CLEMSON — On Tuesday morning, the University of South Carolina’s official athletic account on X took a dig at Clemson.

Now, it did not say Clemson by name in the 56 second video, but it was obvious what the content creator was doing. I am not going to waste my time describing what the people in Columbia were trying to do, you can just watch below and see for yourself. But the basis of the post is that Columbia is better than little ole Clemson, S.C.

And that is fine, they can say what they want. However, after watching it, I appreciate it a little bit because it gave me the idea to write this column.

If I was one of Clemson’s content creators, and I was petty, like the good folks in Columbia appear to be, I know what direction I would go in as a reply. In fact, I am going to go in that direction.

The funny thing is Clemson loves Columbia just as much as the Gamecocks do. However, Clemson just likes to visit it every other year, if you know what I mean. Just for a few hours.

After all, it is Clemson’s temporary home, and it has been since the start of the rivalry. Basically, Clemson goes to Columbia every year to collect rent.

Sure, South Carolina is trying to make fun of the little ole agricultural school in the Upstate of South Carolina. It is so cool to laugh at the farmers and try to make themselves seem like the superior school.

The reality is the University of South Carolina could not handle being the agricultural school of South Carolina. The school did such an awful job of it, the state had to open a land-grant college to provide practical, accessible education in agriculture, science, military science, and engineering. That college was Clemson College, now known as Clemson University.

When Clemson first opened its doors in 1893, the University of South Carolina was crippled, as federal funds for agricultural education from the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act and the Hatch Act of 1887 were transferred from the University of South Carolina to Clemson.

South Carolina’s enrollment plummeted, as the school lost its university status and became a liberal arts college. It took the school 13 years to regain its university status.

In 1892, South Carolina started playing football, a year before Clemson opened its doors for classes and four years before it started playing football itself.

One might think that four-year head start gave the Gamecocks an advantage over the folks from little Ole Clemson College, and in that first year, those city slickers did. However, Clemson rallied to win the next two meetings and has not trailed in the series since that first year.

By the way, Clemson loves Columbia so much the Tigers went back the first 57 times in the series and won 33 of those meetings, which was known as “Big Thursday” in those days. In case you are wondering Clemson owned a 33-21-3 record on Big Thursday.

Clemson’s love for Columbia has continued since the two agreed to start playing home-and-home matchups in 1960. Since then, Clemson has won 22 of the 33 matchups in Columbia and has an all-time record of 55-32-3 in the Capital City of South Carolina.

Since 1977, the year Jerry Butler made the greatest play in the history of the rivalry to lead Clemson to victory and back to national prominence, the Tigers are 19-6 at Williams-Brice Stadium, including wins in each of the last six meetings there.

So, yeah, Clemson must agree with South Carolina’s post on Tuesday.

Columbia is a great place. It’s a great place for Clemson to come and win a football game, where it has won 63 percent of the time and 76 percent of the time since Butler’s miraculous catch.

It’s crazy to think, but Clemson loves going to Columbia too.