Get over it

The fans who stuck around at the end of Saturday’s win over Tennessee Tech and paid attention or maybe saw the finish on CSS might have been the only ones who noticed, but it didn’t look like Tech coach Watson Brown was too happy with the Gamecocks after the game.

JSU quarterback Matt Hardin hooked up with Maurice Dupree on a 68-yard TD pass with 8:38 to play and the game well in hand, and Brown was noticeably upset about it.

The first thing Crowe did when he went to shake hands was tell Brown the post wasn’t called. Brown shook his head, kept Crowe in the embrace and whispered something to him, then pointed towards the scoreboard.

It was first-and-20 and the Gamecocks called a play that was designed to just move the ball. Was it the quarterback’s fault the safety wasn’t where he was supposed to be?

Hardin’s a fifth-year senior and trying to show he’s still a viable quarterback despite losing his starting job in Game 3. It was just like freshman quarterback Taurean Rhetta taking advantage of an opportunity to impress when he read and threw a 41-yard pass to Josh Moten late in a one-sided 2004 victory at UT-Martin that got Skyhawks athletic director Phil Dane all fired up.

"The point I made (to Brown) was we didn’t call a post route," Crowe said. "It was the standard route in that situation.

"Matt’s got great eyes. You don’t sneak up on Matt. He does it every day (in practice)."

It was the second week in a row Hardin came in and did something impressive. He guided the Gamecocks on a 99-yard touchdown drive in front of a national TV audience at Austin Peay Oct. 11.

"I thought Matt was in total control of all the strategy that we were trying to apply in the moment the ball was snapped," Crowe said of that drive. "It was a conversion drive and Matt was 100 percent. That was a Matt Hardin drive.

"Matt is a football person. He has committed himself that he’s a Gamecock and he’s doing everything he can. It’s no easy thing to do what Matt Hardin is doing. All it tells me is this guy’s going to be highly successful after football. He wants to be a coach; I’ll hire him."