easy now killers. No one is saying Spurrier sucks and no one is saying he isn't one of the great coaches of all-time. No one is even suggesting that. I just happened along this circle jerk for Spurrier and happened to find myself agreeing with KP. I think SOS could, and probably should, be doing better at SCAR. Nothing mean about it. ****, Spurrier is the guy who said you don't need to over prepare and practice too much. He takes his time off golfing and rolls at a slower pace these days. I mean, if that's good enough for SCAR than great. That doesn't mean he couldn't do better.
Here's where I think Spurrier may be at this point. He always said he wouldn't keep coaching until he was 70 and now he seems to be on his way to doing that. I think that when coaches get to be his age, much younger than me by the way, it gets more difficult to recruit as the players are unsure if the coach will still be there. It happened to Bobby Bowden and to Jo Paterno. I would not be surprised if he retires in the next year or two. But putting aside my obvious respect for Spurrier I still see it as he put them at a level they had never been at before which says plenty about what kind of coach he is.
Spurrier was 46 when he came to Florida..... younger and most likely hungrier. It probably would take a young Spurrier or Urban or Saban for there to be enough at the coaching position to craft a championship for South Carolina. If the SC faithful and boosters demand that to happen anytime soon they should probably maneuver Spurrier into retirement. However... I truly feel that South Carolina will be on a slippery slope into mediocre oblivion when Spurrier retires unless they can get lucky and find some hot shot on the rise coordinator somewhere who isn't on the radar of major powers looking for replacement head coaches.
Are you kidding me? The Spurrier years at So.Car are their historical high point. They have won more bowls with SOS than they have in their entire previous history. They are historically bad, maybe not KState bad but in that same league. What SOS has accomplished at So.Car is amazing. Holtz got the ball rolling for him, they had 1 bowl win in their HISTORY before Holtz beat Ohio State in back to back years. High points in a lousy So.Car history are George Rogers Heisman Trophy in 1984 and a ACC championship in 1969. These are the glory days of So.Carolina Football.
"I just disagreed with the "Damn, he's good" assessment" Not sure you mean that the way it reads...... :shock:
MCG, I disagreed with your assertion that what Spurrier has done at SC is so "Damn" good. That's all. He's done ok but not as good as the other places he's been. Bill, thought I had an agenda. I was just expressing an opinion different than the one y'all had and trying to support it during the discussion. I wasn't attacking your heritage, your family just talking sports. I didn't mean to piss y'all off, I was just talking sports. :?
I see the point Kp..... I guess it just boils down to whom could do better at South Carolina specifically. I don't know who that might be.
kp, forgive the agenda comment, please. But back to Spurrier. I see greatness a couple of different ways. One is what Saban has done winning so many Championships. However another way is how the team a coach is coaching does relative what they did before him and how they would be doing without him now. In the latter measure Spurrier stands up very well. I don't think there is a coach anywhere who could have taken S. Carolina further or will in the future. Just my opinion and I respect yours.
Bill I still wonder why it is that South Carolina will never consistently be a big winner? Dont take this the wrong way but couldnt the same thing have been said about Florida before Spurrier and they have changed their whole aura?
Florida's history pre-Spurrier as coach and South Carolina's history pre-Spurrier are vastly different. UF had always won some big games.... gone to several bowls including the Sugar and Orange in the 60s and the Sugar Bowl again in the 70s. UF had a history of beating top ten teams.... and beating a Bear coached Bama team in Tuscaloosa. UF pummeled #1 preseason ranked Houston in 1969 and had many a turn in the top ten itself over the years. Florida however always seemed to come up the Georgia game short when it came to winning the SEC. It was a frustrating history to be sure. Even Spurrier the Heisman winner experienced a bitter loss to Georgia when the SEC was on the line. There was a reason Paul Bryant called Florida "the sleeping giant".... Florida upset No. 3 Alabama, 10-6, on Oct. 12, 1963, at Bryant-Denny Stadium. The loss was one of only two suffered by the Crimson Tide under legendary coach Paul “Bear” Bryant in Tuscaloosa during his 25-year career. Following that loss to Florida, Alabama reeled off a then-NCAA record 57 consecutive games in Tuscaloosa before losing to Southern Mississippi (38-29) in 1982, the final game of Bryant’s career in Tuscaloosa. "
MCG, my statement was not meant as a slam, but I knew you might take it that way. Rather it was meant as a tribute to Spurrier. He won conference and national championships at Florida. This was something that Florida had never done before, but not at South Carolina, I was just wondering why not at South Carolina?
So. Carolina was just a cut above Vandy historically, So. Carolina has no big time base of kids to recruit from, I'll be before Spurrier much of the top talent in So.Car went to Tenn or Georgia. In Fla he had a state that arguably has the nost talent in the nation and it's very deep. Calif and Texas might argue about that, but recruiting at Fla much different than recruiting at So.Car. I think there in lies the difference between what he did at UF and what he's doing at So.Carolina.
okay, I guess. My question is not really about Spurrier. There are a lot of schools in areas without a big talent pool to recruit from. Some of them win fairly consistantly and some don't...ever. I wonder why. :?
Recruiting Florida these days is a lot tougher than it used to be. All the big time programs dip down here and snatch great players out of the state. It takes a solid successful and stable in-state school to keep em here. UF's poor showing so far this year is a good example of what happens to recruiting when the apple cart is overturned.
While I do think Spurrier is a top 10 coach. I don't think he's in the same class as Urban or Saban. I think though that if Urban or Nick were at So. Carolina they might do slightly better but they wouldn't have So.Carolina to the level that they took UF, Ohio State, LSU and Bama...just not the same job.
They might do slightly better now..... would they at age 70? Will Saban still have that fire in his belly? Will Urban even be coaching?
I was going to stay out of this, but... South Carolina has a tremendous talent pool. While they don't have a huge population, they still ranked 17th in terms of overall college football athletes produced. Per capita, Louisiana produces the most NFL players. South Carolina is second. Before anyone wants to argue with those numbers see: http://247sports.com/Bolt/Louisiana-produces-most-NFL-talent-per-capita-31459376 http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2013/9/11/4718442/college-football-state-texas-california-florida I remember a bit of back and forth years ago that became rather informative for me. It was with Jeff Ramsey, who used to post here and I think may lurk from time to time. He's a Vol fan. Anyway, the subject was South Carolina and why they aren't better. He had explained that for SCAR, you have a great talent pool each year that is absolutely raided by Georgia and Tennessee (this was when the Vols were a top 10 program). That isn't counting the amount of talent that Clemson grabbed. Now you mix in your Notre Dame kids, Stanford kids etc. It doesn't leave a lot, historically, for South Carolina. As we've seen, if you get the SCAR kids to stay home and play for South Carolina, they'd be pretty damned good. It does beg the question, why aren't they better? You could make the same case for Mississippi. You have Ole Miss and State, but MS is raided by the SEC in general and I'm pretty sure Alabama gets their pick of MS kids, much to the chagrin of Rebels and Dawgs alike. Louisiana is pretty much as case study for what MS or SC should try to do, BUT there you really only have LSU as the 'major' DI program in the state. They still lose kids, but for the most part, LSU just owns Louisiana.