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8 THE GAMECOCK ♦ Friday, October 4, 2002 ^ 1 (yjyj p g ^ ipjpDULE ■ "V ■ 'V r | 'l / ^ WOMEN’S GOLF at Lady Tar Heels Invitational in Chapel Hill, N.C., CONTACT I TS I_} m I I F I WOMEN’S TENNIS in Lady Gamecock Classic, Friday-Sunday I I ■ I ^ I . WOMEN’S SOCCER at Kentucky, 7:30 p.m. Friday Story ideas? Questions? Comments? I ^ F B B ILl VOLLEYBALL at Arkansas, 8 p.m. Friday E-mailusatgamecocksports@hotmail.com ■ B B FW FOOTBALL vs. Mississippi State, 1 p.m. Saturday HOMECOMING PHOTO BY TRAVIS LYNN/THE GAMECOCK Corey Jenkins, right, and the USC football team will play Mississippi State this Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium. To see who has the edge in the Homecoming matchup, visit www.daiiygamecock.com. USC returns to Wilhams-Brice Mississippi State at USC 1 p.m. Saturday Williams-Brice Stadium Radio: WTCB '106.7 BY BRAD SENKIW THE OAMBG0CK This weekend’s theme at USC is Homecoming, and being back at Carolina might be just what the Gamecock football team needs. The Mississippi State Bulldogs are set to come into Williams Brice Stadium on Saturday for what figures to be a game be tween two SEC opponents look ing to gain momentum. USC has won the last two meetings between the schools, in cluding last year’s first national college football game after Sept. 11. The Gamecocks won the game 16-14 behind fullback Andrew Pinnock’s 93 yards rushing. In 2000, Carolina had a his toric second-half comeback in which backup quarterback Erik Kimrey threw a touchdown to Jermale Kelly for the 23-19 win. USC (3-2,1-1 SEC) will be with out several starters this week, however, as the offensive line fights injuries and linebacker Lance Laury is out with a knee injury. Darel Slay will fill in for Laury, and the offensive line will rotate several players off the bench. USC head coach Lou Holtz knows that injuries could play an important role in the outcome of Saturday’s game. “Looking at Mississippi State, they have always played us very well in the past, but they present more problems this year then ever before,” he said. “You know (MSU defensive co ordinator) Joe Lee Dunn is go ing to come at you from every angle possible. “We have been fortunate the last two years to have some sem blance of an offense with experi enced people. Now, we have to replace three people on the of fensive line, and going up against them seems a bit unfair. Pass protection and running with 60 percent of a new offen sive line is difficult.” The Bulldogs (1-3,0-2) are com ing off consecutive losses against SEC West opponents LSU and Auburn. LSU rolled over them last week with a 31-13 victory that included a 256-yard rushing day for the Tigers. Mississippi State’s quarterback Kevin Fant managed only 122 yards and threw two interceptions. But MSU comes into the sea son with the second-best pass de fense in the conference and the fifth-best in the nation. Its vaunt ed defensive corps is led by linebacker Mario Haggan, who leads the team with 56 tackles. “They are one of the top pass defenses in the conference,” Holtz said. “That is for two reasons: They get tremendous pressure and have good cover people.” The Bulldogs offense is led by the passing game, which aver ages 239 yards per outing — fourth in the SEC. Holtz also knows that stop ping the pass will be tough. “Offensively, I think it is a bet ter offensive team with Kevin Fanf at quarterback,” he said. “He “Pass protection and running with 60 percent of a new offensive line is difficult.” LOU HOLTZ use FOOTBALL HEAD COACH is a tall guy with a very good touch. “They have two great re ceivers in Terrell Grindle and Justin Jenkins. (Justin) Griffith is their fullback and a very excel lent receiver out of the backfield.” Mississippi State head coach Jackie Sherrill feels his team has not played consistently this sea son and knows that is part of their struggle. “We have not played 60 min utes yet,” Sherrill said. “We have played for two or three quarters, but not a full 60 minutes. The consistency is just not there for us yet.” Saturday’s game is scheduled for a 1 p.m. kickoff at Williams Brice Stadium. “It’s good to be back home,” Holtz said. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecocksports@hotmail.com Sorting the unemployed MLB managers MATT ROTHENBERG GAMECOCKSPORTS@HOTMAIL.COM No skipper’s job is safe when his team doesn’t perform well enough. It’s that time of the year again in the world of Major League Baseball — the time when more I heads start rolling than did in revolutionary France — and I’m not talking about some New York Mets’ reactions to marijuana, ei ther. Rather, what I’d like to discuss are the recent firings of numerous MLB managers, such as the Mets’ BODDy vaienune to the Rangers’ Jerry Narron. This season, there have been 14 man agers let go, in cluding three in terims, and that number may Valentine grow yet. You see, the managers can be separated into different cate gories depending on the reason for their dismissal. For starters, there are the man agers fired for being on a losing team filled with guys who are ei ther washed-up major leaguers or glorified minor leaguers. Usually, there are one or two veritable All Stars, but, for the most part, these clubs are hopeless and usually end up in last place. This is a sad group that in cludes Tampa Bay’s Hal McRae, the Brewers’ Jerry Royster and Detroit’s Luis Pujols. All three of their teams played pathetically over the course of the season, and all finished with the three worst records in baseball. While just a minor facet of his demise, Pujols got royally screwed when his best pitcher, Jeff Weaver, was dealt to the Yankees for nothing. True, while they are members of “small market” franchises, all three teams were realistically, if not mathematically, eliminated from the playoffs before the All Star Break. Even the Tigers and Brewers rid themselves of their original managers — Phil Gamer and Davey Lopes —when man agement knew the future looked bleak. Next, there are the managers who get the hook when their teams, an amalgamation of high ly talented, generally overpaid stars, end up looking worse on the field than they do on paper. When these clubs underachieve, it is a sure bet that the manager is go ing to get the pink slip. Sure enough, Valentine and Narron received theirs this week. The Mets, who went on a spend ing spree last winter, got poor sea sons from guys like Jeromy Burnitz, Roger Cedeno, and Robbie Alomar among others. In Texas, Narron got a great year from A-Rod, but not much else from the rest of the team — no one had more than nine stolen bases all season. When Kenny Rogers is your best pitcher, you know you have problems. Perhaps both of these managers didn’t deserve all the blame, for a lot Rogers of it should go to both their players as well as front offices. When a team spends mon ey, it’s best to spend it wisely. But who knew? Most of the time, it’s the manager whose job is finished. Then there’s Bruce Kimm, for merly the interim skipper for the Chicago Cubs. He falls into the category of “the manager who was put into a situation where the organization just needed some one decent to run the team for the remainder of the season to ensure a finish higher than last place.” He’ll surely get another posi tion within the Cubs organiza tion, but with parts of the team performing well and others not, Kimm’s departure was almost as sured of happening. Another category is those man agers who see their season end by July or even sooner. Eight skippers got that treatment this year. The list includes Don Baylor (Chicago Cubs), Lopes (Milwaukee), Gamer (Detroit), Tony Muser (Kansas City), Charlie Manuel (Cleveland), Buck Martinez (Toronto), Buddy Bell (Colorado) and Joe Kerrigan (Boston). Most of these dismissals real ly came as little or no surprise to anyone. Most of these clubs were performing poorly in the first few months of the season and some, like Muser, were running low on remaining chances to get the most from a team that was never expected to be a serious con tender in the first place. The Blue Jays and Indians, though, still finished respectably, and the managerial changes were likely motivational if anything. Kerrigan falls into a rare class, though. He was fired during spring training and replaced by Indians’ coach Grady Little. Not many managers are let go during March, but the new Red Sox own ership had other ideas. After ex general manager Dan Duquette was let go, there were few people who thought the owners would al low Kerrigan to stay. Despite finishing in second place this season under Little, Boston should have given more of an opportunity to Kerrigan, who was the interim manager at the end of 2001. It’s hard to spec ♦ ROTHENBERG, SEE PAGE 9 Men’s soccer gets another shot at Tigers Gamecocks haven’t beaten their archrival since 1995 LJ at No. 11 USC 2 p.m. Sunday The Graveyard BY KYLE ALMOND THE OAMECOCK The USC men’s soccer team, for all its success the past decade, hasn’t beaten Clemson in seven years. But history doesn’t matter to Carolina goalkeeper Michael Bachmeyer. “Every year is different,” Bachmeyer said. “Our team is dif ferent than it was last year; their team is different. Yeah, we think about it, but I think we’ve put that by us and are focused on this year.” A wise choice, considering USC has lost six matches and tied one since winning 3-2 in 1995. The Tigers have owned the Gamecocks both in Clemson and Columbia, and they’re looking to keep things status quo Sunday when the rivals meet at the Graveyard for their an nual matchup. Making the game even more in triguing, both teams are having great seasons. The Tigers (6-1-1) are ranked ninth in the country by the NSCAA, and the Gamecocks (7-1-1) are ranked 11th. USC was ranked third in that poll before losing its first game of the season this past weekend. The Gamecocks fell 1-0 at Davidson on Sunday. “Davidson’s a tough team; they’re always tough to play at home,” Bachmeyer said. “We had the better end of the play, and we had our chances ... but they put one away, and that’s just how soc cer goes. It was unfortunate. Guys were disappointed, but I think it helped to refocus the team.” Head coach Mark Berson also hopes the team has learned a valu able lesson from the Davidson de feat. “The key to that game is going to be the key to this game on Sunday,” Berson explained. “I thought we created enough good A-* _ _ w Will U1C game, but we weren’t able to fin ish. And that’s a very important fac tor — we have to be able to finish.” Carolina re ueiveu <x uttgc l/xvxw this week when Berson one of its top fin ishers, transfer forward Ricky Quest, quit the team for personal reasons. Quest, the former Junior College Player of the Year, was the team’s third-leading scorer. “Everybody was pretty shocked at first,” Bachmeyer said of the team’s reaction. “But I think ev erybody has refocused and real ized that, hey, we have to go on without him.” Berson said: “Everyone has to pick up the slack a little bit. Everyone has to work harder. This happens, whether it’s through injury or anything else — through the course of the season, you very rarely finish the year with everybody intact.” Berson said the losing streak, along with any psychological edge the Tigers might have on his team, isn’t the main thing he’s worried about. “We have a lot of young players, and I think our concern at this point is that some of our players ♦ SOCCER, SEE PAGE 9 SEC FOOTBALL Dye: Georgia can’t slow down Alabama (AP) — Just in case the hype for Saturday’s Georgia-Alabama game wasn’t hot enough, former Auburn coach Pat Dye fanned the flames — and then some — during a radio interview earlier this week in Birmingham, Ala. Rather than just stop at pre dicting that host No. 22-ranked Alabama (4-1,1-0 SEC) would beat seventh-ranked Georgia (4-0,1-0) in their SEC showdown, Dye launched this missive: “I don’t be lieve Georgia’s man enough to beat Alabama.” Dye repeated that statement twice when prodded by radio host Paul Finebaum, the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer reported Wednesday. “Alabama is gonna line up and run the football and they’re gonna play defense and I don’t believe Georgia is man enough to beat that,” Dye said. The words hit Georgia players like a sledgehammer. “Wow! That one hurts,” senior offensive tackle Jon Stinchcomb told the Ledger-Enquirer on Tuesday. “That’s a bold state ment. I guess we’ll find out Saturday. It stings a little bit when you hear your team is not man enough. That has some bite to it.” Added defensive end David Pollack: “The former head coach for Auburn said that? That’s in teresting. He’s not dressing out, is he?” “There’s a million coaches out there in the stands who don’t dress out and think they know what they’re talking about,” Pollack told the newspaper. “Everybody is entitled to their opinion. We’ll see what he says afterward.” Dye, a former Georgia player, could not be reached for further comment by the Ledger-Enquirer on Tuesday. His remarks were the basis for the first question for Georgia head coach Mark Richt at his weekly press conference Tuesday. “That would be good stuff (for the bulletin board),” Richt said with a smile. Dye said the Bulldogs’ most re spected opponents thus far, Clemson and South Carolina, “ain’t close to what Alabama is, and those were both close football games.” ♦ SEC, SEE PAGE 9 Standings eastern conf. overall Florida 2-0 4-1 Georgia 1-0 4-0 use 1-1 3-2 Kentucky 0-1 _ 4-1 Tennessee 0-1 3-1 Vanderbilt 0-3 1-4 WESTERN CONF. OVERALL Auburn 2-0 4-1 Alabama 1-0 4-1 Ole Miss 1-0 3-1 LSU 1-0 3-1 Arkansas 0-1 2-1 Miss. St. 0-2 1-3