Palmetto Proving Grounds

This is a great topic. I appreciate the insight as I wondered about this subject too. Thanks for explaining it.

Our best Era in football prior to now was with Carlen and Morrison as independents.

I believe it did hurt basketball, although we had some damn good independent teams. Moving from the ACC didn't hurt as much as losing Roche and Owens to graduation. Still, independent basketball programs were showing up in the final four and were on national tv a ton.

thats right on point.

Its funny how the years scramble things. First tobacco road ran the conference. The Grosso matter was an attempt by the ACC to keep USC in check on the basketball front. After going undefeated in the ACC during the regular season, the year before they won the ACC tournament, NC schools were going nuts. Roche beat Charlie Scott out for POY honors and hate ran rampant in both states. For history buffs, the treatment of USC players and coaches at NC schools was abysmal. Football got into the act, Jackson and Solomon were not admitted because they did nit meet the ACC standards. This is half right, the other part of the story is that schools could petition the ACC for "special admit" status. Deitzel, was told Solomon would be allowed to enrol but by the time he got home the ACC had reversed itself. To add to the misery it was reputed that UNC had more special admits than all the other ACC schools combined. In any case USC and the NC schools were playing by a different set of rules. I hate that I did not get to see Freddie play college ball because he may have been the best high school player SC has ever had. His passing was sad. Getting out of the confernce did hurt USC, but people do not remember the ACC would play USC in football for the paycheck, but refused to play USC in basketball. I for one do not want to play the ACC schools in anything and prefer to let them rot in their own juices.

People also forget that both UNC and Duke were recruiting Grosso. Both UNC and Duke were pissed that we were even part of the equation in his recruitment particularly Eddie Cameron at Duke. Grades were not a problem for them if he had decided to go to either of those schools because they would have given him a "special admit status". His grades only became an issue for both those schools when he chose Carolina. Typical ACC. Nothing has changed in that conference. Both UNC and Duke still run it but UNC is and always has been first among those two wrt calling the shots.

Pretty ridiculous comment.

You don't have to hate the SEC or love the ACC to realize that USC suffered quite a bit by leaving the ACC and was extremely fortunate to land in the SEC.

Pretty much everything we said we wanted was instituted shortly after we left. We left as champions and were irrelevant for the next twenty years. Meanwhile Clemson stayed and became a national brand and dominated us head to head in both sports remaining in the ACC.

Those fortunes did not reverse until we joined the SEC and began to truly capitalize on what the conference membership brought us.

I think USC would have been much better off in the ACC than as an independent. I think the leaving was mostly a bunch of useless big talk and bad blood that people sort of refurse to acknowledge was a mistake because South Carolinians don't really tend to admit mistakes.

Also it ended up ok with us in SEC, so they can point to the end result, which had almost nothing to do with the reason for leaving, as validation.

Given that your stating the obvious, that leaving the ACC was a disaster for USC, has devovled into a third-grade playground "if you think leaving the ACC was a mistake, you love the ACC," game, I'm willing to play that silly game too.

In the 18 years that USC and clemson played together in the ACC our record against the taters in football was 9-9. In basketball we led them 28-15.

In the first 18 years we were an independent while the taters stayed in the ACC our record against them in football was 5-12-1 and in basketball it was 10-19.

Read that two or three times and let it sink in.

So, by #1Gamecock's logic, it's fair to say that "if you think USC leaving the ACC was a good thing, you love the taters."

And BTW, since it hasn't been pointed out yet on this thread, we left the ACC in May of 1971 over the 800 rule. Just 15 months later, in August of 1972, in response to a suit by two clemson students, Judge Robert Hemphill ordered the ACC to stop enforcing the 800 rule.

Leaving the ACC saved us a grand total of ONE football recruiting class under the 800 rule. Brilliant move on our part wasn't it?

I don't know. You'll have to ask Big Frank.

Broke Lefty's jaw....love it.

That is correct. I believe it was Riker who went to work on the Maryland player on the floor, Lefty ran to his player's aid (that was before Lefty stated using his special chair with a built in seat belt), got shoved back by Riker and cold cocked by Ribock That's the way I recall it, but not sure if it was Riker doing the job on the Maryland player.

In may be my Carolina fan genes, but I also recall the Maryland player on the floor threw the first punch . But in fairness, our guys were true NYC street fighters; I knew a couple in the dorms. Although Ribock was the exception (I believe he was from Georgia), he was known to run an active hard-elbow spa in his area of the floor.

He blew out his knee...prior to the time that surgery was at all successful.

One of the things that really hurt our basketball program noone has mentioned was the recruitment of Brian Winters. Al McGuire wanted us to take his son, Allie and allow him to take Winters. Al had the support of the high school coach and Frank would not agree to the proposal. We got Brian but Frank lost his pipeline and was never able to recruit the elite players again.