If Notre Dame has the luck of the Irish, then the Gamecocks have the fate of Odysseus. Often while traveling I will get asked, "Isn't pulling for the Gamecocks sad?" I always respond the same way. "No! Pulling for the Gamecocks is not sad, it's tragic."

There's a huge difference.

You see, pulling for Rutgers or Tulane is sad. The Gamecocks, on the other hand, always make their heroic rise to good fortune and give everyone hope that something great will happen. Then those same hopes and dreams are dashed by some cosmic outer force that is seemingly uncontrollable.

This year that would be the loss of Stephen Garcia, the loss of Kyle Nunn, and most devastating of all, the injury to Marcus Lattimore. Their response to that "fate," if you will, will determine their success or failure. In the past, they have usually brought about their own downfall. But this year's team is different.

What Homer would call fate, and what the Gamecock fans would call the chicken curse, this year's team calls bull malarkey!

The 2011 Gamecocks have quietly worked their way back into the top 10 in the polls after an early fall from grace delivered by their Achilles' heel, Auburn. No national media outlet has given these Gamecocks a chance. They have all ignored the fact that Arkansas was lucky to beat Vanderbilt and Ole Miss in back-to-back weeks, and in their usual biased, ridiculously incompetent ways, have all picked Arkansas to roll past the Gamecocks with ease.

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