By Brian Harbach

It is hard to argue that any coach who can win an ACC Championship at Duke isn’t a great, but it is becoming obvious the Steve Spurrier experience isn’t working at South Carolina. After a hugely successful stint as head coach of his alma mater, Florida Gators and a not so successful tenure as the Head Ball Coach for the Washington Redskins; Steve Spurrier has failed as the head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks ... so far. And that puts the pressure on this year when he has his best team yet.

That may sound like too strong a statement so let’s take a look at the numbers. Spurrier is 21-16 as the Gamecock coach, he has an 11-13 record in the SEC and he is 1-1 in bowl games with the win coming in the Liberty Bowl over Houston. For a regular coach in his first 3 years at a new school that might be acceptable, but for Spurrier this is a train wreck.

In comparison to his first three seasons at Florida his overall record was 28-8 to go along with an SEC record of 19-3. Obviously South Carolina is not the University of Florida, but they aren’t exactly chopped liver either. Any SEC school with a great fan base and good facilities should be able to play and recruit competitively in the SEC. South Carolina has the fans and facilities, but Spurrier’s past success is not making its way to the Gamecock players.

His first season in Columbia started with a bang, there was optimism of a future trip to Atlanta; a division title seemed like more of a reality than it ever had been for Carolina. With wins over Tennessee and Florida in 2005 the bar was raised a couple notches and with his SEC pedigree no one should have been surprised at what was going on in Columbia.

After that early success and one good recruiting year the train has come off the tracks and it is impossible to see what direction South Carolina is going. The man we loved for “You can’t spell Citrus without UT” seems destined to finish possibly his last coaching stop proving Lee Corso’s original comments right.

Spurrier has always oozed bravado and confidence, but for some reason his South Carolina teams do not seem to resemble him at all. It is an eerie reminder of Brian Billick’s time with the Baltimore Ravens, a man once known for offense can’t seem to find one and the defense carries the team. The defense has been good, but he always had good defenses at Florida and he always had great defensive coordinators to coach those defenses.

As an offensive genius at Florida, he turned Danny Wuerffel, Shane Matthews, Jesse Palmer and Doug Johnson into good and sometimes great SEC quarterbacks, yes system quarterbacks, but they were players you feared under center. For some reason Spurrier’s South Carolina teams have been unable to find that next great system quarterback and that is killing them.

The most surprising result of Spurrier’s time at South Carolina has been the lack of successful recruiting. The Gamecocks are being dominated by instate rival Clemson for almost every big name player in the state and they have been unable to bring in elite athletes to fit Spurrier’s system. His name should be enough to garner the respect of recruits, not to mention he is competing against Tommy “permanent hot seat” Bowden. Because of the instability that Bowden exudes, Spurrier should be dominating the state of South Carolina for the elite players but it isn't happening.

Spurrier has never been known as an active recruiter the way Nick Saban or Urban Meyer are thought of, but Clemson’s domination of the state of South Carolina is shocking. Either Tommy Bowden is working at a level higher than Spurrier or recruits just aren’t buying what South Carolina is selling right now. Either way, the Head Ball Coach is not getting it done off the field with possible future players and it is showing on the field.

This is a make or break year for South Carolina and Spurrier, the schedule is tough but with home games against UGA, LSU, Tennessee and Arkansas they might be able to upset someone. Their two toughest road games are the last two games of the year when they travel to Florida and Clemson, but it looks like they might be underdogs in at least 5 games this year. A good year can hopefully provide some recruiting momentum especially if there is another expected Clemson crash and burn season.

For most coaches the job Spurrier has done would be enough to appease a fan base, but this is not a normal coach and he should not be measured as a normal coach. Spurrier was not brought in for such meager accomplishments; he was brought in for Championships and his high powered offense. Collegefootballnews.com has predicted South Carolina will win 8 games this year, probably too high a number with the schedule they have. It is hard to count Spurrier out, but his track record since he left Florida is giving us reasons to start tempering the expectations.

Questions or comments? E-mail me Brian Harbach

Has Spurrier Failed at USC?, August 15, 2008
The SEC Bachstory, August 11, 2008
The SEC Bachstory, August 3, 2008
Harbach's Top 5 SEC Offensive Players by Position, July 27, 2008
Harbach's Top 5 SEC Defensive Players by Position, July 27, 2008
Harbach's Top SEC Games, July 13, 2008
Championship Game Hurts SEC, July 6, 2008
Harbach's 2008 SEC Preview, June 30, 2008
Let's Get This Started, June 9, 2008