It wasn't enough that the series against East Carolina took forever to get started. It also took forever, it seems, to end. But end it did, and the Gamecocks are 2-1 after opening weekend.
And it ended with ... well ... Enders, appropriately enough.
So does the outcome of the first weekend make South Carolina better or worse than we thought? The pollsters say...
South Carolina (2-1) dropped from second to third in the Collegiate Baseball poll after winning two of three against East Carolina, but climbed from 12th to 10th in the Baseball America rankings. The Gamecocks fell from fourth to fifth in the writers' poll.
So there. The Gamecocks are in threnfth place.
Reese Havens, who should be a shoo-in for an All-Name team in college baseball, is the SEC Player of the Week. No pressure, but batting .500 the rest of the season would be nice.
On to UNC Asheville. Because this is college baseball, and anyone can put up a team. Even UNC Asheville. The game is set for 3 p.m. Wednesday. Nick Godwin gets the ball for the Gamecocks. Here's hoping the 7.71 ERA from last year was a function of few innings. And the metal bats. And, yes, that's my soapbox about college baseball, so you will hear quite a bit about it. Bats hitting balls are supposed to go "crack," not "clank."
It's hard for me to preview UNC Asheville, or any opponent, when they haven't played much. So they're a team. From North Carolina. Asheville, actually.
This weekend? The Tiggers come to town.
Meanwhile, in football news, it appears that Cory Boyd is moving up the draft boards like cooked crack. (Oh, c'mon. I had to use it at least one more time.)
The 6-foot, 213-pound Boyd was listed as one of the combine's top seven "risers" by SI.com after the New Jersey native zipped through the 40 in 4.51 seconds, putting NFL scouts and coaches on notice that there is more to his game than running over safeties.
"I felt I did OK. I wanted to run 4.4, but it didn't work out that way," Boyd said Monday from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he has been training. ...
Boyd is still viewed as a fifth- or sixth-round pick, according to one agent. ...
Boyd, seven pounds lighter than his playing weight of 220 pounds, is part of a deep running back class. Arkansas' Darren McFadden, considered the top athlete in the draft, Oregon's Jonathan Stewart, Illinois' Rashard Mendenhall and Texas' Jamaal Charles all ran well at the combine.
As a casual NFL fan, I must admit that the vagaries of the draft still elude me. It's interesting to hear some of the bizarre or outright idiotic statements that come out of Mel Kiper's mouth, but that's about all the entertainment value it holds.
Then again, go easy on the man. He has 48 hours to fill.
I do understand that this year's RB class is unbelievably deep and includes the man-beast Darren McFadden -- all this for a position that teams aren't eager to spend top draft picks on in the first place. But if Boyd goes in the sixth round -- or even late fifth -- and can avoid the personal problems we all know about, he should be a steal for somebody.
Then again, this is the NFL. The Mannings actually win championships there. So it's a bit different than college, no?