Team Speed Kills - Steve Spurrier Resigns Midseason, Sparking Coaching Search at S.C.Sports are just better in the SEChttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52580/tsk_fav.png2015-12-04T16:15:05-05:00http://www.teamspeedkills.com/rss/stream/92810562015-12-04T16:15:05-05:002015-12-04T16:15:05-05:00Auburn's Will Muschamp Headed to South Carolina?
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<p>All signs point toward the former Florida head coach taking the job in Columbia sooner rather than later</p> <p>All indications at this hour are that the <a class="sbn-auto-link" href="https://www.garnetandblackattack.com/">South Carolina Gamecocks</a> will hire Auburn defensive coordinator Will Muschamp to succeed Steve Spurrier as the team's head coach. Muschamp would be the second consecutive former Florida head coach to take the job in Columbia. But Muschamp's 28-21 overall record, and 17-15 mark in SEC play, was far worse than Spurrier's tenure in Gainesville before he took the South Carolina job (following an unsuccessful stint as head coach of the Washington NFL franchise).</p>
<p>Muschamp has already <a href="http://www.thestate.com/sports/college/university-of-south-carolina/usc-football/article47963460.html">begun reaching out</a> to figures like <span>Marcus Lattimore</span>, once a star running back with the Gamecocks, to see if they would like to join his coaching staff in Columbia. Meanwhile, reports are now surfacing that Muschamp has resigned from the Auburn staff.</p>
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<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Sources telling me former Gator head coach will Muschamp now with <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/auburn?src=hash">#auburn</a> has resigned</p>
— david pingalore (@pingnews6) <a href="https://twitter.com/pingnews6/status/672866038724300800">December 4, 2015</a>
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<p>(HT: <a href="http://www.wsfa.com/story/30664440/reports-auburn-dc-muschamp-resigns-as-dc-likely-headed-to-south-carolina">WSFA</a>)</p>
<p><b>Update, 4:21 p.m.:</b> Auburn media sources (which I frankly trust more) are saying that Muschamp has not resigned. But with the other evidence of a pending Muschamp hire, there are still more reasons to believe it will happen than to believe it won't.</p>
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<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Sources: Will Muschamp has NOT resigned at Auburn. Situation can change, of course, but as of this minute he has NOT resigned.</p>
— Brandon Marcello (@bmarcello) <a href="https://twitter.com/bmarcello/status/672887599439200257">December 4, 2015</a>
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<p>Spurrier is also reportedly <a href="http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2015/12/4/9850994/will-muschamp-south-carolina-head-coach-steve-spurrier">promoting Muschamp's candidacy</a>, something that could help soothe at least portions of the South Carolina fan base. But Muschamp is unlikely to be warmly welcomed among Gamecocks fans -- and he shouldn't be. This is the most important personnel decision in the history of South Carolina, and the Gamecocks have gone from Houston coach Tom Herman to Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart to a man who led one of the conference's top programs to a level where it lost to an FCS team.</p>
<p>Ray Tanner's decision might prove the world wrong, and Muschamp might end up being a successful head coach in South Carolina. But the odds are against that, and given some of the other candidates who were reportedly willing to talk to the Gamecocks after Herman and Smart went elsewhere, the search for South Carolina's next head coach has to be considered at best a disappointment and at worst a failure.</p>
https://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/12/4/9851350/south-carolina-head-coaching-search-gamecocks-hiring-will-muschampBrandon Larrabee2015-10-15T00:42:01-04:002015-10-15T00:42:01-04:00'Goodbye, OBC'<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-XDdKp21fhQ" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe>
<div class="source source-img"><p><p>They got the nickname wrong, but everything else about this is pure magnificence</p></p></div>
https://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/10/15/9537147/goodbye-obcBrandon Larrabee2015-10-14T15:08:14-04:002015-10-14T15:08:14-04:00Who Might (and Who Probably Won't) Coach at S.C.
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<p>You will hear several names in relationship to the Gamecocks' head-coaching job. Some of them are more credible than others</p> <p>The resignation of Steve Spurrier as head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks opens up what could be the only available job in the SEC this year. But it comes at the same time that Southern California, Miami and Maryland -- among others -- are also going to be on the market. As a result the question of who comes to South Carolina is going to boil down to two questions: which candidates the Gamecocks brass will be interested in, and which candidates can South Carolina actually get?</p>
<p>The second question is a little bit harder to answer than the first, because it depends on which other schools go after certain candidates. The other USC is hands-down a better job than South Carolina, and Miami at least arguably still is. Also, every fan base needs to keep in mind that the job at their school is never as good as fans think it is. Never.</p>
<p>Who might South Carolina get? Let's take a look first at two names that you're likely to hear a lot who are probably the least likely to be the next Gamecocks head coach.</p>
<h4>Mark Dantonio (Head coach, Michigan State)</h4>
<p>This was once not just a dream candidate, but the dream candidate for many South Carolina fans. Dantonio is a South Carolina alumnus who has built a powerhouse in East Lansing and <a href="http://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/michigan-state/2015/10/13/mark-dantonio-south-carolina-michigan/73867236/">didn't directly answer</a> Tuesday when asked about the job. But events have made the Michigan State coach moving to Columbia a lot less likely than it might have been even three or four years ago. Dantonio will be 60 when the next college football season rolls around, and even if the South Carolina administration could look past his age and health questions, Dantonio himself might not be eager to take on a rebuilding job at that age. As long as he has a good thing going at Michigan State, only a strong emotional attachment to South Carolina would even prompt him to consider a move.</p>
<h4>Charlie Strong (Head coach, Texas)</h4>
<p>The former defensive coordinator under Lou Holtz would be something of a fan favorite, though he was about as well-regarded as any non-Kirby Smart defensive coordinator in the SEC, which is to say that even when he was good at his job he had his critics. If Strong were still at Louisville, he would be a near mortal lock for the front-runner position at South Carolina; as it happens, he's now at Texas. If Strong is somehow dismissed from the Longhorns job -- which seems less likely now, particularly if the Oklahoma win starts a turnaround -- or becomes desperate to escape Austin politics, he would be a top candidate for the position in Columbia. But let's not kid ourselves: If Strong has any inclination to stay at Texas and the Longhorns are of a mind to keep him, South Carolina won't be able to pry him away.</p>
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<h2>Steve Spurrier Resignation Coverage</h2>
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<span><a href="http://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/10/12/9517015/steve-spurrier-retires-midseason-coaching-search-south-carolina">Our Spurrier hub</a></span> <span><a href="http://www.garnetandblackattack.com/south-carolina-gamecocks-football/2015/10/12/9516741/steve-spurrier-south-carolina-gamecocks-football-retirement">Coverage from Garnet and Black Attack</a></span> <span><em>Photo by Jasen Vinlove -- USA Today Sports</em></span>
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<p>Again, both of those candidates are extremely unlikely to end up at South Carolina to start the 2016 season. Which means your top prospects mostly consist of mid-major head coaches and Power 5 coordinators. It's a high-risk, high-reward proposition; you either hire Hugh Freeze or Derek Dooley, Mark Richt or Will Muschamp. The advantage is that if it works out well, you usually get a younger candidate who can hang around for 10 or 15 years, as long as you can keep him well-paid and otherwise happy.</p>
<h4>Jeff Brohm (Head coach, Western Kentucky)</h4>
<p>Brohm has already gotten some <a href="http://www.cardchronicle.com/2015/10/13/9521059/in-praise-of-jeff-brohm">buzz on non-South Carolina blogs</a> for the job, and the AP also <a href="http://www.courier-journal.com/story/sports/college/kentuckiana/2015/10/13/ap-wkus-jeff-brohm-a-potential-steve-spurrier-successor-at-south-carolina/73865294/">thinks it's a possibility</a>. He's 13-6 over a season and a half with the Hilltoppers, but coaches that have had success at WKU also should come with a warning label. Willie Taggart's USF teams have been disasters, and Bobby Petrino has faced some tough sledding in the second season of his return to Louisville. That doesn't disqualify Brohm, it just means buyer beware. The other note of caution on Brohm is that aside from a couple of seasons as Illinois' quarterback coach, he's never held any job at a Power 5 school. He could be a credible back-up candidate, though, particularly if the coaching carousel gets unexpectedly crowded this year.</p>
<h4>Shawn Elliott (Interim head coach, South Carolina)</h4>
<p>Before the last two years soured a lot of Gamecock fans on the current coaching staff, Elliott was seen as a likely successor to Spurrier. (Another potential on-staff replacement was Lorenzo Ward, which, sure -- if Ray Tanner wants to bankrupt every property insurer in South Carolina.) "I would love to be the head coach at the University of South Carolina for many years to come," Elliott said Tuesday at his introduction. He's a South Carolina native who spent time with then-FCS powerhouse Appalachian State before coming to Columbia and revitalizing the South Carolina run game. The problem is that Elliott has never been a head coach before. If he wins three or more of the remaining games on the Gamecocks schedule -- The Citadel, Vanderbilt and an upset somewhere along the way -- he might get serious consideration. Anything on top of that increases his chances.</p>
<h4>Justin Fuente (Head coach, Memphis)</h4>
<p>Sure, Fuente is only 22-20 in his head coach career -- but the man's at Memphis. And over the last year and a half, he's gone 15-3, with the only losses coming against Ole Miss, UCLA and Houston. He has no real natural connections to the SEC or South Carolina, but there's no chance that the Tigers could keep up in a bidding war, and Fuente is going to get his chance somewhere. The problem that Gamecocks might face is if another, higher-profile school pursues Fuente. It's hard to see Southern Cal going after him, but Miami might. And if an attractive enough Big 12 position opens up, someone from that conference could also show some interest in the former TCU assistant. If Dantonio and Strong pass (as is likely) and Elliott doesn't pan out, this might be the best feasible candidate for South Carolina.</p>
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<i>Justin Ford -- USA Today Sports</i></p>
<h4>Mark Hudspeth (Head coach, Louisiana-Lafayette)</h4>
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<p>Hudspeth's name is going to keep coming up in the coaching carousel until he actually gets a job. He's worked at Mississippi State, so he knows the landscape in the SEC, and is 104-39 overall in head coaching stops at North Alabama and Louisiana-Lafayette. And yet, Hudspeth is still only 46 years old. He's an intriguing candidate, because he might be good enough for the Gamecocks to feel as good as they can about a mid-major coach and yet low enough on other teams' lists to avoid a major bidding war. At the same time, the Ragin' Cajuns just got <a href="http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2015/10/louisiana-lafayette_football_a.html">dinged</a> by the NCAA, something Spurrier's program was largely able to avoid outside the Whitney Hotel incident. While Hudspeth was not found to have any personal involvement in the wrongdoing, something so recent could still influence any consideration of him.</p>
<h4>Chad Morris (Head coach, SMU)</h4>
<p>Morris is 1-5 right now, but he's in the one college football job that might be more thankless than Fuente's. He's an exceptional offensive coordinator and knows how to recruit in South Carolina and the surrounding area. And Morris would bring with him some insight about what Dabo Swinney likes to do, which can't hurt. Sure, it would mean South Carolina hiring a former Clemson assistant, but hiring rival players and coaches sometimes helps; Pat Dye played at Georgia and coached at Alabama before finding his way to Auburn for a great 11-year run. Morris' current record, and the fact that this is his first year as a head coach, might initially scare the South Carolina search committee away. But if other options start falling through, he might make sense.</p>
<h4>Kirby Smart (Defensive coordinator, Alabama)</h4>
<p>Smart is actually the oddsmakers' favorite for the South Carolina job, according to Bovada, beating out Fuente, Elliott and everyone else. But oddsmakers are paid to get games right (or more accurately the public's perception of games right), not head coaching searches, and they're often laughably wrong. If South Carolina could land Smart, it would be a huge coup with as much risk and as much potential reward as anyone else on the board. But he's reportedly interviewed for other jobs in the past -- like <a href="http://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2012/12/2/3718422/auburn-coaching-rumors-kirby-smart-to-interview">Auburn</a> and <a href="http://www.al.com/alabamafootball/index.ssf/2013/01/alabama_players_support_kirby.html">Tennessee</a> -- and could end up alongside Fuente as one of the hottest commodities on this year's coaching carousel. South Carolina has the money to pay Smart, unless Alabama's going to go insane and start throwing head-coach money at a coordinator, but a formal or informal head-coach-in-waiting agreement at Tuscaloosa might help keep him around. In addition, if Smart succeeds at South Carolina, there's always the chance that Alabama would try to grab him when Saban retires. Which is a good problem to have.</p>
<p>The final tier here is composed almost entirely of off-the-wall or dark-horse candidates that you might or might not hear discussed anywhere else. Some of them are quasi-serious and some of them are tongue-in-cheek, the kind of thing you might throw out in a "bold predictions" column where you can't be held accountable if you get something hideously wrong.</p>
<p><b>Matt Campbell (Head coach, Toledo):</b> You can easily see why Campbell would be an attractive candidate for South Carolina -- his team has more SEC wins right now than the Gamecocks. In all seriousness, Campbell has done a good job at Toledo and will likely get a Power 5 job soon enough. It's something worse keeping an eye on.</p>
<p><b>Manny Diaz (Defensive coordinator, Mississippi State):</b> Diaz is another coordinator who's likely to get a chance as a head coach sooner or later. His tenure as defensive coordinator at Texas was not incredibly successful, but how much of that has to do with Diaz and how much of that has to do with the dysfunction at the end of the Mack Brown Era is anyone's guess. Now in his early 40s, this could be the right time for Diaz if he wants to be a head coach.</p>
<p><b>Tom Herman (Head coach, Houston):</b> He's Chad Morris with a much better record and without the connections to the state of South Carolina. The six seasons he spent at Iowa State and Ohio State from 2009-14 were the only time he's had a job outside the state of Texas. He's also a potential target for Southern Cal, and might want to stick around and see if Strong flames out or he can get another Texas job even if the Trojans look elsewhere.</p>
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<i><span>Troy Taormina -- USA Today Sports</span></i></p>
<p><b>Kliff Kingsbury (Head coach, Texas Tech):</b> <a href="http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/kliff-kingsbury-eyed-by-gamecock-boosters-101315">This</a> is probably nothing more than a pipe dream for boosters and the female portion of South Carolina's fan base. He's at his alma mater and has never held a coaching job outside of the state of Texas. And if Kingsbury is willing to move on, he would also get attention from Southern Cal and others. There might be a chance, but it's a very slim chance.</p>
<p><b>Rich Rodriguez (Head coach, Arizona):</b> Even <a href="http://www.sports360az.com/2015/10/usc-and-south-carolina-open-what-about-rich-rod-and-graham/">Arizona outlets</a> are bringing up the possibility of Rich Rod bolting for South Carolina, but I don't see it. South Carolina might or might not be a better job than Arizona, but Rodriguez has his system in place in Tuscon -- and while Lorenzo Nunez might have some success in that system, there would still be a transition period. And if Rodriguez just wanted to get in the SEC, he had a chance to do so at the conference's most prestigious program a few years ago and turned it down.</p>
<p><b>Tommy Tuberville (Head coach, Cincinnati):</b> Yes, this is extraordinarily unlikely. But Tuberville would probably love to get back in the SEC, and he would fit South Carolina's mold of hiring older coaches who have had success elsewhere but are now in a position where the Gamecocks can snag them. Tuberville is in his 60s, but he's a gettable and halfway respectable name if others turn the Gamecocks down.</p>
<p><b>Matt Wells (Head coach, Utah State):</b> Aside from the fact that he was born in Columbia, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Wells_(American_football)">according to Wikipedia</a>, there's really nothing I can see that would make Wells and South Carolina a match. He's done a fine job with the Aggies, and I as a fan wouldn't be disappointed if Wells got the job, but I just don't see why South Carolina would call, and Wells is a Utah State alumnus.</p>
https://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/10/14/9524199/south-carolina-head-coaching-search-candidates-rumorsBrandon Larrabee2015-10-13T14:37:14-04:002015-10-13T14:37:14-04:00Steve Spurrier Admits His Limitations
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<p>The Head Ball Coach gave us some indications about his thought process for leaving South Carolina midseason</p> <p>"Okay, let's get moving. I've had enough here."</p>
<p>And with that, Steve Spurrier stepped away from the podium at a press conference announcing his resignation -- don't call it a retirement, the always age-conscious coach said -- as the head coach at South Carolina. It was not intended as a reference to his time in Columbia -- though, after the last two years, it could have been -- but to what appeared to be an emotionally difficult and perhaps even tedious event for Spurrier.</p>
<p>As much as Spurrier likes to poke fun at rivals, and as much as he can rattle off the records of the teams he coached in the USFL 30 years ago, he has never enjoyed talking about Steve Spurrier the person. Steve Spurrier, the accomplished head coach, sure. But not his private thoughts and emotions, which were naturally the focus on Tuesday.</p>
<p>In fact, it was a remarkably introspective press conference, at least for someone who has observed Spurrier for a long time. He didn't spend that much time boasting about his record at South Carolina, though part of that was because Athletics Director Ray Tanner and University President Harris Pastides did so for him. What was most striking about the event was Spurrier's frequent references to his limitations.</p>
<p>The coach known for mocking opponents for recruiting violations or off-field problems or just losing too much was instead talking about why he was leaving. Steve Spurrier didn't resign because of what he has done, but because of what he can no longer do.</p>
<p>"I think I was probably the best coach for this job 11 years ago," Spurrier said. "But I'm not today. I'm not today."</p>
<p>At 70 years old, Spurrier is not the man for a long-term rebuilding prospect. "Yesterday, I was sort of a recruiting liability," he said, echoing a point that many of his critics over the last year have made. A promising 2015 class imploded under the pressure of a 7-6 season and Spurrier's unsuccessful attempts to roll back his comments that he would probably retire in the near future. High-school prospects aren't going to jump at the possibility to go through a coaching change, particularly when the outgoing coach is a legend and the incoming coach is unknown.</p>
<p>Spurrier noted that he liked to say he would coach for several more years as long as things were going well.</p>
<p>"But if it starts going south, starts going bad, then I need to get out," he said. "You can't keep a head coach that's done it as long as I have when it's heading in the wrong direction."</p>
<p>The winningest coach in the history of South Carolina said he needed to "move out of the way" and let the rebuilding process begin. He pointed out that the Gamecocks were just two years removed from an 11-2 season.</p>
<p>"Somehow or another, we've slid, and it's my fault," he said. "I'm responsible; I'm the head coach."</p>
<p>It came down to a simple calculation, Spurrier said. The game against UCF -- a team that, he didn't mention, is likely to go 0-12 -- was harder than it should have been. After watching his team get blasted in the second half of the game against LSU, Spurrier said, he came to realization that it was time to go.</p>
<p>"When something is inevitable, I believe you do it right then," Spurrier said.</p>
<p>So, in the direct fashion that is his trademark, that's exactly what Steve Spurrier did. He got moving.</p>
https://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/10/13/9521813/steve-spurrier-resignation-press-conference-quotesBrandon Larrabee2015-10-13T09:31:04-04:002015-10-13T09:31:04-04:00Steve Spurrier Retires: A Personal Recollection
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<p>This post is not objective.</p> <p>I am a Florida fan who was born in 1985. Though I have no memory of it, the first Gator football game I attended was the team's 38-28 win over Kentucky in 1989. I still have the ticket stub. I can lay claim to having been there before the Steve Spurrier era began.</p>
<p>Being able to say I was there for Gary Darnell's interim tenure doesn't mean much, though. The Spurrier era is how I grew up as a fan. It didn't define Florida football for me; it defined football itself.</p>
<p>When you're a young kid, you don't tend to follow much more than your own team. I can remember a time when I had no idea where Ole Miss or Auburn were because they didn't have a state in their names. Around the same time, I can remember thinking that quarterbacks don't run. Not that they choose not to, but that they were incapable of it. I thought that quarterback was the position you chose if you literally could not run and weren't big enough to be a lineman. If all you had watched was Shane Matthews and Terry Dean, you'd have thought the same thing.</p>
<p>I knew better by the time the 1996 <a href="http://www.sbnation.com/fiesta-bowl" class="sbn-auto-link">Fiesta Bowl</a> rolled around, but that epic beatdown at the hands of Tommie Frazier and Nebraska made me hate option football. It was unnatural. The quarterback's job was to throw it for a guy to catch it. That's what football was supposed to be. I actually had some misgivings when the Urban Meyer hire came down nearly a decade later because he would ask his Gator quarterbacks to run.</p>
<p>I grew to appreciate both the spread and the option in the Meyer era, and the less said about Florida's offense under Will Muschamp, the better. The first few games under Jim McElwain have felt very comfortable, though. He's not running <a target="_blank" href="http://coachhoover.blogspot.com/2013/05/1995-1996-florida-offense-steve-spurrier.html">Ralph/Lonnie or Mills</a>, but his offense is closer in spirit and in visuals to the Fun 'n Gun than the proto-spreads of the Ron Zook years, Meyer's spread option, or the hodgepodge of schemes under Muschamp. For someone raised on Spurrier football, this has been a return to form.</p>
<p>Of course, there is more to Spurrier football than just playing pitch and catch. His renaissance at South Carolina came as much from hiring Shawn Elliott to install a spread running attack in the Rich Rodriguez vein as any other single event. What makes him so different is that there is such a great contrast contained within one man.</p>
<p>Everyone knows he is as competitive as people get. He wanted to beat you, and if he put in his backups because he was up by a lot, he wasn't going to tell them to try not to score. He'd do anything it took to defeat his opponents, especially if their names were Bobby Bowden, Bill Curry, Phillip Fulmer, or anyone related to Georgia or Clemson. In Florida's only trip to Athens since 1932, he made a point to become the first visitor to hang half a hundred on them. He hasn't tried to run his beloved Fun 'n Gun in a long time, and as I just mentioned, he hired someone off of Appalachian State's three-time I-AA championship staff to fix his aging offense. Winning was more important to him than winning in a particular kind of way. And of course, he always had something to say after doing so.</p>
<p>At the same time, he did things that suggested he <i>wasn't</i> doing everything he could to win games. His love affair with the game of golf is well documented. He was never the most diligent recruiter, with FSU taking more of Florida's top talent in the '90s and his best years at South Carolina coinciding with several years where the state just happened to produce a bunch of great players in his backyard. Everyone knows he never won in Tallahassee while at UF, but he never won in Starkville either because he'd sometimes pick up losses to inferior teams. He draws a tougher line on <a target="_blank" href="http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/dennis-dodd/25262418/steve-spurriers-zero-tolerance-domestic-violence-rule-worth-copying">player discipline</a> than many other coaches do, and the closest thing to an NCAA scandal under his watch wasn't due to skirting rules to get a competitive advantage but rather just <a target="_blank" href="http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1999-06-13/sports/9906130245_1_reggie-mcgrew-bits-and-pieces-foley">not paying close enough attention </a>to non-football things around his program.</p>
<p>Even if in a small way, everything I see in football gets at least a little filtered through the lens of Spurrier football in the '90s. When someone throws it deep on the first play after a turnover, that's just like Steve. When I see a failed red zone fade route, I don't think "ban the fade!" as so many do these days. I think the coach just didn't teach it as well as Steve did. If towards the end of a blowout win a coach puts in a backup quarterback to hand off 12 times for every pass, I feel bad for that quarterback.</p>
<p>I hope Spurrier has a long and happy retirement. I don't expect him to become some universally loved grand old man of the game, as even during the glory days in Gainesville, I knew Florida fans who didn't like him because of his attitude. But me? I can't help but like the man for all the good and bad alike that made him the unforgettable person he is.</p>
<p>I am, and will always be, a fan of Steve Spurrier. Godspeed, coach.</p>
https://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/10/13/9517931/steve-spurrier-retires-a-personal-recollectionDavid Wunderlich2015-10-13T08:02:02-04:002015-10-13T08:02:02-04:00The Legacy of Steve Spurrier
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<p>What do we make of Steve Spurrier's career at South Carolina now that he is expected to announce Tuesday that he will retire?</p> <p>Late in the summer of 2006, more on a whim than anything else, I started <a href="http://cocknfire.blogspot.com/2006_08_20_archive.html">a blog called Cock 'n' Fire</a>. At the time, Steve Spurrier was about to begin his second season as head coach at South Carolina after putting together a mildly surprising 7-5 campaign in 2005. The trajectory of the program seemed to be going up. The site name was the same as the one Spurrier was using to describe his new offense and, in a way, it was emblematic of the New Carolina.</p>
<p>You see, I have been writing in whole or in part about Steve Spurrier for as long as I've been regularly writing about college football on the Internet. Cock 'n' Fire would grow into Garnet and Black Attack when the site moved over to the relatively young SB Nation network, and from Garnet and Black Attack I moved here in 2008. Spurrier is one of only three SEC head coaches who still have the same job as they did when I started blogging, the others being Les Miles and Mark Richt.</p>
<p>And an entire generation of South Carolina fans has grown up without knowing another head football coach. The average freshman who walked onto the campus in Columbia this August was eight years old when Steve Spurrier coached the Gamecocks for the first time. Thanks in no small part to Spurrier's efforts over the last decade, this fall's incoming class was six years old the last time South Carolina had a losing record.</p>
<p>That era, or at least Steve Spurrier's part of it, will end at noon today when Spurrier steps to the podium and announces that he is retiring after 25 years of serving almost exclusively as a head coach in the SEC. (There was the three-year interruption for his ill-fated voyage to the NFL and the resulting sabbatical.) In that time, he took both Florida and South Carolina to unprecedented heights. He revolutionized the game, particularly during his time in Gainesville. (One reason his job in Columbia was so hard was because of the behemoth he created in Florida and the scramble by other programs to catch up.) He became one of the most despised, most beloved and most fascinating figures in college football. Forever great and often small. Unflinchingly confident and unfailingly thin-skinned. Intensely competitive and totally balanced. A living contradiction walking around like he had a Coors Light in his hand and no shirt on his back, in part because he sometimes did.</p>
<p>So an era is ending for me as well. For the first time in almost a decade, I will be writing about college football and not Steve Spurrier. He will almost certainly hover over everything South Carolina does for the next few months, but the focus will be on playing out the string in the 2015 season and finding a new coach. The team will be less relevant than it was during Spurrier's heyday in Columbia. And whatever quips the Head Ball Coach might dispense will be from the cheap seats right next to the rest of us. I'm relieved, <a href="http://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/9/16/9317805/steve-spurrier-retire-south-carolina-gamecocks-football">because I asked for this</a>. And at the same time, I'm incredibly saddened. I might not have lost a friend, but I've lost the next-closest thing a writer can have. I've lost a subject.</p>
<p align="center">* * *</p>
<p>You have to understand that Steve Spurrier and South Carolina were not a natural fit in 2005. Four years earlier, in what would become to that point perhaps the greatest season in Gamecocks history, Spurrier had led Florida into South Carolina's first blackout and ruined the most impressive gameday atmosphere Columbia had ever seen. After beating the Gamecocks, Spurrier would try to calm the Florida beat reporters down by reminding them that the Gators hadn't beat some big, powerful team -- it was, he said, just South Carolina.</p>
<p>The comment stung. Even before that, Spurrier was no less hated in Columbia than he was in other cities in the SEC, with the possible exception of Athens and Knoxville. And now, he had pointed out with a simple swipe just where South Carolina stood in the SEC East pecking order at that time -- nowhere close to Florida. Georgia, yes, and Tennessee, maybe. But not anywhere near Steve Spurrier's team.</p>
<p>In retrospect, though, the combination of Spurrier and the South Carolina fan base was a near-perfect match. Both had a habit of shooting off their mouths, though Spurrier's boastfulness came from an air of superiority and Gamecocks fans' crowing stemmed from an inferiority complex. Both were extremely thin-skinned about criticisms, even more so when those criticisms were valid. And both hated Georgia with the power of 1,000 burning suns.</p>
<p>And then Spurrier won. He won more than any South Carolina coach had ever won before, not only amassing the largest number of raw victories in Gamecock history, but the best winning percentage among any coach with more than two years in Columbia and the longest streak of non-losing seasons. Spurrier took over a program that had never won 11 games in a season and the did so in back-to-back-to-back years.</p>
<p>Looking back now, it's obvious that it all had to end, because these things do end. With the exceptions of Nick Saban's Alabama and Les Miles' LSU, no one stays up in the SEC forever -- and that includes programs with a lot more history and prestige than South Carolina. A coach wins and becomes the most popular man in the state. He loses and sees his popularity decline, momentarily if he can turn things around and permanently if he can't. And then we move onto the next guy and see if he can manage the cycle any better. And with those few notable exceptions, he can't. Sunrise, sunset. Football's answer to the circle of life.</p>
<p align="center">* * *</p>
<p>All you're left with when that cycle is done are memories. And even for the second longest-tenured coach in South Carolina history, Steve Spurrier left a lot of those memories. They're the reason why even those of us who thought the time had come for Spurrier to retire are finding it difficult to come to terms with a future without him.</p>
<p>There was the five-game SEC winning streak in 2005, which included the first victory against Florida in decades and the first road win at Tennessee in history. For once, South Carolina fans were interested in other teams' games until the end of the year; had Kentucky upset Georgia in the latter's SEC finale, the Gamecocks would have gone to Atlanta. There were the near-misses of 2006, when only one of the Gamecocks' five losses came by more than a touchdown, and the heights of 2007 before a five-game losing streak brought everything crashing down for the first time.</p>
<p>And there are the personal memories for me. Sitting in the South Carolina heat on Sept. 11, 2010, as Marcus Lattimore introduced himself to the SEC and began the run toward Atlanta that every Gamecock fan had dreamed of. Sitting in the Georgia Dome later that year, with my father (an Alabama fan) beside me, watching South Carolina play Auburn for the SEC Championship. And on one level, it never mattered whether they won or lost -- it mattered that they were there in that moment, and I was there in that moment, and I got to share that moment with the man who introduced me to sports in general and this sport in particular, and taught me so many other, far more important things.</p>
<p>That is what we cherish about sports. In 20 or 25 years, no matter who takes over as head coach at South Carolina next and how well he does, or who takes over after that and how well he does, I'm not going to remember the scores of each of the 135 games South Carolina played under Steve Spurrier. I'm going to remember a handful of moments, of course, the brutal Marcus Lattimore runs, the acrobatic Alshon Jeffrey catches and the punishing Jadeveon Clowney hits. But mostly I'll remember the pride of an 11-win season, the pure fun of a trip to the SEC title game, the strange feeling that South Carolina fans could expect to win a game instead of dreading which new way the team would find to lose it.</p>
<p>No, Steve Spurrier never won the conference championship that was his self-proclaimed top goal in Columbia. But he brought me and South Carolina fans those memories and more. He brought us a sense of real hope. Maybe it lasts and maybe it leaves Columbia when he walks away from the podium later today. But it was there, and it was real, and it can never be taken away from us. For a decade of work, that's a lot of legacy for Steve Spurrier. And for those of us who watched him, cheered for him and wrote about him over the last 10 years, it's a lot to be grateful for.</p>
https://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/10/13/9517953/steve-spurrier-retires-legacy-south-carolina-footballBrandon Larrabee2015-10-13T08:01:23-04:002015-10-13T08:01:23-04:00Shawn Elliott to be S.C. Interim Head Coach
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<p>It's not G.A. Mangus, who was reportedly the guy last night.</p> <p>Contrary to reports <a href="http://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/10/12/9516777/g-a-mangus-interim-coach-south-carolina" target="_blank">from yesterday</a>, <a class="sbn-auto-link" href="https://www.garnetandblackattack.com/">South Carolina Gamecocks</a> athletic director Ray Tanner will name offensive line coach Shawn Elliott the interim head coach to replace the retiring Steve Spurrier. This comes from <a href="https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/653892286955286528" target="_blank">reports</a> from basically every news outlet that covers college football. Yesterday the word was that it would be quarterbacks coach G.A. Mangus, but that will not be the case.</p>
<p><a style="background-color: #ffffff;" href="http://www.gamecocksonline.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/shawn_elliott_554785.html" target="_blank">Elliott</a> is a Carolina guy through and through, hailing from Camden, South Carolina and having played and coached at Appalachian State. He was on the staff at App State for its run of three straight I-AA national championships from 2005-07.</p>
<p>Elliott arrived in Columbia in January of 2010, which not coincidentally is the year when things really began to come together for the Gamecocks. Spurrier hired him to install a modern, spread-based zone running game, and it gave the offense a new balance while setting the stage for the <span>Marcus Lattimore</span> to flourish and the full exploitation of Connor Shaw's talent.</p>
<p>Presumably Mangus will take over running the offense while Elliott manages the whole show. We'll have more on this story as it develops.</p>
https://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/10/13/9518609/south-carolina-gamecocks-football-shawn-elliott-to-be-interim-headDavid Wunderlich2015-10-12T22:58:20-04:002015-10-12T22:58:20-04:00Mangus Expected as Interim Head Coach [Updated]
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<figcaption>Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</figcaption>
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<p>Quarterbacks coach will take over the top post for the rest of the season, according to The State</p> <p>There are other names also floating around out there, but The State newspaper is <a href="http://www.thestate.com/sports/college/university-of-south-carolina/usc-football/article38886768.html">reporting</a> that G.A. Mangus is expected to be named the interim head coach at South Carolina now that <a href="http://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/10/12/9515975/south-carolina-steve-spurrier-retiring-south-carolina-gamecocks">Steve Spurrier has retired</a>. The paper generally has good sources and good reporters on the South Carolina beat, so it's a pretty good bet that the Mangus report is right.</p>
<p>Mangus has been the <a href="http://www.gamecocksonline.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/ga_mangus_400188.html">quarterbacks coach in Columbia since 2009</a>, which means he's had just as uneven a track record as the program over the last several years. He oversaw the best years of <span class="sbn-auto-link">Stephen Garcia</span> as well as Connor Shaw's remarkable career, then Dylan Thompson's somewhat underrated season at the helm and finally this year's confusing mess under center. It's questionable whether Mangus would get consideration for the full-time job, though he has head coaching experience.</p>
<p>Mangus gets Vanderbilt at home in the last winnable SEC game for South Carolina, a game that I can now seem them winning or losing by 40. Then, the team goes to Texas A&M and Tennessee before a three-game homestand against Florida, The Citadel (the only game S.C. might be favored in) and Clemson.</p>
<p><b>UPDATE, 7:47 a.m. ET</b></p>
<p><a href="http://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/10/13/9518609/south-carolina-gamecocks-football-shawn-elliott-to-be-interim-head" target="_blank">Numerous reports are out there that offensive line coach Shawn Elliott, not Mangus, will be the interim head coach.</a></p>
https://www.teamspeedkills.com/2015/10/12/9516777/g-a-mangus-interim-coach-south-carolinaBrandon Larrabee