The NCAA recently threw in the towel.

Knowing that it had no way to accurately monitor all communications between coaches and players in our social-media-crazed world, the NCAA rulemakers just said to heck with it and ripped page after page of contact rules from it book of laws.

As a result, coaches can now communicate with recruits all year long.  Schools can hire extra personnel to help them recruit (a huge plus for the richest programs).  And all lines of communication from texting to carrier pigeon are now open.

While that might sound good to fans, recruits and coaches haven’t exactly been jumping for joy in response to the news.  Take South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier for example.  GamecockCentral.com — the Rivals site covering Carolina behind a paywall — reports that the Ol’ Ball Coach shared his lukewarm feeling about the changes on a Columbia radio station yesterday:

“I’m not sure exactly how it’s all going to take place.  Initially, I didn’t like what I heard.  You’ll be able to recruit all summer and make calls and text message all year long.  Some schools are just going to hire 10 or 15 people to call and text all day long…

If you’re not doing it, you’re not going to be keeping up, I guess.  But I’m past the stage where I’m going to hang around all summer and text and try to recruit guys.  There’s a time for recruiting and a time for coaching your team…

Maybe it’s a good idea, maybe it’s not.  It just depends on how much time it takes away the coaching staff from coaching their players than worrying about a bunch of players that might not be on their team anyway.”

If coaches had no family lives before, what happens when they’re texting and calling 365 days a year?  And if recruits were bothered by months of phone calls and texts before, what happens when more recruiters are hired and then given more time to call and text?

Where there are no rules… there is anarchy.

Way back in April, Steve Spurrier was saying nice things about Alabama coach Nick Saban.  Then South Carolina’s coach suddenly realized that he can’t say nice things about someone without taking some kind of small dig:

“He’s got a nice little gig going, a little bit like (John) Calipari.  He tells guys, ‘Hey, three years from now, you’re going to be a first-round pick and go.’  If he wants to be be the greatest coach or one of the greatest coaches in college football, to me, he has to go somewhere besides Alabama and win, because they’ve always won there at Alabama.”

Ya don’t think Spurrier was thinking about his own turnaround of terminally downtrodden Carolina, do ya?  Nah.

Now, to be fair, the ‘Ol Ball Coach has since said that Saban is indeed the best thing going right now.  But still, that little jab from April was bound to come back around at some point.  Now it has.  Appearing on Dan Patrick’s radio show, Saban was asked about Spurrier’s comment:

“LSU wasn’t winning when I went there.  Michigan State wasn’t wining when I went there.  Toledo wasn’t winning when I went there.  And Alabama really wasn’t winning when I came here.  I guess I gotta go someplace else.  I don’t know.

I think it’s great.  I love, Steve.  I’m always anxious to hear he has to say — it’s always funny.”

Somewhere, thousands of Crimson Tide fans all fainted at once upon hearing/reading that bit about “I guess I gotta go someplace else.”

Spurrier’s jab was a love tap by his standards and it’s actually good to see Saban show some personality with his response.  Playful banter.  Beats the hell out of the Lane Kiffin/Urban Meyer nonsense of a few SEC seasons ago.

On July 29th, fourth-string South Carolina quarterback Tanner McEvoy was arrested in North Carolina for driving after drinking alcohol while still a minor (which is not the same charge as a DUI).  He was suspended for less than a week before Steve Spurrier reinstated him and blew off his arrest with a surprising level of nonchalance.

Well, now comes word that the redshirt freshman will transfer from the Gamecock program.

It’s believed that his placement on the depth chart as well as the emergence of sophomore quarterback Dylan Thompson had more to do with McEvoy’s decision to leave Columbia than his arrest or any behind-the-scenes punishment from Spurrier.

Still, don’t be surprised to hear a Gamecock fan or two suggest that Spurrier made his flippant comments in an effort to take the spotlight off of McEvoy as he exits.  For years some media members have believed that the Ol’ Ball Coach says outrageous things that he knows will get play in the press whenever he wants to distract the public from another issue.  Or protect a player.

Whether the coach was providing cover for McEvoy’s exit or just honestly stating that he doesn’t believe an alcohol- and car-related arrest was a big deal likely depends upon whether or not you like South Carolina… or hate South Carolina.

South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier talks when he’s happy.  He’s happy when he’s winning.  And the last couple of years he’s been winning.

So he’s admitted that he feels a bit more talkative these days, even telling ESPN two weeks ago that it’s “all just a bunch of talk” anyway.  He doesn’t understand why people make such a big deal over the things he says.  Still, he’s not happy when he feels his words have been misconstrued.

Speaking at a Gamecock booster event yesterday, the Ol’ Ball Coach made it clear that the “pay for play” plan he put forth at last week’s SEC Meetings wasn’t actually a “pay for play” plan as was reported.  Instead it was, well, we’ll let him explain:

“This is not play for pay.  If it was play for pay, we would have some guys making a couple hundred thousand dollars per year with all the money coming in from television and other things.  This is purely expense money for football players so they can live a little better than the way they’re living now.”

So what does that mean exactly?  Well, Spurrier’s plan suggested coaches reimburse players up to $300 per week with the maximum sum a coach could pay out each week being $21,000.  So somehow, 70 of a team’s 85 scholarship players would get money while the other 15 would not.  Here’s guessing there would be 15 pretty ticked off players and families each week.

The league’s football coaches reportedly voted unanimously in favor of the plan, but that’s merely for show.  Spurrier knows that he can now tell recruits that he’s pushing to get them some extra cash.  The other coaches can say the same.  And no coach would want to be the guy who other coaches could point to and say, “He doesn’t want to pay you.”

Also, with there being no chance in the world of Spurrier’s plan passing, it was an easy token gesture for the coaches to make.

But what about the details of Spurrier’s plan?  Who would be paid?  How much would they be paid?

“Their guys would also through the course of the year get between $3,500 and $4,000.  Under our plan, it would be up to the head coach to dispense the money.  Guys who play every game would probably get $300 per game, while those guys who never play even though they’re on scholarship may only get $150 or so.  We’re believers that everything in life is performance-based.

It’s really not that complicated.  The head coaches decided we’ll be responsible for distributing $21,000 per game.  The maximum any player could get was $300.  Some guys could get half-shares of $150 if a coach wanted to give money to more than 70 players.  Just keep it at $21,000 per game.  If you play 13 games, that’s $273,000.  We’ll be glad to take that out of our contract.”

Well, if you can see the razor-thin difference between “paying for play” and “reimbursing based on performance” you’ve got better vision than I do.  But Spurrier is once again on the record as being pro-player which is purely a pro-recruiting move.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Even if it is just a bunch of talk.

Steve Spurrier is an ass.

Whether he’s a laugh-riot smart ass or a loose-lipped jackass depends, of course, on whether or not he’s coaching your favorite team.  The same South Carolina fans who love him now — and will rage against this site “for hatin’ him” — once despised his same barbs n’ bully routine when he was at Florida.

One thing about Carolina’s coach is that his level of assdom directly corellates with his team’s win total.  At the 2010 SEC Media Days, for example, Spurrier was lower than the proverbial snake’s belly.  The Cocks were coming off a 7-6 campaign and had lost 20-7 to UConn in a miserable Papajohns.com Bowl performance.  With the SEC media on hand, the coach failed to crack wise.  He had no insults for rival schools or coaches.  Frankly he seemed down, like a man on the verge of tossing in the towel if his team didn’t perform in 2010.

Ah, but his team did perform in 2010.  The Gamecocks whipped Georgia, Florida and Tennessee in the same season for the first time.  They won their first-ever SEC division title.  By Media Days 2011 Spurrier was feeling good enough to poke a little fun.  Asked about Mike Slive’s idea — which has now become a reality — that schools award multi-year scholarships to players, Spurrier was the only coach willing to shoot down the proposal with both guns blazing.  “No, that’s a terrible idea, Commissioner,” he said to big laughs.

The coach himself has even admitted during his mediocre and quiet years in Columbia — while he was building up his program — that he didn’t have much to talk about with his team losing.  In other words, once USC got good enough, then he’d feel like taking shots at others again.

In many ways Spurrier — who we don’t hate, by the way, and who we’ve said has done an A-1 job at Carolina — is still like a teenager.  He gets mad and pouty when he loses.  He gets brash and braggadocious when he wins.

And he’s winning again.

In an interview with ESPN.com’s Chris Low posted yesterday afternoon, the Ol’ Ball Coach let fly with some gibes:

* On not playing Georgia early in the season this year:  “I don’t know.  I sort of always like playing them that second game because you could always count on them having two or three key players suspended.”

(Mark Richt, being the class act he is, simply responded: “How ’bout that; I think that that’s funny.  That sounds like Steve.”  Richt could have easily said, “That’s because we don’t give guys five and six chances that way he did with Stephen Garcia.”)

* On Nick Saban and his success at Alabama:  “He’s got a nice little gig going, a little bit like (John) Calipari.  He tells guys, ‘Hey, three years from now, you’re going to be a first-round pick and go.’  If he wants to be the greatest coach or one of the greatest coaches in college football, to me, he has to go somewhere besides Alabama and win, because they’ve always won there at Alabama.”

(Spurrier did go one to say that he believes Saban is the best coach in conference.  “You are whatever your record is,” he said.)

Funny little tweaks to be taken with a grain of salt?  Then you must be a Gamecock fan who’s in love with your coach now that’s he’s delivering wins.

Smart aleck remarks that make you hope Spurrier takes it on the chin this fall?  Then you must be a fan of one of the other 13 SEC institutions.

As for this writer, I enjoy Spurrier on the rise.  When he’s losing it’s sad to watch.  But when he’s winning big — for two years in a row — he gets a little too mean-spirited.  Somewhere in between is just about right.  Like Media Days 2011.

Judging from his comments to ESPN this week, some of Spurrier’s Media Days 2012 quotes could be downright nasty.

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.

The weirdness of Tuesday’s events in Columbia is finally starting to dissipate.  Steve Spurrier’s rant against a sportswriter over a column written months earlier.  Stephen Garcia’s final dismissal from the South Carolina football team. 

As Gene Sapakoff of The Charleston Post & Courier summed the day up:


“Hard to say if it was the most bizarre day in University of South Carolina football history.  I’ve only been around the program for a quarter-century.”


In Sapakoff’s view, “Spurrier might be losing his marbles.”  Like so many, he believes the Ol’ Ball Coach was simply throwing Ron Morris of The State under the bus in an effort to create a diversion for Garcia.  Many Carolina fans believe this, too, and they don’t seem to care that Morris was the one tossed under the bus because many of them never liked him in the first place.

For his part, Spurrier said during yesterday’s SEC teleconference that he “was not (deflecting attention) and did not like doing that.”  He added, “I said what I needed to say yesterday and am not getting into that discussion anymore, and hopefully, the discussion is over.”

Uh, yeah.  That’s how it works, sure. 

Maybe Spurrier should call Mike Gundy and ask him how long it took for his YouTube rant to finally blow over.  Heck, even Alabama’s Nick Saban joked with reporters yesterday that he wasn’t “gonna pull a Steve Spurrier on you.”

At MrSEC.com, we don’t buy the sleight of hand theory because the 66-year-old Spurrier has been around long enough to know that the Garcia story was going to have legs whether he created a distraction or not.  By pacing back and forth in front of all those television cameras on Tuesday, all Spurrier did was create a second controversy.  (And don’t forget, the NCAA also just sent a notice of allegations to Carolina which could be considered a third controversy.)

Naturally, the press has reacted negatively to Spurrier’s tactics.  USC president Harris Pastides has been sent a letter by the South Carolina Press Association expressing “strong disappointment” in Spurrier’s actions.

And Tom Sorensen of The Charlotte Observer says the coach’s suggestion that he doesn’t mind being criticized as long as the story isn’t made up is complete bunk.  “He’s called me twice to complain about columns I’ve written, once when he was at Duke and once last season,” Sorensen writes today.  “He cares desperately how he’s perceived.”

In our view — and it’s the view we shared on Tuesday — Spurrier was feeling a bit froggy following a 50+ point, 600+ yard performance from his offense complete with a Spurrierific aerial attack.

After Saturday’s game he talked about Kentucky’s punter when asked about their offense.  He suggested that Carolina should have scored 70 or 80 points.  Have we all not seen this act before?

When Spurrier wins and wins big, he talks.  He’s the baddest man in the room.  Sick and tired of comments from Morris — who’d basically written a “yeah, but it was just Kentucky” piece following last Saturday’s game — the Ol’ Ball Coach proceeded to act like the cock of the walk and lit into Morris for all the world to see.

Maybe Morris’ gibes, the NCAA’s recent accusations, and Garcia’s final stumble all combined to pushed the coach over the edge, but at MrSEC.com we fully believe his history of talking louder and walking prouder after wins shows Tuesday’s blowup had more to do with hubris than it did cover-ups and six-month-old newspaper stories.

For those who’ll claim that we hate Spurrier… we don’t.  He’s a helluva coach and darn entertaining when he wants to be.  Last summer, we wrote that we hoped he and Carolina would win the East — which they did — because it would be good for the league to have USC and Spurrier grab some spotlight.

But Spurrier can also be quite a jerk at times.  Ask anyone who’s ever been the butt of his postgame jokes or who’s played golf with him, for that matter.  And for the record, any person who tries to deny that the coach has a tendency to act punkish is the one with objectivity issues.

Meanwhile, Morris was back in The State today with a column regarding Garcia’s final failure in Columbia.  Spurrier isn’t mentioned until 3/4s of the way through the piece:


“You can point the finger at Spurrier for the manner in which he publicly criticized Garcia time and again.  It is a tactic that worked well for Spurrier in his dealings with quarterbacks at Florida but never was effective with Garcia.  Spurrier’s occasional barbs at Garcia exasperated an already exasperating situation.”


As for those who claim Garcia would never have been dismissed had Shaw not had a breakout performance against Kentucky, we’re not buying that one, either.

Spurrier is a wise enough coach to know that Shaw could sprain an ankle in practice today and then where would his Gamecocks be? 

We believe what’s more interesting is the fact that someone chose to administer Garcia’s random drug test on the very week that he was demoted from his starting job and lost his grandfather.  That’s pretty coincidental, isn’t it?  It’s as if someone wanted to see if he was handling the demotion properly.

Interestingly, the press release regarding Garcia’s dismissal had a lengthy quote from AD Eric Hyman above a shorter quote from Spurrier.  Players are dismissed from teams all the time.  On how many occasions have you seen the AD take the lead role over the coach in the announcement? 

Just asking.

Steve Spurrier is a man who likes to show off the shape the Good Lord give him.

Back in April, 2010, the then-65-year-old Spurrier publicly showed off his pecs while breaking down his workout regimen.  Hello, Jack Lalanne.

But that was then and the above left photo is now.  Yep, supposedly that’s the Ol’ Ball Coach hanging out — shirtless — at Sunday’s Daytona 500 with a cold can of Coors in hand.  (Click the headline for a better look.)

Granted Spurrier is in pretty dang good shape for a guy in his mid-60s.  But we’d still suggest he only disrobe publicly when he’s planning a pose like this one.  And not when he’s just hangin’ out and watchin’ a little racin’ with his buds.

Some angles look better than others.

Steve Spurrier is a fan of the South Carolina-Clemson rivalry.  He’s especially pleased that little venom exists between the two programs at this point — fans not included, of course.

“I think we have a good, healthy rivalry with Clemson now.  There’s no bad-mouthing in recruiting, at least that I know of, between Clemson and South Carolina now.  I realize some fans don’t want to hear that, but I believe that’s the way it should be.  I think Dabo (Swinney) and his guys believe that’s the way it should be, also.”

Spurrier even received a congratulatory text from Clemson’s coach upon winning the SEC East.  “He did text message me and I called him back and said, ‘I appreciate it.’  Usually most coaches don’t do that.”  (Spurrier said Mark Richt also congratulated him.)

“He’s a good person, good coach,” Spurrier said of Swinney.  “And he runs a good program up there.”

You wouldn’t catch Dan Mullen saying that kind of stuff about the MSU-Ole Miss rivalry.  Heck, you wouldn’t have caught Spurrier saying anything like that about the Florida-FSU rivalry 15 years ago.

Age must be mellowing the Ol’ Ball Coach a bit.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  It’s hard to go wrong by showing class.

(The photo at left is from the massive brawl at the end of Lou Holtz’ final Carolina-Clemson game back in 2004.)