Spurrier: Morale Remains High
Scott Hood
GamecockCentral.com Staff Writer
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Despite three consecutive losses after ascending as high as No. 6 in the national rankings, South Carolina's players and coaches remain confident they'll win the final two regular season games and earn a berth in a significant bowl game.
The Gamecocks will try to rebound from last week's disappointing 48-36 road loss to Arkansas in which they surrendered 650 total yards when they host defending national champion Florida Saturday at 7:45 p.m. in a ESPN nationally televised contest.
"I think our morale's fine, I really do," USC head coach Steve Spurrier said Tuesday during his weekly press conference. "We've been competitive, although we got trampled last week. But like I told our guys, our offense had a really, really lousy game against Vandy and now our defense had their lousy game. We're hoping we can regroup and play a lot better. But we've played some good teams. We're staying positive around here."
If there's a bright side to the current losing streak, many of USC's best players are underclassmen. One hundred of USC's 220 starters (10 games, 22 starters each game) this season have been freshmen or sophomores. That's 45.5 percent.
The top four tacklers – and five of the top six - on defense are sophomores. Seven of the top eight tacklers will return next season.
Offensively, USC expects to lose just one of its top eight pass catchers. Leading receiver Kenny McKinley (62 receptions) intends to return for his senior season, when he'll likely break most of the school's major receiving records.
With so many young players, Spurrier is far from throwing in the towel, either for this season or beyond.
"Somebody asked me the other day 'Are you discouraged?' I said, 'No, I'm not discouraged.' Our big recruiting class was last year. It wasn't three years ago. We've got a lot of players here we believe are going to be outstanding players. And like I've said many times, our best team is not going to be this year. We didn't think it would be."
Spurrier pointed out on Tuesday that even when the Gamecocks were 6-1 and ranked No. 6 in the BCS rankings, he wasn't feeling chirpy.
"When we were 6-1, I wasn't sitting here talking about how great we were," Spurrier said. "It sort of just all caught up to us against some good teams. We need to right our ship and see if we can't play a lot better this week."
Florida, this week's opponent, has given significant playing time to numerous young players as well. Ninety-four (47.1 percent) of the Gators' 198 starters this season have been freshmen or sophomores.
All that inexperience has certainly affected Florida's bottom line. One year after capturing the national championship with a 13-1 record, the Gators are 6-3 overall, 4-3 in the SEC with last-minute losses to Auburn (20-17) and LSU (28-24) and a two-touchdown defeat to Georgia (42-30) two weeks ago in the 'Cocktail Party' Game.
One week after giving up 541 yards on the ground to Arkansas, USC must deal with a Florida team that's third in the SEC in rushing offense (189.4 yards). What's unusual about the Gators is their leading rusher is quarterback Tim Tebow, who is averaging 66.4 rushing yards per game. Most of his yards come out of the shotgun.
"They've got an excellent running game," Spurrier said. "We've not been real super stopping that shotgun. Hopefully, we'll try some different things, different from what we tried last week, and see if we can't make them throw the ball. Florida probably has the best balanced offense in the league."
In order to beat Florida for the second time in three years, USC must avoid falling behind early. The Gamecocks have been outscored 66-16 in the first half over the last three games.
Spurrier is prepared to shake off last week's poor performance by the defense as an aberration. Certainly, he believes the unit has the capability to perform at a much higher level.
"Our defense has played a little better than the offense most of the year until last Saturday night," Spurrier said. "I don't know if Arkansas was that great a running team or we're that bad. I guess we're going to find out as we finish the season here. But we had not been quite that poor against the run."
Besides surrendering the highest rushing total in school history, the USC defense also allowed Arkansas to convert on 10-of-13 third down opportunities.
The Gamecocks are currently eighth in the SEC in both total offense (371.4 yards per game) and total defense (355.7 ypg). Those rankings are substandard considering USC has hoped to contend for a SEC championship this season.
"Maybe our team's not quite as strong as we hoped right now," Spurrier said. "We hope to be there someday. When our team's up there at the top of the conference in defense and offense and we're getting our butts beat, you need to ask me 'How do you account for that? Right now, we're eighth in the league in offense and defense and special teams hasn't done much except rough the punters."
USC is already bowl eligible despite the Gamecocks' current difficulties running the football and stopping the run. Of course, falling behind early in games has forced USC to throw the ball more than they would have liked.
Blake Mitchell threw a career-high 51 passes against Arkansas, the third highest single game mark in school history and the most since Steve Taneyhill attempted 51 passes against Georgia in 1995.
Over the past two games, USC has completed 61 of 101 passes for 694 yards, totaled 990 yards of offense and generated 60 first downs. After going eight quarters without a touchdown, the Gamecocks have scored 60 points in the last six quarters, an average of 10.0 points per period.
Spurrier is unimpressed. Instead, he's focused on the many mistakes the Gamecocks have made to prevent them from winning either game.
"I'm not very proud of how our offense has played the last two weeks," Spurrier said. "We've had crucial errors in crucial times. We left a bunch of points out there against Arkansas. We had an illegal procedure on the five-yard line and we couldn't get a wide receiver to line up correctly, things like that. We missed a couple of open guys. We win and lose as a team."
USC is currently 11th in the SEC (95th in the NCAA) in rushing offense (121.6 ypg) and 11th in rushing defense (206.5 ypg). Surrendering 541 rushing yards to Arkansas has dropped USC to 104th out of 119 schools in the NCAA.
"You don't like it when your run defense is not that good and your rush offense is not very good," Spurrier said. "We're down near the bottom in both those categories right now. So we're sort of a 50/50 team right now."
Regardless of USC's problems running the ball this season, running back Cory Boyd has rushed for 785 yards and has a chance to become the Gamecocks first 1,000-yard rusher since Derek Watson ran for 1,066 yards in 2000. Boyd's single season high is 823 yards in 2006.
In the last two games, Boyd has rushed 37 times for 254 yards and two touchdowns.
With nine SEC schools already bowl eligible, USC will likely have to win a seventh game to secure a bowl bid. The Gamecocks have two chances left to pick up that coveted win.
After hosting Florida Saturday night, USC has a week off before arch-rival Clemson arrives at Williams-Brice Stadium on Nov. 24.
But earning a bowl berth is the furthest thing from Spurrier's mind right now as he tries to end USC's three-game losing streak.
"I've got a lot more concerns at this point, like trying to find somebody who can make a few tackles (and) a little blocking," Spurrier said. "Blocking and tackling is my concern right now."
Spurrier is also unconcerned about the fact USC will face on Saturday the team he led to seven SEC titles in 12 years as head coach. Spurrier is 1-1 against the Gators, including a 30-22 victory in 2005 and a heartbreaking 17-16 loss last season in Gainesville.
"The story line is over, really," Spurrier said. "I've been here three years now and their coach has been there three years, so it's not a story. It's significant only in that they won the national championship last year, they're the defending conference champ, so it'll be neat to beat them if we could. We haven't beaten them much in the history of our school. Really, we need to concern ourselves with our guys playing the best we can."
DEPTH CHART FOR FLORIDA GAME:
OFFENSE
Quarterback – Mitchell (Beecher OR Smelley)
Running Back – C. Boyd (Davis)
Fullback – Stafford (DiMarco)
Wide Receiver – McKinley (M. Brown and Freeman)
Wide Receiver – Lecorn (F. Brown and Culliver)
Left Tackle – Meredith
Left Guard – S. Brown (Thind)
Center – W. Brown (Anderson)
Right Guard – Batchelor (Jeanpierre)
Right Tackle – Sorensen (Batchelor)
Tight End – A. Boyd (Cook)
DEFENSE
Defensive End – Norwood (R. Brown)
Defensive Tackle – Hall (Williams)
Defensive Tackle – Ajiboye (Reaves)
Defensive End – C. Brinkley (Robertson)
Strongside Linebacker – Paulk (Sinclair)
Middle Linebacker – Sapp (Ingram)
Weakside Linebacker – Matthews (Wells)
Cornerback – Munnerlyn (Williams)
Free Safety – Stewart (Hampton)
Strong Safety – Cook (Hampton)
Cornerback – Thomas (Woodson).
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