If you've heard Steve Spurrier talk about Nick Jones since the senior wideout came to Columbia in 2010, then you've probably used to hearing him called "Nicky." Well, Steve Spurrier has apparently taken it a step further and begun calling him "Governor Nicky," according to Josh Kendall of The State. You see, Nikki Haley is the governor of South Carolina and Nicky and Nikki are homophones. What additional references might Spurrier still append to the 5'6 receiver's existing nicknames? At this rate, it's not inconceivable that the HBC might end up calling him something like Governor Nicky Sixxpence None The Richard Pryor. Still, this is not the greatest logical leap that Steve Spurrier has taken in assigning a nickname to one of his players.

Would you rather fight a Spurrier-sized gamecock or 10 gamecock-sized Spurriers? It's an important question. So, naturally, Brandi Mills of The Big Spur put it to several Gamecock players and coaches at South Carolina's media day. Stick around for the end when she talks to the coaches. Watching adults squirm over how to answer a ridiculous hypothetical about fighting their boss makes for great entertainment.

A plurality of the 288 South Carolina internet users polled for this Reddit map hate the Gamecocks more than any other team. Only 266 of the 7,866 total voters hate South Carolina the most, which come to a meager 3 percent of the total votes. Interestingly, 16 percent of the total responses, the most from any one state, came Georgia.Only 71 respondents (one percent) are particularly worried about Clemson. All in all, I'm not totally sure what to make of this.

After practice on Wednesday morning, Steve Spurrier provided injury updates on Busta Anderson and JT Surratt. He explained the thought process behind having the Gamecocks run the Oklahoma drill during practice on Tuesday evening.

Senior quarterback Dylan Thompson talked to the media about his Thor shirt, errant snaps from the centers, and the toughness of the 2014 Gamecocks.

Shortly after South Carolina's Sunday evening practice session, Gamecock placekicker Elliott Fry tweeted this picture of a broken windshield near the Proving Grounds on Bluff Road where South Carolina holds football practice. The absence of a subject in either of the sentence fragments associated with the tweet prevent us from knowing if it was Fry himself who did the damage or one of his teammates, but the more fun thing to do is assume that it was Fry. This tweet continues a strong run of social media activity this offseason for the Groza Award watch list member. Let's hope this is just a preview of the carnage he intends to rain down upon the SEC during the 2014 season.

A nice piece from Dan Wolken of USA TODAY Sports, discussing the amazing fact that Steve Spurrier sits on the cusp of coaching more seasons at South Carolina than he coached at Florida, as he enters his 10th year in Columbia.

Sandstorm on a toy trumpet? Uh, YEAH.

Watch this video to get yourself in the correct frame of mind for kickoff on Aug. 28. It gives you everything you want from a highlight video -- specifically, highlights (take notes, GamecocksOnline) -- while telling the story of last season and setting you up for the major themes of the upcoming campaign. I got chills. (via Jeff Tyner of GamecockCentral)

A nice read on the Gamecock great, and I did fine reading it until the fourth paragraph, where they mentioned Sterling Sharpe and Robert Brooks, and then I just got very sad. On a completely unrelated note, I used to referee rec league basketball in Columbia, and one afternoon got assigned to a girls basketball game coached by Sterling Sharpe, staring his daughter. Two things stand out for me from this game: 1) You forget how huge professional athletes are until you're near them. Sterling Sharpe played WIDE RECEIVER, a position that affords opportunities to some of the smallest men on the football field, and he dwarfed me. And I am not a small man. 2) It was not hard to figure out which of the 10 children on the floor was related to Sterling Sharpe. His daughter was comically larger than the other players.