The decline of Darth Visor

posted by LW, Friday, November 27, 2009

Steve Spurrier at Florida:


Steve Spurrier at South Carolina:


For anyone who was in complete awe of how the swashbuckling Spurrier lit up the SEC in the 1990s, his current plight in Columbia is quite jolting.

He used to brag about hanging 50 on Georgia in Athens. Now he considers himself lucky if he hangs 20 on Vanderbilt.

He used to brag about his "ball plays." Now no one knows if he's even calling the plays.

Steve Superior as program CEO? That's like Lars Ulrich switching from drums to ticket-taker at a Metallica concert.

Bart Wright thinks the problem with Spurrier's offense is its inability to run the ball.

For whatever reasons, it looks like he hasn't been able to recruit sufficient levels of talent in the offensive line and backfield to be able to run the ball against top competition.

Without that, you can't win most places and surely not in the SEC.

For as much as they talk about his passing game concepts that distinguished those Duke and Florida teams, the secret to beating Spurrier has always been stopping the run. A great deal of his passing offense has always been leveraged on the ability to run and the need for defenses to respect the play action – fake the run and then pass – aspect of his offense.

I would agree. Spurrier's Florida offenses often get miscast as five-wide, chuck-it-all-over-the-place deals, but that's just not true. Watch some of his best teams, and you'll see bruising I-formation running that sets up an unstoppable play-action passing game.

From my recollections, the best Spurrier's offense has looked at South Carolina was a stretch late in 2006. The Gamecocks went down to Florida and moved the ball in balanced fashion against a great defense before falling 17-16 largely because of special-teams gaffes.

Then the Gamecocks came to Clemson and sliced the Tigers' defense to ribbons via run and pass.

Since then, though, it's been a struggle. Five years into his tenure, his offense has been shockingly pedestrian overall.

Interesting comments from Ellis Johnson regarding the cherry-picking of the state's top talent.

"It starts to irritate me when we don't take the pride in our high school state football," said Johnson, who started his career coaching at Gaffney and Spartanburg high schools. "We let kids go out of state when there are two great universities here they can go to.

"Guys will run and fall all over themselves to let (Southern Cal coach) Pete Carroll out of the car but they won't grant the same courtesy to coaches that come from in-state."

Gene Sapakoff, who somehow has the patience to deal with 26 Heisman voters in the Palmetto State, tries to break down this year's wide-open race.

Ron Morris says USC needs to start turning things around in this rivalry.

South Carolina would have to win every game against Clemson until 2037 just to even the series. Dabo Swinney will be 68 by then. Steve Spurrier will be 93.

Since USC ran up the score in a 56-20 victory against Clemson in 1975, the Tigers have rung up a 24-8-1 record.
USC has not won consecutive games in the series since capturing three straight when radio color commentary Tommy Suggs was the quarterback from 1968-70.

Clemson has won six of the past seven meetings and 10 of the past 12.

USC has won two of the past 14 meetings in Columbia.

Think I hear some billboard wheels turning...


Here's what has to be the most depressing thing to Gamecock fans: They beat the Tigers more often when Clemson was really good.

South Carolina beat Clemson three times during the Tigers' golden era (between 1977 and 1991).

Since 1996, when the Gamecocks won three in five years, Clemson has taken 10 of 12.

And here's a statistic that has to make USC fans' blood boil: Brad Scott, declared an enemy of the state after he took a job at Clemson, beat the Tigers as much (twice) in five years as Spurrier and Lou Holtz have in 10.


In the Independent-Mail, a piece on Kyle Parker's maturation.

Tough loss for the basketball team yesterday in Anaheim. You never want to make lasting judgments off of one game -- particularly a game in November -- but this bunch has some growing up to do.

Said Trevor Booker: "We came out in the first half and missed shots. We quit. I got frustrated. We tried to come back in the second half, but we just couldn't."

Andy Katz gives his thoughts from the game.

What was more distressing, Clemson's poor halfcourt offense or its matador defense?


LW

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