From July 9:
As promised, I will be addressing a question of interest to college football fans each week until the start of the 2005 season. For this week's question, I turn to matter of local concern and will attempt to address the following inquiry, which has been the source of much offseason buzz, both in the Southeastern United States and at the Bristol, Conn., headquarters of E.S.P.N., which, evidently, is Spanish for "The Steve Spurrier Channel."
The question, of course, is this:
Will Steve Spurrier be able to take South Carolina to the next level?
Yes, he will.
However, we must remember that "the next level" is a relative term. If you get onto an elevator at the ninth floor, "the next level" is the tenth floor, but, if you get onto an elevator in the lobby, "the next level" is the second story. The Gamecocks are boarding the elevator in the basement.
Over the whole course of their football history, the Palmetto State Poultry have been able to claim the twelfth-best tradition in the Southeastern Conference. The only reason South Carolina ranks as high as twelfth is because Georgia Tech left the conference in the '60s, although the Gamecocks might have surpassed Tulane had the Green Wave stuck around. Maybe.
South Carolina won a league title in 1969 in the pre-Georgia Tech, pre-Florida State, pre-Miami, and pre-Virginia Tech A.C.C. In the only conference championship season in school history, the Big Chickens posted a 7-4 record, lost the Peach Bowl, and were blown out by the Bulldogs, 41-16, in a non-conference game.
After that, the Gamecocks put together a solid season in 1984 and managed to steal what should have been the first of Herschel Walker's three Heisman Trophies when, in 1980, George Rogers (a Georgia native whose position coach was a University of Georgia graduate) walked away with the hardware. Aside from that, though, the East Coast U.S.C. has so little about which to brag that they consider a recent 17-7 run "the glory days."
Yes, it's true that South Carolina came close to being a solid team last season. The Poultry fell just short a few times along the way, losing to Georgia by four, falling to Ole Miss by three, and hanging with Tennessee for much of the game. The Gamecocks' 6-5 season easily could have been a 9-2 campaign.
Close, though, doesn't count. In 2004, another Eastern Division squad with postseason aspirations dropped its fair share of nailbiters along the way, losing to Ole Miss by three, Navy by three, Rutgers by three, Kentucky by one, and Tennessee by five.
That team was Vanderbilt. The 2-9 Commodores lost five games by five or fewer points and led the Rebels, the Midshipmen, the Scarlet Knights, and the Wildcats in the third quarter of games in which they came up short. Vandy missed a 7-4 record by that much last year. Does anyone think an offseason switch from Bobby Johnson to Steve Spurrier would have put the 2005 Commodores in contention for an S.E.C. title?
Many college football fans consider Steve Spurrier a miracle worker for what he accomplished in Gainesville. While, obviously, the Evil Genius brought unparalleled success to his alma mater, it isn't as though the Gators were entirely lacking in laurels when the Ol' Ball Coach returned home.
The year before Darth Visor made his debut as U.F.'s head coach, the Gators' leading rusher was Emmitt Smith. Just five years prior to Steve Superior's arrival on the Florida sidelines, the Gators had been ranked No. 1 in the country during the regular season. (They lost to Georgia the following Saturday, 24-3, but that is a separate conversation.)
In the ten seasons immediately preceding Coach Spurrier's return to Gainesville, U.F. attended seven bowl games, won eight or more games five times, won seven or more games eight times, and never finished below .500. In the seven seasons between 1984 and 1990, the Gators finished first in the S.E.C. standings three times but were denied the conference championship by N.C.A.A. sanctions.
In short, the Florida program was a sleeping giant in 1990; the same cannot be said for the South Carolina program today. The Gamecocks may be as lawless as the Gators once were, but South Carolina has yet to contend for a league championship or even a division crown. In the tumultuous decade just prior to the Evil Genius's hiring at U.F., the Gators accomplished more on the field than the Gamecocks have in their whole history.
It is fair to say that Steve Spurrier will take South Carolina to the next level, just as his two immediate predecessors did. Brad Scott took the Gamecocks from being consistently awful to being only usually awful. Coach Scott even managed to lead South Carolina to its first bowl victory.
Lou Holtz, playing Annie Sullivan to the Gamecocks' Helen Keller, raised the S.E.C. East also-ran from being usually awful to being sporadically mediocre. Coach Holtz came to Columbia with a most impressive resume, but his stay in Gamecock country served mostly to remind us that Lou is the first syllable of loser. What does it say that the most successful head coach in the history of the program had a career record hovering around .500 over his tenure there?
Now, Coach Spurrier is poised to knock the lid off of the program by guiding South Carolina from sporadic mediocrity to consistent mediocrity. Gamecock fans, get ready for a steady diet of 6-5 seasons and prepare to breathe the rarefied air of being a perennial bowl bubble team. Dare to dream of spending the postseason in Nashville or, with a few lucky breaks, even Shreveport.
Let's get serious here. South Carolina is a consistent fourth-place finisher in a division that includes three great programs (Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee) and two lousy programs (Kentucky and Vanderbilt). The Gamecocks could get a lot better and still not be able to finish in the top three in the East. By the same token, they could get a lot worse and still not slip as far as fifth place.
South Carolina is competing with the middle of the Western Division pack in its efforts to move up in the postseason pecking order, but that's about the extent of it. In 1990, the Gators were ready to growl, but, in 2005, South Carolina is just being cocky.
But perhaps I am selling Georgia's division rival short. One day, probably one day soon, two or three seasons down the road, Steve Spurrier will have the South Carolina Gamecocks playing beneath the roof of the Georgia Dome . . . in the Peach Bowl, where some team from the upgraded A.C.C. is going to take the title sponsor's advertising slogan to heart and eat more chicken.
Anything beyond that, though, is just wishful thinking in Columbia, the epicenter of college football's Bermuda Triangle.
Go 'Dawgs!
