I think all of the fans and players are scratching their heads and still trying to figure it out.
When Carolina was at 6-1 and ranked 6th in the poll, I don't think any realistic Gamecock fan thought that they were really the 6th best team in the country. After the Georgia win, all the teams in front of Carolina kept losing and they kept moving up in the polls. The schedule is light on the front and heavy on the end. The Vandy loss was the killer. I don't think anyone thought Carolina had a chance against Tennessee, Arkansas or Florida. They played close at Tennessee and against Clemson this weekend. Arkansas exposed an extremely weak run defense (rushing for 500+ yards) and Florida/Tebow picked up where McFadden/Jones left off.
Carolina was about a 7-8 win team at best this year and was fortunate to get Georgia early in the season before they got rolling.
I'm not giving up yet as there appears to be a fair amount of young talent on the team. We'll see what happens in the next couple of years, but as we all know, it's tough as heck for a team to crack into the top three in the SEC East.