Satisfaction

As fans of the South Carolina Gamecock football team, the Rolling Stones' song "Satisfaction" is a work of non-fiction.  "[We] can't get no satisfaction."  "And [we] try . . . and [we] try."  What will it take for the 2010 season of Carolina Football to give you the satisfaction we all desire? 

In a year where the Gamecocks are as talented as they've been in a long time, perhaps ever, the expectation level has risen in Columbia.  Seven regular season wins won't cut it.  There simply has to be progress made this year.  We cannot continue to sell ourselves as a program on the cusp of becoming a perennial SEC contender when we are stringing together seven win seasons and losing bowl games.  We are desperate for eight wins, but does that quench your Carolina desire for 2010?  8-4 and a trip to the Chick-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta versus UNC, perhaps, with a win moving us to 9-4?  If that record included our second win in a row over Clemson, I'll find myself feeling pretty good.  The problem with that, however, is that means that we've completed a .500 (4-4) season in conference.  That hardly displays that we're challenging for the title bout in Atlanta. 

Very optimistic Gamecock fans are whispering about a ten win season.  That's a tough road to hoe.  It will mean we've beaten everyone we're supposed to beat, and that we've managed to go 3-2 versus Georgia, Auburn, Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida.  Tough, but not impossible.  10-2 (6-2) sure looks pretty, and would include a potential trip to Atlanta.  This, I contend, will satisfy the masses and impress even the national pundits who claim we'll never get over the hump.

What about a nine win regular season?  The middle ground of where I feel we may fall.  9-3 (5-3) with a Capital One type bowl appearance.  This would be a great season by Gamecock standards and most definitely shows promise.  Anyone who pulls for Carolina would have a hard time not being happy with a year of this magnitude.

The latter two scenarios, nine and ten win regular seasons, both mean we've already reached or can reach double-digit victories in a year; something that's only happened one other time in our history.  The former, eight wins and a bowl win that gives us nine, is a good year.  8-5 won't do it for me, though.  If we only get eight during the regular season, I believe we have to win the bowl game to consider it a year where we've truly made strides.  We're simply too talented to have a 4-4 in-conference year, or, worse, a 5-3 SEC record with a loss to Clemson, and then a bowl loss.  The taste we'll all be left with at the end of the season won't be a good one.  We'll sit around and talk about how if this would have happened, or if we'd have done better here, or there, etc.  You get the point.  I need 9-4 to be "satisfied," and I'd be thrilled with more (Honestly, the 9-4 scenario, in my opinion, will be best served by a 9-3 (5-3) regular season with a close loss to a very good football team in a highly regarded bowl game). 

What's your satisfaction bar?