Well, we couldn’t say that the outcome of Saturday’s game was entirely unexpected. If there was a year that USC was going to lose to Clemson, chances are it would have been this one.
In a season where a loss to a school like Kentucky might have not been the lowest point, we had to modify our expectations for the remaining games. (And it's not like we had loss after disappointing loss; there were a few bright spots like Georgia and Florida to keep us going.)
But there is a sense of closure to the entire proceedings. For five years in a row, we were propelled by a strong line-up and a few stars to win after win against our rival. We have seen some of the best years of Carolina football in history.
It’s hard to say that we’re not still competitive, statistically. From the year 2000 onward, the Carolina-Clemson record is a dead 7-7 heat. If we’re looking at our football program like a narrative arc, now we have something to prove again.
It’s not going to be stomp after stomp anymore: if we’re going to show that we’re competitive, we’re going to have to work for it. It's up to us to support the team.
And at least we’re still bowl-eligible. Mediocre as the season was in comparison to the last few years, this wasn’t the year where we were not eligible for a bowl game. It would have been the first time we weren’t eligible under head coach Steve Spurrier’s leadership.
And it’s as good a time as any to bring up the fact that college football isn’t everything USC has to offer, even sports-wise. We have the number one women’s basketball team in the nation, according to the AP poll. Women’s soccer just had their best season in history. Baseball is looking like it will have a good year.
We donated more blood to the Red Cross than Clemson six years in a row in the Carolina/Clemson Blood Battle, which is the largest collegiate blood drive in the nation.
These kinds of things matter because, in the end, USC's athletics program is more than a football team. And USC as a whole is more than a sports school, it's an institution of higher education, which happens to have sports teams that we tend to be proud of.