season has perhaps hemmed a little too close to ol’ Friedrich’s thoughts. We’ve suffered through a season of close losses, blown leads, botched fake punts, fired assistant coaches and damnable calls by the refs. I would swear the fried chicken at the tailgate even came up short this year, but that’s more of a personal problem.
The Gamecocks enter the final week of the 2025 season with a record of 4-7, having failed to even get to the six-win mark needed for bowl qualification. It could perhaps be tossed aside simply as a disappointing campaign (Lord knows we’ve had a few of those here through the years) if not for the crushing weight of expectations USC carried into the season.
Coming off a 9-4 record in 2024, the Gamecocks were pegged as a national contender heading into Coach Shane Beamer’s fifth year at the helm. USC was ranked No. 13 in the preseason Associated Press and coaches’ polls, and quarterback LaNorris Sellers entered the year as a Heisman Trophy contender.
Alas, USC saw its hopes of larger glory dashed amid a murderous SEC schedule, and found its offense stuck in neutral for large swaths of the season under (now departed) offensive coordinator Mike Shula. Going from playoff hopefuls to missing a bowl in three months has been a case of whiplash for a famously loyal fanbase.
The healing balm of rivalry ‘bragging rights’
But there remains in front of us one last shot at redemption. A matchup that, while not offering complete absolution, bears the possibility of washing away a number of sins, should the Gamecocks find themselves on the winning side.
Indeed, the South Carolina-Clemson game is upon us. (And yes, I call it the South Carolina-Clemson game, or simply the Carolina-Clemson game. No real fans have ever uttered the words “The Palmetto Bowl.”)
Coach Dabo Swinney and his Tigers come to Columbia for a noon kickoff on Saturday, marking the 122nd meeting in this storied rivalry. And while USC has struggled to find its footing this season, Clemson will arrive in the capital city after a campaign filled with its own frustrations and foibles. The Tigers were ACC champions and College Football Playoff participants in 2024, and came into 2025 ranked No. 4 in the AP poll.
But the Tigers, too, have stumbled more than expected in 2025, and will enter Williams-Brice Stadium this Saturday with a 6-5 record. Good enough to qualify for a bowl, certainly, but that’s not the standard Swinney has set for the Tigers’ program through years of elite finishes.
So, with no titles at play and no playoff hopes on the line, Saturday’s Carolina-Clemson game represents, perhaps more than any other in recent years, the chance to capture for the fans the most simple of treasures: bragging rights.
And believe me, even now, more than 120 years into the rivalry, bragging rights are still a thing. Yes, fans fire off digital missives onto X or Facebook or any number of message boards in real time, as the games are happening and in the moments just after. But the real pleasure in bragging rights after a rivalry win comes in knowing that, for 365 days, you can walk into the office or the factory or the auto repair shop or your favorite diner and lay down some smack.
A rivalry win also help the jokes land a little easier. You know, like the one that goes, “Why did the Clemson fan stare at the orange juice carton for hours? It said ‘concentrate.’”
(I’ll be here all week. Try the prime rib.)
And so, we look forward to one last Saturday in the sunshine at Williams-Brice Stadium in 2025. One last Gamecock Walk, as the players march into the stadium through the throngs of adoring faithful in Gamecock Park. And fans in garnet and black and their neighbors in orange and purple will break bread together at the fairgrounds or at Seawell’s or at old Olympia School, commiserating over lost seasons and hoping their side will secure the one ephemeral trophy that lasts for just 12 months. Good, old-fashioned bragging rights.
See y’all at noon on Saturday.
Chris Trainor is a retail reporter for The State and has been reporting for newspapers in South Carolina for 21 years. Views expressed in this column are those of the writer only and do not represent the newspaper’s opinion.
