Spurrier Has Tough
Row To Hoe
8/14/05
12:01 am edt
by
Mike Mitchell
Not
to say it can’t be done, but Steve Spurrier has his work
cut out for him in his bid to push South Carolina football to
the upper echelon of the SEC. Spurrier is the fourth head coach
the Gamecocks have hired with a national championship on his
resume. History shows that South Carolina has been a bad career
move for distinguished head coaches.
In 1908, Sol S. Metzger was 11-0-1 with Pennsylvania and claimed
the national championship awarded by the Helms Athletic Foundation.
He followed that up with winning stints at Oregon State and West
Virginia before moving to South Carolina in 1920. While Metzger
led the Gamecocks to a 5-1-2 season in 1921, he left the school
with an unspectacular 5-year record of 26-18-2.
Paul Dietzel won a national championship with LSU in 1958 and
was 46-24-3 in seven seasons in Baton Rouge. After a four-year
stint with Army from 1962-1965 where he went 21-18-1, Dietzel
moved to South Carolina. He spent nine seasons with the Gamecocks
before leaving amid a growing “Get Rid Of Dietzel”
movement. His record from 1966-1974 was just 42-53-1 with only
three winning seasons, a high mark of 7-4 (twice) and a 1969
Peach Bowl loss to West Virginia as their only postseason appearance.
Fast-forward to Lou Holtz who, ironically, worked under Dietzel
at South Carolina in the mid-60’s before taking his first
head-coaching job at William & Mary in 1970.
Holtz won a national championship in 1988 with Notre Dame and
came to South Carolina eleven years later with a career coaching
record of 216-95-7. But Holtz went 0-11 in his first season with
the Gamecocks in 1999 and, when he retired after the 2004 season,
his six-year record at the school was a pedestrian 33-37. Holtz
produced just three winning seasons at South Carolina and his
best records were a modest 8-4 in 2000 and 9-3 in 2001. Both
of those seasons ended with Outback Bowl wins over Ohio State
but the Gamecocks did no better than 5-3 in the conference. His
teams were a collective 19-29 against conference opponents.
Holtz was 6-5 in his final season and, sadly, his last game featured
a bench-clearing brawl with rival Clemson players. Left in his
wake was a program reeling from player arrests and team dysfunction.
Now, Steve Spurrier takes a shot. The man who briefly gave life
to Duke football in the late 1980’s left Durham with a 20-13-1
record over three seasons. His short stint with the Blue Devils
produced an ACC title and a loss at the All-American Bowl to
Texas Tech in 1989. Spurrier’s audition at Duke gave him
enough clout to land a bigger head coaching job with his alma
mater - the University of Florida.
With the Gators, the 1966 Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback
captured the 1996 national championship with a Sugar Bowl win
over Florida State.
Now, just like Metzger, Dietzel and Holtz, Spurrier is faced
with the task of taking South Carolina to a new level. History
says you shouldn’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen.
Dietzel tried and left thoroughly defeated. Holtz tried and left
with a tarnished reputation.
South Carolina has just eleven bowl appearances and three bowl
wins in its history. They have just one 10-win season dating
back to 1892 and their career mark in the SEC (1992-2004) is
37-66-1. In over 50 years of affiliation with the Southern Conference,
ACC and SEC, the Gamecocks have just one conference championship.
That came in 1969 during a season in which no other ACC team
posted a winning record and the Gamecocks beat no one with a
winning record.
Spurrier, indeed, has a tough row to hoe.
(Note: This article was written on August 14, 2005 - prior to Steve Spurrier's debut as South Carolina's head coach on Sept. 1, 2005 against UCF.) |