Steve Spurrier isn’t worried about tiebreaker scenarios.  After destroying Georgia at home his Gamecocks have gone on a two-game slide losing at LSU (close) and at Florida (not so close).  Now his South Carolina team will need to win out while Florida loses out if it’s going to reach Atlanta.

The Ol’ Ball Coach said yesterday that he’s not worried about such issues.  According to The Charleston Post & Courier, Spurrier said, “I’m pulling for Florida (against Georgia this weekend), but I think it’ll be a close game.  I’ve got my own problems around here trying to make a first down.”

Only then was Spurrier informed that Carolina actually needed Georgia to win Saturday’s game with the Gators in Jacksonville.

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South Carolina redshirt freshman quarterback Tanner McEvoy has been arrested, charged with speeding, and charged with driving after consuming while under the age of 21 (that’s a lesser charge than a DUI, by the way).  Per USC’s policy, McEvoy was automatically suspend as a result of his Sunday arrest in North Carolina.

This probably wouldn’t make major news outside of the SEC if McEvoy weren’t following in the footsteps of former Gamecock quarterback Stephen Garcia.  Because he is, McEvoy’s arrest has gotten a bit more pub than one might expect.  The “Garcia Curse” has already been mentioned by NBCSports’ college football site.

Personally, I think it seems a bit quick to jump to that conclusion.  One arrest and suspension does not equal five suspensions.  Same position, same team, but not the same person.

From a football perspective, McEvoy was expected to compete to be the #2 man behind Connor Shaw during fall camp.  Depending on the length of his suspension, the competition he’ll get from others, and Spurrier’s view of his decision-making, his chances of landing that gig might have just taken a hit.  Again, that depends in large part on how strongly Spurrier feels about the other signal-callers on his roster.

In 2008, South Carolina passed the ball 452 times and ran it 403 times.  In 2009, USC’s offense passed the ball 402 times and ran it 409.  In 2010 — with Marcus Lattimore arriving on the scene — the Cocks tossed 389 passes and ran the ball a whopping 522 times.  Last season, the passes were down to 317 while the rushes jumped to 553.

Spot the trend?

As anyone who’s paid attention can tell you, Steve Spurrier has learned to win in an different way from his old Fun N’ Gun Florida days.  If you want to know the mark of any good coach — or businessman, for that matter — it’s the ability to reinvent oneself and change with the times.  Most coaches can’t do it.  The greats can.

Paul “Bear” Bryant threw out an offense that had won him three national titles, replaced it with a wishbone and went on to collect three more championships.  There’s a reason Spurrier’s visored mug would be carved alongside Bryant’s on an SEC Mt. Rushmore of coaches.  He’s proven that he can adjust and adapt.  He’s gone from a pass-first coach to a run-first/play-good-defense kind of leader.

And it sounds like you can expect even more running from the Gamecocks this year with Connor Shaw at quarterback:

“We’ll probably be more of a running team, play defense, pick your spots to throw the ball.  That’s not a bad formula.  A little different that I’ve coached int he past.  As all of us know, you can win a bunch of ballgames doing it that way.”

Spurrier’s proving that he can win a bunch of games in two different ways.  That’s impressive.  As was the way he switched up last year’s offense to utilize more zone-read plays when Shaw took over for Stephen Garcia.

When Spurrier was hired, a Carolina fan who happens to be a friend of mine said that at least USC football would be fun to watch.  But instead of being competitive in high-scoring games, the Cocks are winning grind-it-out affairs.  It might not be as exciting as watching 50 passes per game, but those winning is a lot more fun than just being competitive.

1. South Carolina as national championship contenders? Dennis Dodd: “Once you get past Alabama, LSU, Arkansas and Georgia in the SEC, Carolina is one hell of a fifth option. Not just for the conference, for the national championship.”

2. South Carolina will use last year’s loss to Auburn as motivation.

3. Maybe it was losses to the Tigers that had Steve Spurrier forgetting Cam Newton.

4. Scott Rabalais:  ”There ought to be a Steve Spurrier channel.”

5. What to expect from South Carolina quarterback Connor Shaw this fall: “I’m not going to take my legs away me, but I’m definitely going to rely on my arm more.”

6. James Franklin knows how to sell Vanderbilt football: “We have more things to sell than any other program. If you’re the best and the brightest, where else would you go?”

7. Robbie Andreu on Franklin:” In his one year in Nashville, he’s made Vanderbilt relevant.”

8. Franklin on the Vandy-Tennessee game: ”To be honest with you, I don’t really consider it a rivalry,” Franklin said. “It has to be a lot more competitive before it becomes a rivalry. It’s been onesided.”

9. Vanderbilt quarterback Jordan Rogers on his coach: “He’s a psycho but we love him.”

10. Bruce Feldman on Texas A&M:  “There is a lot of reason for optimism.”

11. Key for the Aggies? Replacing their quarterback.

12. Players get a lot of questions about SEC competition: Aggies linebacker Sean Porter: “I don’t think it’s going to be overwhelming for us.”

13. Ron Higgins: “If this thing gets any bigger, they may have to move it to a domed stadium.”

14. A thousand media members with a thousand questions.  For A&M and Missouri – welcome to the SEC.

15. Andy Staples: “On the field, the Tigers and their fellow newcomers from Texas A&M have been warned that the league’s teams stock their rosters with fire-breathing, boulder-chewing monsters whose Ess Eee See Speed allows them to outrun Camaros.”

16. The Missouri Tigers want everyone to know their spread offense is different:”We had the ninth-best rushing team in all of college football last year,” wide receiver T.J. Moe said. “We had 3,000 yards running and 3,000 yards passing. 

17. Moe on the Missouri-Georgia game: “If you ask me, it’s probably going to be the most anticipated game in Missouri football history.”

18. And what do the Tigers know about the Bulldogs? “Not a whole lot yet.”

19. Matt Hayes on the Tigers: “It could be a defining moment. Or it could be, meh.”

20. Mizzou coach Gary Pinkel defends Joe Paterno: “Joe Paterno’s a friend that I got to know professionally, and you can’t take away the greatness of this man.”

21. Day One - best and worst moments.

Steve Spurrier is the next man up in the print room and — as with all the coaches over the next three days — we’ll bring you a live blog of his comments, complete with our own opinions.  Remember to hit refresh on occasion.

* Spurrier opened by pointing out that this is his 20th SEC Media Days… though he also said some of the media guys have been there 35 or 40 years because media guys “don’t get fired.”

* After bragging about how far Carolina’s program has come, the coach said they could still fall on their faces if they don’t prepare in the right way for the season.

* Spurrier says he thinks he’s assembled a better team — from players to assistants to strength coaches — than in previous years.

* Spurrier said Carolina might be a 45-run/18-pass kind of team again this year if they can’t throw the ball better.  He said quarterback Connor Shaw and his whole offense is a little different than what he’s worked with in the past.

* Spurrier says Shaw is maybe a little bit better runner than passer but he hopes he’ll improve as a passer.

* The coach says going into Year Eight in Columbia, he’s now able to start redshirting guys thanks to improved recruiting and depth.  “We redshirt at least half of ‘em now.”

* Spurrier pointed out that he thinks his football team led the SEC in GPA the past year.

* He says he initially planned on being at USC for eight to 10 years.  Now he’s talking about staying longer.  “It’s not a stressful job I have… We have excellent assistant coaches.”  He also says he feels better after knee-replacement surgery.

* Spurrier — as expected — is very upbeat, very positive and very talkative.  When he’s winning, he’s a talker and a joker.  When he’s losing, he’s bland and Chizikian in his demeanor.

* The coach says he would not be surprised to see Missouri and Texas A&M compete for division titles in Year One.

* In response to a question about how Arkansas has been tough for Carolina, Spurrier said: “You think I make the schedule?  If I made the schedule Georgia’d be playing LSU and we’d be playing Ole Miss.  We don’t make the schedule.  Naw, we’re not complaining about that other part I mentioned there.”  Uh, actually, he just did.

* Spurrier points out that Arkansas and Auburn have had the Cocks’ number.

* Wow.  “We will not recruit Texas… we’re not going into Texas to try and compete with Oklahoma and Texas and all those guys.”  There are a bunch of East Division coaches who’d love to be able to trade cross-divisional rivals with Spurrier if he’s not interested in recruiting Texas.  It’ll be interesting to see if he sticks to that philosophy in the future.

* Spurrier says Carolina was favored in 12 of 13 games last year so he might have underachieved last year.  He was kidding, in response to a question about last season possibly being his best coaching job.

* Marcus Lattimore is getting back to normal, Spurrier thinks.

* The coach would like to see an eight-team playoff.  He says the six BCS champs would get in and two at-large teams would also be in… if he called the shots.  (He apparently hasn’t gotten the memo that the Big East is no longer really considered to be a big-time league.)

* The coach says James Franklin has his team at Vanderbilt believing they can beat anybody they play.  “He’s done a very good job.”

* Spurrier seemed to suggest that new defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward might share a few philosophies with him than the departed Ellis Johnson did.  That’s not a surprise as it’s been rumored for months that Spurrier and Johnson drifted a part.  Regardless, Johnson did a heckuva job at Columbia — which Spurrier admitted — and he deserves credit for helping the head coach win with defense rather than offense on many occasions.

* Spurrier says winning the SEC is “maybe just as big as the national championship.”  (Here’s guessing Les Miles and LSU fans have a different feeling on that one these days.)

Our overall grade for Spurrier’s “performance” based on comfort, friendliness, openness… we’ll give him a 5 on a 1-5 scale.  Loose, entertaining, upbeat.  When Spurrier’s on — and not being too wicked with his tongue — he’s as good as it gets.  Compared to the way he looked and sounded two years ago during Media Days, this Steve Spurrier seemed like a totally different person.  That’s the difference between a six-loss season with a bowl loss to UConn and an 11-win season with a bowl win over Nebraska.  No one rises and falls as emotionally after wins and losses as the Ol’ Ball Coach.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Steve Spurrier just complained about his team’s offense, especially its passing game.  Spring or fall, the Ol’ Ball Coach never lets up on his throwers and catchers.  Connor Shaw, welcome to Stephen Garcia’s world. 

Following practice yesterday in Columbia, Spurrier spilled his disgruntled guts:


“We had a sorry practice for the offensive guys.  They looked pretty pitiful, pretty sad, couldn’t block anybody.  As (linebacker) Damario Jeffery said, the defense whooped up.  They whooped offensive butt out here in shorts today.  Hopefully, we can get a little bit better on offense, but it was sad watching our guys try to play today.  Maybe we’re practicing too many quarterbacks.  They all looked pretty average.  But anyway, it was sort of sad watching (the) offense attempt to play today…

I’m thinking about closing practices so you people don’t have to watch us try to throw and catch.  I think we hit one out of 20 (in the passing skeleton drill with no pass rush).  It was ugly.  It was ugly.  But anyway, I guess that’s why you practice.  We’ve got to start throwing and catching better and see if we can look like a better passing team.  I see why coaches lose practice now.  They don’t want people to see how bad they are, I guess.  But we were lousy throwing today and hopefully we’ll get a little bit better as we go.”


When quarterback Stephen Garcia was dismissed and tailback Marcus Lattimore was shelved by injury mid-2011, the Gamecocks had to refinagle their offense to better utilize Shaw’s spread-option talents.  Over the final eight games of the season including a Capital One Bowl win over Nebraska, Shaw was able to rush for 485 yards and 8 touchdowns. 

However, Spurrier pulled back the reins on Shaw the passer allowing him to attempt just 18, 25, 12, 18, 20 and 17 passes over the Cocks’ final six games… very Spurrier-like numbers.  Call it the un-Fun-n’-Gun, but it worked as USC went 5-1 over that stretch (losing only the game in which Shaw put up 25 passes).

Carolina and Shaw will need to be better in the pass game in 2012 if they’re to contend for the SEC title.

For a team that couldn’t repeat as SEC East champion, South Carolina has accomplished one major goal already — becoming just the second Gamecock team in history to log 10 wins in a season.  Now Steve Spurrier says his team will have to start aiming for something else when they begin bowl practice:


“I think we had a goal to win eight, win nine, win 10.  We didn’t set one to win 11, so we’re going to set a new one when we meet back up (today).”


This season will have to rank among Spurrier’s best efforts.  Despite struggles at quarterback — including the dismissal of starter Stephen Garcia — and the loss of Mr. Everything tailback Marcus Lattimore, the Ol’ Ball Coach led his team to a 10-2 record and for the second year in a row beat all four traditional Carolina roadblocks: Clemson, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.

I have no problem admitting that I expected USC’s season to fall apart with the loss of Lattimore, a player who accounted for 36% of the Gamecock offense.  But that didn’t happen.  While the offense struggled, the defense became stronger.  And on Saturday night against Clemson, quarterback Connor Shaw had what might be his breakout game.

Kudos to Spurrier and his staff for some excellent work in 2011.

1.  The SEC has handed out its Players of the Week.

2.  The league still has three teams in the Top 10 of the BCS standings — LSU (#1), Alabama (#3), and Arkansas (#8).

3.  Despite suffering an arm injury late in Florida’s game against Vanderbilt, John Brantley will be ready to go against Carolina on Saturday.

4.  Charlie Weis pulled out the Pistol formation last weekend and it helped the Gators create an inside running game.

5.  If Georgia beats Auburn and USC loses to Florida this weekend, the East race will go to the Dawgs.

6.  Did you see UGA tight end Aron White get stuck in the Sanford Stadium hedges on Saturday?

7.  AD Greg McGarity says there will be no nine-game schedule in the SEC.   (Give it time.  It’s the only scenario that will work.)

8.  Even after freshman Max Smith’s record-setting debut as Kentucky’s quarterback, Joker Phillips says his offense is “far from fixed.”

9.  John Calipari wants Anthony Davis and the rest of his Wildcats to toughen up.

10.  Carolina quarterback Connor Shaw — concussed on Saturday night — might not be able to play against Florida this weekend.

11.  The Cocks will try to beat Florida at noon ET and then they’ll do some television viewing as Georgia meets Auburn.

12.  Quarterback Justin Worley gave Tennessee a lift… against MTSU.

13.  The Vol defense has started forcing turnovers, but it needs to force a few more.

14.  Vanderbilt’s loss to Florida dropped them under .500 for the first time this season and they remain winless on the road at 0-3.

15.  Outside gunner John Jenkins wants to improve his defense for the Dores’ basketball team.

Following his dismissal from the South Carolina football team, Stephen Garcia texted an AP reporter to say that he was “shocked and completely flabbergasted to be honest” by his ouster.

The oft-troubled quarterback reportedly failed a random substance test on October 4th — just one day after Steve Spurrier gave the starting nod to backup quarterback Connor Shaw — and that led to his final dismissal yesterday.

While the rest of the sporting world shrugged its shoulders, not surprised that the five-times-suspended Garcia had somehow stumbled again, the player’s father — Gary Garcia — gave a more complete picture of what’s been going on with his son to Josh Kendall of The State:

“He kind of made his own bed, and this is the culmination of some of those earlier mistakes.  He’s upset that he’s not finishing what he came here to do and that’s win an SEC championship, but he also is maybe kind of relieved to get a little bit of fresh air…

This has got to be the worst two weeks of his life, but it’s not going to be the worst two weeks in his life going forward, I can tell you that.  You deal with trials and tribulations, and you learn from it.  Hopefully, he continues to learn and grow.  We’ll let the dust settle for a couple of weeks and then look at what his options are.”

In addition to losing his starting job and being kicked off Carolina’s team in the past two weeks, Garcia also had to attend his grandfather’s funeral last week.  His father said, “The death of my father along with the Auburn loss and being benched contributed” to his son’s most recent violation.  It’s been reported that the test showed alcohol and marijuana in the younger Garcia’s system.

In the end, we’re talking about a 23-year-old college graduate who needs to get his life in order.  As his father correctly pointed out, Garcia will face more trials and tribulations in his life moving forward.  There are plenty of people twice his age who still rush to a dime-bag of pot or a bottle of liquor when they’re faced with crises.  Here’s hoping Garcia won’t be one of them.

It’s going to be a headline-heavy day around these parts today as a doctor’s appointment is on the morning schedule for yours truly.  So here’s the first wave of news and notes from around the SEC on this Friday:


1.  Strong safety Matt Elam is set for a breakout year at Florida.

2.  This writer projects a 35-14 Gator win against Florida Atlantic.

3.  Georgia hopes its offseason training will the Dawgs better prepared for fourth quarters this season.

4.  Nose guard John Jenkins isn’t starting for UGA, but he’s still excited.

5.  Here’s a quarter-by-quarter breakdown of how Kentucky beat WKU.

6.  After announcing his decision to start Connor Shaw, Steve Spurrier felt the need to tout his credentials.

7.  This writer doesn’t believe Shaw will unseat Garcia for long.

8.  There are still 8,000 tickets available for Tennessee’s opener against Montana.

9.  UT hopes to have a better handle on stopping an opponent’s no-huddle attack.

10.  A former James Franklin pupil will be a backup quarterback for Elon tomorrow.