During College Football Rivalry Week, remember the rules of civility – and proper nose-picking.

Clemson or Carolina, Alabama or Auburn, we are all the same.

I watched with horror, as did millions of other fans, but there was nothing I could do to stay his hand.

There he was, our beloved national championship-winning Clemson University quarterback, Trevor Lawrence, that gridiron god with the Greco-Roman nose and long-flowing locks, the Beater of Bama, our Great Blond Hope – apparently picking his nose during a nationally televised primetime game.

Of course, the camera person stayed with it until the final nasal whistle of that ten-second clip during the September 2019 game against Syracuse, zooming us in to join him in fascination and dismay as our hero just kept fidgeting with that magnificent nose.

Afterward I did what every other Clemson fan was probably doing: I blocked out the embarrassment and focused on the fact that we won the game. I was fairly successful, too, until I logged onto social media the next morning to discover the taunting jokes, memes, gifs and other posts from our rival fans, the Carolina Gamecocks.

“Throwing a pick” had indeed taken on a whole new meaning, as did “going deep” for extra yardage and other lines I don’t care to recall.

Pick a side, honey, Clemson or Carolina?

If you live anywhere near the great state of South Carolina, tyou know that the Clemson Tigers and the University of South Carolina Gamecocks are longtime, and often bitter, rivals. It is a historic rivalry that rivals the Alabama-Auburn and Georgia- Georgia Tech blood feuds, and there was even a bench-clearing, helmet-stomping brawl one year that got both teams banned from bowl games and embarrassed our entire state. This feud is so heated that many South Carolina families are a house divided this time of year, and out in my neck of the country brothers, sisters and cousins have even been known to divorce over it. (Okay, there’s your backwoods, Southern redneck joke for the day.)

One of those nose-picking, mocking memes was posted by my Facebook friend, Tangie. Naturally, I was salty about it at first, as were other Tiger fans. But a few hours later, Tangie posted a meme making fun of her own team and the Gamecock coach. Naturally, I felt better. I realized then that Tangie, you good sport, you might be on to something.

For me, friendly wagers and jokes are all part of the fun. I love those wagers where old Bob must wear a rival jersey to work the next day because his team lost, or the winners plant their flag on the loser’s lawn, and there’s the jokes like the one about the Clemson football player being so lazy that he married a pregnant woman just so he wouldn’t have to put in any work. And then there’s this gem:

Why does the Clemson football team play on AstroTurf? Because their cheerleaders won’t stop eating the grass.

Smack talk, jokes, memes, mocking and ridicule are part of the modern game of college football, whether we like it or not. But some people go too far and things get too ugly, and that bad behavior needs to go the way of the extinct leather helmet. We should never lose the greatest elements of the game of college football, and that’s our spirited sense of competition mixed with a healthy dose of fun and laughter.

It took a Gamecock fan to remind this old Tiger that good sportsmanship and a good sense of humor are vital when it comes to cheering on those athletes and teams that we love so much. And it took a nose-picking incident to remind me that these young players are all too human and will make mistakes, many right in front of the cameras and our eyes, but hopefully they will all learn from these mistakes along the way. And keep a handkerchief handy.

Forging the rules of Facebook football

If only others on social media could share this philosophy. Since the rules of football appear to be well established, perhaps someone should step from the sidelines and forge the proper rules of social media etiquette as they apply to college football.

Perhaps we should implement a social media penalty system based on the actual penalties accessed in football. For example, suppose you suggest on Facebook that your Rooster is going to do something improper and immoral and violate someone's Tiger behind the barn (or vice versa). That would be considered a personal foul. On the football field such a foul would earn you a penalty of at least five yards, so in the cyber world such a transgression should cost you five friends or followers, to be unfriended at the spot of the foul.

On the field, if you throw a punch you are ejected from the game. When things start getting ugly and jabs are thrown on Facebook and X, perhaps someone should eject the violator from the Internet, and make you turn off your television as well. You can practice as our armchair quarterback on Monday, and if you straighten up and abide by team rules, we'll let you dress out and watch the game next Saturday.

In football there are penalties for acting too early (offsides) and too late (late hits, hitting out of bounds, etc.) Unfortunately, the same things happen on Facebook. Once the game is over, bragging and smack talking should be limited to only one week after the event, after which we all get on with our lives and stop being sore losers and unsportsmanlike winners. Any pushing, shoving, or chatter after that, and it will be considered a late hit or delay of game, which should result in ejection for the remainder of the college football season, during which time I think you should be forced to join an actual football squad and do three-a-days in the scorching August heat until you throw up your Gatorade and cry for your momma, like I did back in my high school football days.

So be a good sport and go ahead and laugh at the other team, but don’t be too proud to chuckle at yourself when the shoe is on the foot and embarrassment comes your way. Let’s all be better sports about the game of football, and the game of life, and let’s learn to laugh together.

And hopefully, our quarterbacks will learn to keep their nose-picking fingers in their pockets when there is a camera around.