I agree a good move by South Carolina but Spurrier is not all that great like everyone wants to believe. Just look at how many wins he has racked up against piss poor compeition.
Spurrier's record was 122-27-1 at Florida in 12 years. :clap:
Of those 122 wins he beat Furman, Akron, San Jose St, N.Illinois, Louisville, Arkansas St, Louisiana Lafayette (3 times), New Mexico St, Houston, N.Illinois, Georgia Southern, Central Michigan, Citadel, Louisiana Monroe (2 times), Western Michigan, Central Florida, Ball St, Middle Tennessee St, Marshall, Alabama Birmingham, and Ohio all outside the SEC.
Lets see that's 24 wins in 12 years against these powers (ah 2 gimmes a year)
Then of course you have the other more well knowns he beat during that period that were non-SEC
1990 Oklahoma St. 4-7 record
1994 S. Mississippi 6-5 record
1997 S. Mississippi 9-3 record
3 more wins against mediocre teams outside the SEC.
Then he got to play some of these SEC teams whose records over Spurriers tenure were-
Vanderbilt- Spurrier got 10 wins (Vandy's record over the period 33-77)
Kentucky-Spurrier got 12 wins (Kentucks record over the period 48-87)
LSU-Spurrier got 11 wins (Tigers record over the period 63-62-1)
S.Carolina-Spurrier got 10 wins (Carolina's record over the period 50-62-1)
Auburn-Spurrier got 9 wins (Tigers record over that period 51-40-2)
Thats 52 wins in 12 years over teams that played close to 500 ball at best. Another 4 wins a season.
Geez, that looks to me to be about 6 wins a year over average teams.
Take a look at the rest of the teams he played and his record-
Syracuse 1-1
Alabama 6-2
Tennessee 8-4
Georgia 11-1
Florida St 5-8
Notre Dame 0-1
NC State 1-0
S.Mississippi 3-0
West Virginia 1-0
Nebraska 0-1
Arkansas 3-0
Penn St. 1-0
Michigan St 0-1
Miami 0-1
Maryland 1-0
total 41-20
Spurrier may be a great coach but he sure played some stiffs and did very very well against those. He did very well against some mediocre teams and did an especially good job against Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee but did poorly against Florida St and skipped playing Miami until the 2000 Sugar bowl when he got hammered. Why did he want to dodge playing Miami if he was such a great coach and had such a great program?
I know many here LOVE Spurrier and he has MANY fans across the country and media, but I just showed why you should be all that impressed by him. Sorry if I offended any die hard Spurrier fans. Just sharing my opinion and backing it up.
I wonder if he ever played a top 10 Strength of Schedule. A top 20 SOS? I certainly know he never played tough OOC competition and was afraid to play Miami.
Maybe this is why he couldn't cut it in the NFL? Prob. not because some people are clearly meant to coach college. I do know he is the man responsible for setting the SEC trend of playing cream puff OOC schedule.