The Feed Pail: August 14, 2012

TFP - You say you'll give me a highway with no one on it, a treasure just to look upon it.

Gamecock Football

Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger: South Carolina's promising Clowney has only scratched the surface.

Anderson Independent-Mail: South Carolina's Shaq Roland has one tough challenge ahead.

Aiken Standard: Salley looking forward to future with Gamecocks. I'm glad Kendric wants to battle for a roster spot, but with a crowded backfield and rehabbing a bad knee, I'd be shocked if he didn't wear a redshirt in 2012

Greenville News: USC's Hampton returns to practice and Former Gamecock Bass to headline Kickoff Party. Is the News paywall really and truly down?

Post & Courier: Speaking of CB's - South Carolina’s coaches believe Ahmad Christian will play important role.

Bart Wright: Pain of past fades at Gamecocks' Fan Day.

Bleacher Report: Alex Roberts posts: Evaluating the Gamecocks' Tight Ends and WR Play Will Greatly Impact Gamecocks' SEC Chances. Meanwhile, Kevin King writes South Carolina vs. Vanderbilt: Upset Alert! Careful not to repeat 2007and Marcus Lattimore, Others Good in Scrimmage.

Saturday Down South: SEC’s 5 biggest games of the year. Where does USC-UGA stack up?

CBS Sports: In fact, USC-UGA is one of the Ten games that could help determine the 2012 Heisman winner. What bizarro universe do we live in where Murray is the "top candidate" for the Heisman and Lattimore is a "dark horse"? Murray will be lucky to hold a clipboard in the NFL, while Marcus - if he remains uninjured - will be a first round draft pick. Also check out CBS's Preseason top 30.

Athlon: Guess which SEC team gets to play in # 7 of ACC's Must-See Games of 2012. It shows you had badly the ACC has fallen off when Clemson - who we've beaten like a rented mule for three years - plays in 6 of the top of 13 (5 of the top 10) and USC-CU is one of them.

The Sporting News: Marcus Lattimore, Knile Davis headline crop of recovered running backs.

Gamecocksonline: Gamecocks Practice Monday Morning - notes and post-practice interviews.

The Rubber Chickens: Tbone lets you in on a secret - The HBC and @ITS_DABO : Office Fridge Comparison. Who knew the HBC was a silver bullet man? While we're on the subject of silver - Buck has up "the Silver Episode" - TRC Unleashed Episode 25. Dang - what do we have to do to get a ducat to the TRC tailgate?

WIS: Wednesday night Gamecock scrimmage open to the public.

Recruiting and Loose Feed after The Jump!

Football Recruiting

Sports Talk Radio: Montravius Adams wants to visit USC and other recruiting notes. We're also on a commitment watch for consensus 4 star (Rivals, Scout, ESPN, 247) OL Tyrone Crowder of Rockingham. Will it be us ... or the Tigs, Dawgs or Pack? He's supposed to decide today.

AJC Recruiting: One of nation’s top defensive linemen narrows down to UGA and South Carolina . Yet another consensus 4 star (Rivals, Scout, ESPN, 247) on the watch list - Kelsey Griffin is from Hoschton, GA, right near I-85 and a hop-skip-and-a-jump from Athens. Looks like this one will be tight.

Loose Feed

Athlon: SEC Coaches Anonymously Scout Their Conference Foes. Some interesting gems - including this one: "When you play South Carolina, you have to stop 21 (Marcus Lattimore). Their gameplan was to turn and hand the ball to him. So from a scheme perspective, they weren’t that hard to defend." In the past two seasons, only three SEC teams have beaten us (Auburn, Arkansas and Kentucky). One of those coaches (Petrino) is gone. The other got a beat-down so bad last year (Phillips) that I doubt he would ever talk about defensing us. So a fortiori that means Gene Chizik is the source of that anonymous quote. Tarnation, the two things that has most p.o.'d me in the Spurrier era is (a) allowing Stephen Garcia to start the Auburn game and (b) not pulling Garcia at the half. Chizik is a smug sob - he couldn't scheme a defense for a sandlot game on his own (that was all Ted Roof); Aubie wouldn't have beaten us if Shaw had started that game - though its true Roof neutralized the heck out of Lattimore. Still the Chiz ought to stick with windexing his ill-gotten Waterford football and stealing slogans from Dabo ("All In") Swinney, not taking credit for the way his fired/kicked-to-the-curb/run-out-of-town-on-a-rail ex-DC schemed us.

Dr. Saturday: From the annals of the mentally disturbed (or B1G players who read too much of their own press), Michigan QB Denard Robinson thinks he could beat Usain Bolt in the 40. Robinson would not start at QB for any of the upper-division SEC teams. And, yes, that goes for South Carolina on both counts. (Confidential to Denard - UB ran a 2.89 40 meters split at the 100m Finals in London; even without the blocks, he'd smoke you; Bolt might even have a better arm).

NBC Sports: I hadn't seen that Greg Reid - the only man to cause Marcus Lattimore to give up a fumble in 2010 (much less a fumble for a loss) when he leveled Latti in the Chik-Fil-A Bowl (a perfectly clean hit, btw) - had been cut by Jimbo Fisher. He's now going to play at Valdosta State. The old driving-with-pot thing. Well, Dabo certainly doesn't see much of a problem with that - it only gets you a two-gamer at Pickens County High. Shoulda picked CU, Greg.

Crystal Ball Run: I took a pretty good shot at Lane Kiffin a couple of days back for the whole kerfluffle for voting Southern Cal #1 in the Coach's poll - but Lane says that his SID cast the vote (not at all unusual) and that USA Today created the controversy. USA Today comes across looking pretty petty. I still don't like Kiffin, however, but it looks like he got jobbed here.

AP: UNC reviewing possible post of Peppers' transcript. Oh, the rot is deep.

Cocky Country: From Chi-town, Katie say that Jeffery Continues To Impress Bears (And I’m Thrilled).

Windy City Gridiron: On that note, SB Nation sister blog for 'Da Bears asks Is Alshon Jeffery Ready For A Bigger Role?

Kansas City Star: At Florida, Spurrier made the SEC play catch-up.

Meet Me at the 50: Gridiron & Grits: What Not to Wear -- Football Edition. Ronda gives some sartorial advice, wherein she trashes my swell Gamecock-logo cords. Man, that hurt.