By MONTE DUTTON

My lingering memory of South Carolina’s 47-21 victory over Furman wasn’t on the Williams-Brice Stadium surface. It was in the postgame media conference.

Hugh Ryan, the Paladins’ much-decorated safety, sat there in anguished agony. He’d had a rough night. A lot of football players with Spencer Rattler on the other side of the line of scrimmage do.

Ryan is from Irmo the town and Dutch Fork the high school. His high-school team went 41-1 and won three state titles in his final three seasons.

Carolina didn’t offer him.

Ryan is a Furman man, rehearsed in the obligations of an athlete. He answered every question, two of which asked him to reminisce about Dutch Fork. He straightened his face and answered cogently. At the end of the ordeal, he thanked everyone for coming, as did Joshua Harris and head coach Clay Hendrix.

“We’ve got some issues on the defensive side that we need to get fixed,” Ryan said. “They came to the forefront. They showed us things that we’ve got to get better at.

“It was an awesome atmosphere. Starting the way we did, it was pretty cool. I wish, especially our defense, played a little better, but, yeah, it was a cool experience.”

It’s a reason why scribes like covering the Paladins. It goes back to Art Baker by memory and Bob King by intuition. Coach King used to trot around the edges of the field during practice, wearing a gray sweatsuit with Furman in purple block letters on the chest. He’d stop, get his breath and exchange pleasantries. He was the kind of man prone to calling people “young fella” because most of them were, by comparison.

“Elite Is the Standard” is a Furman slogan, and its athletes seem to have pondered it a bit. At the very least, they know how to put up a brave front. It’s hard enough to shake hands and interact with a team that has defeated you. Having to talk at length about it requires shifting into yet another dismayed gear.

Harris was disarmingly honest about his 51-yard completion on an option pass to Kyndel Dean.

“We practice it all the time,” Harris said. “I threw it and knew it was a duck, but I got enough power on it. After I threw it, my head fell down, and I looked, our sideline, everybody was cheering, so I knew he caught it.

“I felt good about it, but it wasn’t my best throw.”

That last sentence, the compound one, sums up the morning-after view of the whole night.

Good for the Gamecocks. They needed it. Shane Beamer needed it. Next up is the two-time reigning national champion. At its place.

Next up for the Paladins, by the way is a trip to Kennesaw State, which could almost be considered another FBS opponent because the Owls are transitioning to it in the ASUN in preparation of joining Conference USA next season.

As for South Carolina, the number of fans and so-called experts nationwide who thought the Paladins could win was certainly in less than the 10^th percentile. They were right. The team believed it could do it. It wouldn’t have been so bitterly disappointed otherwise.

Now it’s time to go back to work.

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