Not-so-Old Ball Coach building 'New Carolina'
It was a good weekend for Steve Spurrier.
On Thursday, his South Carolina Gamecocks beat No. 4 Ole Miss 16-10 in a nationally televised game. It was the first home win against a top five team in the school's history.
"It's always a big win when you can beat somebody like that on a Thursday night because a lot of people get to see you play," Spurrier said. "It was a great night for the Gamecocks. It wasn't such a great night for Ole Miss."
Spurrier spent his free Saturday in Durham, N.C., where Duke honored the 20th anniversary of his 1989 ACC championship team. There have been several ceremonies honoring that Duke team over the years. Spurrier has found a way to get back for every one of them.
|
|
| Steve Spurrier is having plenty of fun these days as his Gamecocks are off to a 3-1 start. (Getty Images) |
Maybe you can tell that the Head Ball Coach has a little extra spring in his step these days.
First of all, don't make the mistake, as some do, of calling him the Old Ball Coach. "I'm not old," he says. And he's right. Spurrier turned 64 in April and stays in pretty good shape with a workout routine that would wilt most guys in their 20s.
Secondly, the HBC is starting to have some fun again. It's not like the good old days when Spurrier's Florida teams were laying waste to the SEC on a weekly basis. Those days are never coming back and, to put it bluntly, they can't happen at a place like South Carolina.
But after several seasons of critics saying that the game had passed Spurrier by, that it was time for him to take his visor and head to the beach, there is reason for optimism in Columbia. And optimism is fun.
The Gamecocks opened the season with a 7-3 road win at N.C. State. The Wolfpack have not lost since.
On Sept. 12, Spurrier coached a masterful game at Georgia and had the Gamecocks in position to win. Trailing 41-37, South Carolina had the ball at the Georgia 7-yard line. But Stephen Garcia's 53rd pass of the night was knocked down with 22 seconds left and the Bulldogs held on for the victory.
"We had a whole bunch of chances to win that game," Spurrier said. "We had some bad plays called [Spurrier calls the plays] and had to kick a bunch of little field goals. We were certainly in position to win. We just didn't make one more play than they did."
South Carolina should win Saturday at home against S.C. State and will probably be favored against Kentucky on Oct. 10 in Columbia. That means the Gamecocks could be 5-1 going to No. 3 Alabama on Oct. 17.
"We're encouraged, but I don't want our guys getting too excited," Spurrier said. "The fact is that we're a pretty good team on defense and they had a great night against Ole Miss. But we need to get a lot better on offense if we're going to have a good season. We have a lot of things we have to work on before we start to think we're a good team."
You see, Spurrier has seen this before at South Carolina. He remembers two years ago when the Gamecocks rose to No. 6 in the land after beating Georgia 16-12 in Athens and then posting an impressive 38-23 over previously undefeated and eighth-ranked Kentucky at Williams-Brice Stadium. That was also a nationally televised Thursday night game.
"We were all excited and thinking that we had arrived," Spurrier recalled. "That didn't last very long."
South Carolina lost five of its next six games to finish 6-6.
Spurrier said he plans to remind his players of that collapse two years ago. He hopes that it is teachable moment.
"Yeah, I was a little surprised the other night when I looked at all the guys who were celebrating," Spurrier said. "Even the guys who didn't play very well were celebrating. I just always thought that if you don't play well that should put a little damper on things. All I know is that all of us offensive coaches are looking forward to this week in practice. Hopefully, we can get our guys playing at a respectable level."
Eric Norwood, South Carolina's senior outside linebacker, says he has never forgotten the sting of 2007.
"I have been thinking about that since we beat Ole Miss," said Norwood, who has been the dominant player on the field in South Carolina's first four games. "We have to realize that in the SEC you can never get comfortable. You have to keep playing. If you don't, you'll get embarrassed."
Spurrier is clearly frustrated with his offense, but he has one of the faster, more athletic defenses in the SEC. Ellis Johnson has worked wonders since arriving as defensive coordinator and Spurrier has accepted, sometimes grudgingly, that he will have to win some low-scoring games. It was a tough concession for the man whose passing game fundamentally changed the entire playing culture of the SEC when he arrived at Florida, his alma mater, in 1990.
While Spurrier is not particularly keen about the production of his offense, he does admit this: He likes this group of players. He couldn't always say that.
One of Spurrier's biggest frustrations since he got to South Carolina in 2005 has been dealing with some players who, he believed, wanted to win but didn't understand or accept the commitment level that was necessary to be successful in the SEC. In short, they wanted to win but didn't hate to lose. Spurrier hates to lose at anything and doesn't understand why anyone would accept it or make peace with it.
"We've got a better group of guys who really pull for each other," Spurrier said. "Some guys in the past have had their own agenda. There was all this NFL crap. These guys seem to actually care about each other. It's good to see."
Spurrier points to players like Norwood, who could have turned pro after last season. But Norwood decided he needed another year of college football to become a great player instead of just a really good player.
"It's good when one of your very best players is also a great team player, too," Spurrier said. "We've got several guys like that. We could always use more."
In an attempt to change the attitude (and hopefully the results) of the past, Spurrier and the rest of the South Carolina coaches and players have declared that 2009 would be the year of a "New Carolina."
Norwood, who had two sacks against Ole Miss to become South Carolina's all-time leader, told reporters after the game that the victory was a "defining moment" of his career. Then he quickly tempered those remarks.
"I came back to win," Norwood said. "I didn't come back to be mediocre. But at the same time we know that it is just another stepping stone. Now we have to build on it."
Spurrier enjoyed the Ole Miss win as much as anybody. But he is holding his enthusiasm in check because he knows how brutal the SEC can be. Alabama, Tennessee and Florida, just to name a few, are still on the schedule.
"We're trying to get our guys to play differently than teams in the past," Spurrier said. "A lot of our guys have played well so far, but not the entire team. When we get all 11 of them at a high performance level, then we might say that we've arrived as the New Carolina. But we haven't gotten there yet."
"Coach Spurrier is right," Norwood said. "What we have to prove is that at Carolina we can bring it all the time. We haven't always done that around here. Two years ago we got excited and everybody told us how good we were. Then we just fell apart. We can't let that happen again."
Watch The Tony Barnhart Show every Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on CBS College Sports Network.
