On an early summer day on Madeira Beach, Fla,. Stephen Garcia was hanging out at Mad Beach Brewing with his brother, who’s the head brewer there. While they were having a couple of beers, a few people wearing Alabama hats rolled into the bar.

Garcia knew what that meant. He was about to take a stroll down memory lane.

“We just start shootin’ the s— a little bit and they’re like, ‘Ah, yeah man. I remember you back then.’ It was all they wanted to talk about,” Garcia told SDS over the summer. “Obviously, it was a hell of a game.”

That game Garcia is referring to was the 2010 matchup between No. 19 South Carolina and No. 1 Alabama. Garcia led the Gamecocks to the upset of defending national champions, who were the obvious preseason pick to repeat. When the Crimson Tide travels to Columbia for a rare crossover against South Carolina this Saturday, it’ll have been almost 9 years since Garcia’s 17-for-20 performance stunned Alabama. It’ll be the Crimson Tide’s first trip back to Columbia.

Since that loss, Alabama won 79 consecutive games against non-top 15 teams (not to mention 4 national titles). That was the last time that Nick Saban lost to an SEC East team, as well.

But that day, Garcia’s up-and-down career at South Carolina reached its apex. Nine years later, he’s still rocking the beard and he’s still asked about the Alabama game. A lot.

Ask Garcia about it now, and the ever-transparent former Gamecock quarterback will gladly take a stroll down memory lane.

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“Stephen Garcia has been on a short leash with Steve Spurrier. That doesn’t seem to make him unique. But no matter who starts at quarterback, it’ll be Garcia or Connor Shaw, the freshman, either one is gonna need some help from other guys.”

Verne Lundquist’s first words about Garcia on the CBS broadcast were that of complete uncertainty. In South Carolina’s previous game, Garcia was pulled for fumbling twice in the 4th quarter in a loss against Auburn. While publicly it wasn’t known for sure that Garcia was starting, he knew he had the nod in the 2 weeks leading up to Alabama. According to Garcia, he found out he was still starting on the plane ride home from the Auburn loss.

On the outset, it might have seemed like it was a pressure-packed couple weeks of practice with Alabama coming to Columbia. Apparently it was just the opposite.

“I talk about it all the time. People say, ‘How was Spurrier different that week?’ Honestly, that was the most care-free and relaxed that he ever was in the 4-plus years that I played for him,” Garcia said. “Tuesdays were usually our ball-bustin’ days where we’re full pads and hitting. Then he came out and said, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna take it easy this week.’ I feel like that relaxed mode really went with my personality.”

It turned out to be Garcia’s favorite week of practice at South Carolina. There was a method to Spurrier’s madness heading into the showdown with the loaded Crimson Tide.

“It almost felt like (Spurrier) knew we were gonna get our asses handed to us,” Garcia said. “So he was like, ‘Eh, just go out there and we’ll see what happens.’ That’s the vibe I was getting. I was like, ‘Man, is he alright? What’s goin’ on over there?’”

While Garcia might have wondered what was going on in the HBC’s mind in practice — and most other times — they couldn’t have been more in sync come game time.

Perhaps it was a good omen when Garcia marched the Gamecocks right down the field with a 4-for-4 opening drive that ended with an 18-yard touchdown pass to freshman sensation Marcus Lattimore. To that point, Alabama had only allowed 3 touchdowns in its first 5 games.

It was already a far cry from what Garcia did the previous year against Alabama when he went 2-for-17 on 1st and 2nd down and South Carolina was held to 6 points. Gary Danielson criticized Garcia on the broadcast for not being able to hit those easy throws in the 2009 game. Danielson did everything but say that was the reason South Carolina lost in Tuscaloosa.

But whatever zone Garcia locked into in Columbia, it worked. Everything worked.

He threaded the needle and hit Tori Gurley on the right sideline. He hit swing passes to Lattimore in the flat. He stared down future No. 3 overall pick Marcell Dareus — Garcia didn’t mind contact because he admittedly was “heavier than a lot of the linebackers in the league” — and delivered an absolute dime over the outstretched arms of first-team All-American Mark Barron for an Alshon Jeffery touchdown.

“It’s pretty easy to get the job done when you’ve got a player like (Jeffery) on the outside,” Garcia said.

And, well, it’s pretty easy to get the job done when you can do no wrong.

Garcia and Jeffery connected 7 times for 127 yards and 2 touchdowns, which all but ended Danielson’s pregame claim that Jeffery was “the best receiver you’ve never heard of.”

It wasn’t just the connection with Jeffery that highlighted Garcia’s career day. It was the use of his legs. That 1st quarter touchdown pass to Jeffery only happened because the previous play, on 4th-and-2, Garcia escaped what looked like a failed conversion attempt and turned it into a 7-yard run.

Garcia was so on that even his mistakes turned out to be smart plays.

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As Garcia recounted the 2010 Alabama game during a phone conversation, he walked in his living room to recreate a key moment of that game. It was the first play of the 2nd half with South Carolina leading 21-9. Lined up in the shotgun on his own 19-yard line, Garcia slowed the cadence because he saw Alabama defensive back DeQuan Menzie trying to time the blitz on the weak side.

The problem? Sophomore center T.J. Johnson wasn’t in sync with Garcia like Spurrier was. Garcia said he didn’t see the snap until the last second, which was already too late. The ball sailed past Garcia and he didn’t pick it up until he was on his own 5-yard line. But instead of trying to throw the ball away, Garcia threw the ball through the back of his own end zone (it actually hit the goalpost).

Alabama got a safety and Garcia got a tongue-lashing from the HBC.

“I come out and Spurrier’s just frickin’ rippin’ me a new one,” Garcia said. “I had some choice words for him, as well.”

The CBS broadcast crew sided with Spurrier. They couldn’t fathom why Garcia elected to give Alabama a safety instead of trying to throw the ball away. “First down, just fall on the ball. You can’t punt the ball,” Danielson said in disbelief. Lundquist added “the leash got tighter. I don’t care if you have hit 3 touchdowns.”

The following Monday at South Carolina’s film session, Spurrier spoke in front of the team. He completely changed his tune on Garcia’s decision to take the safety.

“(Spurrier) is like, ‘Yeah, I just want to apologize in front of the whole team to Garcia because that was the play of the day. In my opinion, that saved the game,” Garcia said. “And I was like, ‘It’s about damn time.’”

That play wasn’t the turning point Alabama was looking for. It might’ve prevented Saban’s squad from making an interception or even getting a short field and scoring immediately.

The Alabama offense — the one with Julio Jones, Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson and Greg McElroy, who hadn’t lost a game he started since middle school — never got rolling. The smallest South Carolina lead in the 2nd half was 7 points. Alabama couldn’t even capitalize on Garcia’s 4th-quarter interception, which was a rare drop from Jeffery on what looked like an easy 3rd-down conversion.

Nope. The day belonged to Garcia and the Gamecocks.

A broadcast that began by questioning how much Garcia would play ended with Lundquist calling his performance “brilliant.” It was the first and only time in school history that South Carolina took down No. 1. South Carolina is the only SEC team that has an active winning streak against Alabama.

Throughout the past decade, Garcia fielded his fair share of calls from opposing coaches in search of an edge ahead of a game against Alabama. They all wanted to know the secret ingredient to taking down Saban.

“They’re like, ‘What was the game plan? What did you do differently?’ And I’m always like, ‘I didn’t do anything differently at all,’” Garcia said. “If anything, the rest of my career was different stuff. Spurrier trying to micromanage everything and trying to get me to be a robot. That’s just not who I am. I’ll never be that kind of guy.”

There’s another obvious question Garcia gets about 2010.

“What did you have for breakfast that morning? And have you had that every day since then?”

Surprisingly, Garcia’s pregame omelet “with literally everything in it” with some yogurt and oatmeal hasn’t necessarily been part of his everyday routine since that 2010 game.

And while his roller coaster career didn’t turn out as he or Gamecock fans hoped — he was kicked off the team the following season for testing positive for marijuana and alcohol following his 5th suspension — Saturday will mark a new chapter in the relationship between Garcia and South Carolina.

Garcia will lead the Gamecock Chant in the rematch with Alabama. We know plenty of 2010 shots will be played in the 2019 CBS broadcast on Saturday, too. If South Carolina fans have it their way, Ryan Hilinski’s first career start against an FBS team will play out much like Garcia’s career day in 2010.

As he closed the book on 2010 during an interview over the summer, Garcia answered one more question as only he could.

“What was the best thing about that day that people didn’t see watching it from home that you still remember?”

“Ah, man,” Garcia said. “Probably the afterparty.”