Spurrier has become Tommy Bowden

Jul 16, 2013, 8:42 PM

Clowney is running his mouth at media days. And, he has pretty good legs to stand on when taunting Tajh, but the rest of his comments are asinine. Clowney came to SCar as the consensus best player in the country and joined what was indisputablely the most talented team (at that time) in the schools history. They had also just played for their first ever shot at an SEC title. So surely, while retaining loads of talent, they have moved on to bigger and better things with Mr Sure Fire #1 pick NFL Ready at 17 years old Clowney, right? Oh wait, what's that. Despite players like Jefrey, Garcia, Shaw, Thompson, Lattimore, Ingram, Gurley, Swearinger and a host of others at their disposal Steve "the greatest mind in the history of the sport (in his own mind) Spurrier and Man Child Clowney have actually only regressed in the two years he has been there. Oh yes, they've won a bunch of games, but aside from some tacky rings of dubious value on ebay, what do they have to show for it. zilch.

And this is why I make the Spurrier/Bowden comparison. He has become incapable of winning "the game that matters." He is serving up a big old helping of red meat to the Gamecock faithful by beating UGA and Clemson every year but manages to find a way to stumble and lose the division each year. This is a coach who very publicly downplayed non-conference rivalries at Florida while winning a huge string of conference titles. Bowden managed to keep his job as long as he did for two reasons - he cracked the code on beating FSU and owned the Gamecocks. And despite perpetually being an also ran in the division and playing in meaningless bowl games year after year this was enough to placate a very large portion of the fanbase. This is exactly what Spurrier has done at SCar. He has abandoned whatever it was that allowed him to build Florida teams with the focus to finish the season best in the SEC and he has accepted winning two games as the crux of the season. He's going to beat teams like Vanderbilt, Kentucky, a rebuilding Tennessee, anyone with Mississippi in the name just by showing up most of the time. But the obvious game planning and work is directed at two games, Hence the terrible play in the Florida game last year and the legendarily bed-sh*tting performance against Auburn two years ago.

For your star player to run his mouth about Murray - who has played in the SEC championship two years in a row, a game Clowney has never played in is ridiculous. In the modern college football world you play for championships. This is what Spurrier used to understand. Individual games are big to fans but going undefeated is almost impossible so you have to focus strategically. Georgia has beaten SCar on this count two years running - no matter the score of the game. And do you think anyone in Athens would give a flying sh*t about the SCar game if they had beaten Alabama and played for a NC? He trashes talks Manziel who he's never played and just won the Heisman. Manziel who just won a Cotton Bowl - a better bowl game the SCar HAS EVER PLAYED IN.

I for one am looking forward to watching the wheels come off this season. Clowney is going to create locker room issues the first time anything doesn't go their way. He is the polar opposite of a Marcus Lattimore when it comes to leadership. Clowney is all about Clowney. I hope the skid starts with UNC. SCar usually starts slow and given how much they are going to be looking down their noses at a lowly ACC team for their opener they could find themselves in a hole they can't dig out of. In fact, my dream is for SCar to finish the season with 2 losses - Clemson and UNC. And despite finally picking up a conference championship they'd have to live knowing that they disgraced their conference by ending the streak of appearances in the NC game. And no conference champion with two losses is going to play in that game. Those losses should, in theory, drag down everyone else in the SEC enough to keep a second place team from sliding in like Alabama two years ago.

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down

thumb_up

Spurrier has become Tommy Bowden

TigerBoard POTD