Steve Spurrier has been close to the leading the Gamecocks to the SEC title. Is this the year South Carolina breaks through? (Jeff Blake-USA TODAY Sports)
As a self-confessed college basketball junkie who has just as much fervor for the college pigskin this time of year, I love the college football media days, especially in the SEC, the grand-daddy of them all. This comes despite the basic coach speak about each team, the state of the conference by the commissioner, and what are mostly well-coached ways for the athletes to answer the questions of the myriad of what was 1,200 credentialed media in the Wynfrey Hotel in Birmingham this week.
Why all the love on July 17? To pin-point, Steve Spurrier is at the top! At 68-years old, the Ball Coach is still as refreshing as he was in 1988, when he declared his Duke Blue Devils the winner of the ACC upon a tie for the league crown with Virginia. That was because they beat reigning champion Clemson; not Virginia. The Cavaliers had beaten Duke in the regular season, but fell to the Tigers.
It was in 1988 when I first saw a Spurrier-team live. Duke was 5-0 and in a humid, hostile Clemson venue for a showdown-type of affair. The Blue Devils had beaten Tennessee in Week Two, 31-26 in Knoxville, so there was definitely hype. I arrived at the stadium long before the gates opened just so I could make sure I saw Spurrier run on the field with his team — and conduct pregame warm ups.
When he came out of the tunnel, he didn’t disappoint. I loved the swashbuckling style, the royal blue sleeveless golf sweater, and of course, the visor. He had a presence that controlled the field, even with Clemson’s great Danny Ford near the end of his Tigers’ career. But Duke was hammered that day. I think the 80,000 Tigers fans plus the Blue Devils never having played in that environment with a 5-0 record and some expectations could have been a bit too much mentally.
Spurrier closed out a short three-year career in Durham with a 20-13-1 record, which led the beleaguered Devils program into a bowl game at the end of that third year. No Duke coach has even approached his success there. Oddly enough, the All-American Bowl appearance was in Birmingham, in the middle of one of the Meccas of college football that would get to know the Ball Coach all too well over the next 23 years and counting (minus two in his NFL trial with the Redskins).
Spurrier landed at his alma mater in 1990 at Florida and, consequently, I became a huge Gators fan, and the rest is history. I love the man’s bravado and mantra. I love the way he wins, the ingenuity, and ability to draw up a “ball play” in the middle of the fray. Covering the Gamecocks during his tenure told me what I knew already – the man absolutely exemplifies class and the confidence that everyone should have in any industry.
The Gators had only one SEC title, oddly enough, in his Heisman season of 1966, and then from 1991-2002 Steve Spurrier would orchestrate the Golden Era of Florida Football.
His calling card in 1990 became the 17-13 win over Alabama in his first SEC contest. It was only his second victory as the Gators’ coach. They parlayed that into the No. 1 spot in the SEC, but Tennessee won the conference crown because the Gators were ineligible due to some indiscretions from the previous regime.
From there, the roll of Gator success bourgeoned. There were 11 straight bowl bids and UF disassembled hated rival Florida State, 52-20, for the 1995 national championship. It also won six SEC titles plus eight Eastern Division crowns.
Spurrier’s teams were fun to watch— and still are. You never knew and still don’t know what he might be drawing up right there on the sideline as he watches the opponents’ defense at eye-level.
Now, at South Carolina, the Gamecocks have never seen the recent run of success that they are currently under in the school’s history. South Carolina has only one league title (1969 in the ACC). And although it hasn’t won an SEC championship under the Spurrier regime, you have to look at the landscape of the SEC when he came to Columbia in 2005. At that point, this miraculous run over seven consecutive national titles for the league’s teams was starting to cook quickly.
The Gamecocks had back-to-back 11-win seasons for the first time in their history in 2011 and 2012. Spurrier is blowing away Clemson for in-state signees, plus South Carolina has had the upper hand on Georgia and Florida since Spurrier arrived.
His idea on recruiting at USC is to win the state first and then move over into Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina. He noted that the Palmetto State has four-and-a -half million inhabitants while the Atlanta-metro area has five-and-a-half million. With this philosophy, it is easy to see how he blows away the Tigers in-state plus holds his own with the Bulldogs in the Peach State.
Looking at this season, USC is picked as high as No. 3 in the nation in some magazine polls. The key is schedule navigation. Opening with two border wars, at home to North Carolina and at Georgia is a tough task.
Florida comes to Williams-Brice Stadium on Nov. 16 with the SEC East title possibly on the line. In addition, there is no Alabama, LSU, or Texas A&M on the schedule. The key is not to get tripped up in a three-game SEC road slate over three weeks in October which sees the Gamecocks go to Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri.
Could this be the season that South Carolina wins the East and then the SEC Championship game in the Georgia Dome, which would squarely put them in national title contention?
“Well, the last three years, we’ve been sort of up there in the hunt,” summarized Spurrier, “We got there three years ago, fell flat on our face against Auburn. Then the last two years, we were one game away maybe from getting into the SEC game, so we’re sort of knocking at the door. But we need to win those crucial games and see what happens.”
