Comments on: Carolina Backup QB Reinstated, Spurrier Flippant About Incident

By: auburn1159

auburn1159 — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 23:51:19 +0000

look at Coach Spurrier’s comments after the gamecocks practice on Saturday (August 11) on gogamecocks.com and he states that he can have a beer after practice and then drive home – then he thinks about it and kinda trails off – and says something to the effect of well I think I am allowed to do that and then he goes on to state if the athletic director wants to handle it more strictly than maybe they need to find them a new football coach ….

By: auburn1159

auburn1159 — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 23:46:24 +0000

I am a Spurrier fan but was disturbed that he defended the right to drink a beer and drive if you are not legally intoxicated – not sure what the laws are in each state but most states frown on the idea of drinking and driving – irregardless of the quantity …

By: RoadTrip

RoadTrip — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 18:44:39 +0000

@SEC fan I agree – love the “anus with a visor” comment. I hope Dooley will stop short of that stuff if he is successful. Would rather he exude class than fecal matter.

By: John at MrSEC

John at MrSEC — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 17:40:51 +0000

@SEC fan @Gomezaaaa

Hardly unsubstantiated when I get it from people inside the Tennessee football complex.

Discipline is discipline in my view. Coaches who make light of discipline issues — whether it’s an arrest at Carolina or vandalism at Tennessee — are asking for more discipline issues.

I’ll support you on your point that Dooley doesn’t take shots at other schools. I’m not big on coaches doing that… be it Mullen at Ole Miss or Spurrier at, well, everybody. But I mad that clear in the original post.

John

By: SEC fan

SEC fan — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 17:15:29 +0000

@John at MrSEC @Gomezaaaa
Wow John, lots of unsubstatiated rumors and hearsay there in your reply. Thought we were discussing suspended players for arrests, which I would not equate with yelling at coaches or dumb posts on Twitter (maybe you would). For the record, Janzen Jackson was suspended by Kiffin, then reportedly failed drug test in off season, was off team for several months, supposedly went home and got his life straightened out, returned and then was kicked off team by Dooley. Myles and Clear, both starters, were not suspended, but kicked off team after arrests for serious charges. Bray and Rogers not arrested or charged with a crime though both obviously did stupid things. Anyway, was just appreciating that you called Spurrier’s remarks dumb and pointing out that player arrested was not suspended when an SC fan tried to shift focus to Dooley. Again, at least he doesn’t publicly take shots at other schools and for that, I am thankful. Have a nice day.

By: John at MrSEC

John at MrSEC — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 16:04:42 +0000

@SEC fan @Gomezaaaa

No, I mean big-time starters like Janzen Jackson who got 20 chances under Dooley before finally failing so many drug tests that the University of Tennessee booted him, not Dooley.

I mean guys like Da’Rick Rogers who yelled at his coach on the sideline during a game last year — you don’t see that much in the NFL, much less in college — skipped out on some workouts, Tweeted about transferring to Georgia State, etc.

I mean guys like Tyler Bray who’ve been in repeated scrapes on Knoxville’s Cumberland Avenue and who the coach himself said had made “lifestyle changes” over the summer… just a week before he vandalized a car (and the witness to that event suspiciously had her own car vandalized a day later).

That’s what I’m talking about. And whether you choose to believe it or not, some of the assistants that flew Dooley’s coop this past offseason did so in part because they felt Dooley allowed his star inmates to run the asylum. That double-standard was also discussed by a number of last year’s seniors as they exited Tennessee.

Doesn’t mean Dooley can’t coach or won’t win. Just means there’s a track record of star players getting very, very lenient treatment from the head coach… to the point that some players and some assistants had a problem with it.

John

By: SEC fan

SEC fan — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 14:28:12 +0000

@John at MrSEC @Gomezaaaa
Do you mean guys like Darren Myles and Cameron Clear?

By: AM a Carolina fan

AM a Carolina fan — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:16:19 +0000

@NOT a Carolina fan Under South Carolina law, DUI for someone under 21 is .02. So one beer would count in the Palmetto State as well.

By: SEC fan

SEC fan — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 02:05:19 +0000

@RoadTrip one difference is that Dooley is young enough to grow out of it and to my knowledge, has never taken potshots at other schools and coaches, unlike the “anus with a visor” who is old enough to know better but too arrogant to care.

By: RoadTrip

RoadTrip — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:16:30 +0000

Maybe Dooley and Spurrier get along well for another good reason. They have the same attitudes about their players’ misdeeds. Both situations are a similar problem. The USCe QB did something against the law, got caught at it, and brought bad press down on himself and the program. Just because Tyler did not get charged, he might as well have been since it became public, he admitted doing it, and he agree to restitution. Those actions are probably what kept him from being charged. Spurrier and Dooley are reacting the same way. They blow it off as stupid and tell them to get back to practice. Don’t think either one of them handled the press after the fact very well at all. But with Spurrier you have an accomplished top head coach doing it. He gets away with it. With Dooley you have what appears as a smart aleck lawyer with a poor head coaching track record saying it. If he has another lousy season it will be used against him as another excuse to say goodbye.

By: SEC fan

SEC fan — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 21:50:33 +0000

Thank you John for calling a spade a spade! Spurrier commonly shoots his mouth off criticizing other teams and/or poking fun at problems at other schools kind of like a cocky 8th grader who just won a kickball game. This is why fans of other schools consider him an arrogant jerk and why some media members love him as a “good quote” even if what he is saying does not reflect the truth. With regard to Dooley and Tennessee, think if you look at his record of discipline from a completely unbiased view, he has suspended or disciplined a number of players, both starters and reserves, pretty evenly in the past. His remarks about Bray’s incident, however, were as stupid as Spurrier’s. He just didn’t jab any other teams in his remarks, so at least I am thankful for that.

By: John at MrSEC

John at MrSEC — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 19:44:03 +0000

@AllTideUp @NOT a Carolina fan

North Carolina has a DUI law. But the state apparently also has a law that says underage drinkers can’t get behind a wheel whether they’ve had one beer or 20. In other words, the legal limit for underage drivers is zero-point-zero.

McEvoy had something to drink and then got behind the wheel. So his being underage did have something to do with the arrest.

John

By: AllTideUp

AllTideUp — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 18:40:54 +0000

@NOT a Carolina fan I’m not familiar with this particular law. I saw that John said it wasn’t a DUI so that made me think the arrest was related to his being underage.

I’m still a little bit confused by this. Unless NC prohibits someone from drinking at all before they drive then I’m wondering what the basis of the arrest was. I thought all states had a legal limit even though some are smaller than others.

By: John at MrSEC

John at MrSEC — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 17:19:57 +0000

@Gomezaaaa

Agree, sort of. Only two things make this situation different. 1. Tyler Bray wasn’t arrested and McEvoy was. 2. I was on vacation when Bray started throwing bottles. If not, you’d have read right here that Derek Dooley shoudn’t say “we take these matters seriously” in one breath and then joke about his quarterback’s throwing accuracy the next.

And Dooley has a history of looking the other way when his star players get into trouble.

John

By: Gomezaaaa

Gomezaaaa — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 16:59:36 +0000

At Tennessee a player can drink underage and commit felony destruction of property twice and Dooley will be even more flippant. Bray wasn’t suspended for even a minute.

By: GABirdDAWG

GABirdDAWG — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:46:14 +0000

LMAO He’s had that attitude towards his players for decades now. He doesn’t give a crap about those players. Ain’t but one person Coach “Throws like a girl” cares about and that’s Coach “Throws like a girl” Nothing is surprising about this.

By: NOT a Carolina fan

NOT a Carolina fan — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:45:10 +0000

@AllTideUp The law is not a definition of underage drinking. The law that he violated was that he drank before driving.

By: John at MrSEC

John at MrSEC — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:28:31 +0000

Ian…

Exactly. This is not the end of the world, but it was not handled very well, either. The backlash may require USC’s new AD or Spurrier to have to backtrack and say, “We take these type things seriously,” but I doubt anything too bad will come of it.

The coach needs to be smart enough to know how to handle this after so many years in the game, though. Especially if he’s going to lob discipline jokes at other schools.

Spurrier always seems to talk bigger and a little looser when he’s winning. That makes for good press conferences, but it also means he’ll occasionally put his foot in his mouth.

Thanks for reading,
John

By: AllTideUp

AllTideUp — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:24:25 +0000

So South Carolina doesn’t have a law that says an underage person can’t drink? What would the term ‘underage’ mean then? And pretty sure every state restricts drinking to 21 although I want to say Louisiana is an exception.

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:07:54 +0000

As a Gamecock fan and alumnus I totally agree with the article. Of course college kids are going to drink. But I think Steve Spurrier would have been wiser to navigate around this question from the reporter. Something like that is better left unsaid. I am worried about the backlash.