Steve Spurrier and his patented Steve Spurrier candor have already made headlines this spring with his jabs at Georgia's discipline issues and Nick Saban's legacy at Alabama. But it turns out their long-time partnership still had more ammunition to burn before April was out.

Talking to Sports Illustrated's Andy Staples, Spurrier said he would use the SEC's annual spring meetings in Destin, Fla. to air a revolutionary proposal: for the league to count only division games when deciding a division champion. 

"Your division champ should be decided on division games. Last year, it wasn't fair for Tennessee and Florida," Spurrier said. "They both played LSU and Alabama. Us and Georgia didn't. So, us or Georgia almost had to win the division simply because of the schedule."

Of course, if you think Spurrier was only going to point out the scheduling inequities that hurt the Vols and Gators a year after the Gamecocks went 5-0 in the East and still lost the division title to a Georgia team they'd defeated in Athens, you are not thinking the right thing about Steve Spurrier. 

"I give them credit for beating everybody after they lost to us," Spurrier said. "But they had (0-8) Ole Miss, and we had (6-2) Arkansas. That was the only difference in the SEC schedule between us two."

As Staples points out, that's accurate. But it also doesn't mention that Spurrier's Gamecocks would have still won the East if they'd taken care of business against Auburn at home--a team the Bulldogs thrashed by 38 points.

It's true that Carolina was no done no favors by the league schedule in 2011 and doesn't appear to have been done any by the 2012 slate. But is that reason enough to turn cross-divisional games into de facto exhibitions (or run-of-the-mill nonconference games) and split the SEC into two functionally different football conferences?

Despite the fact that Spurrier isn't the only Gamecock up in arms over the 2011 issues, we doubt it seriously--which is why even Spurrier wasn't getting his hopes up over his proposal passing. But that he's willing to float the idea shows that his disappointment over how last year played out -- and that arguably his best team in Columbia didn't make it to Atlanta despite beating their closest competition head-to-head on that competition's field -- hasn't exactly subsided, and may help explain the previous shot across the Bulldogs' bow this spring. 

In short, the Ol' Ball Coach is feeling ornery, we'd say. What that might mean in the 2012 East race, we're not sure. But it's certain to make it more interesting; in fact, it already has.

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