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Morris: Call single-digit wins 'walking up the score'
Steve Spurrier
Erik Campos/ecampos@thestate.com
Posted on 09.09.09
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IT WILL NOT be easy for Steve Spurrier, but he needs to accept the fact his South Carolina football team can be outstanding this season by relying on a stout defense and playing conservative on offense.
There is not a USC fan who would not joyously take a 3-0 victory over Georgia on Saturday and brag to all of his friends about it for most of the next year. Not one of those same fans would turn down a slew of SEC victories in which USC barely cracked double figures on the scoreboard.
Understandably, Spurrier has a difficult time with such a concept. This is the man who injected fun into football in the Southeastern Conference. This is the guy who became known as an “offensive genius” at Duke and Florida because he drew up daring ball plays perhaps better than anyone in college football history.
While it might be OK for USC fans to begin thinking of Spurrier some day soon as a “defensive genius,” it is awfully hard for the Head Ball Coach to swallow such talk. Even his Florida teams that featured outstanding defenses were rarely recognized for anything but having the ability to score on any play from any place on the field.
“Whatever it takes to win the game,” Spurrier said when asked how happy he would be with a low-scoring victory over Georgia. During his Tuesday meeting with the media he even sprinkled in a few “the-object-is-to-win” comments regarding low-scoring victories.
The fact is, it eats away at Spurrier when his offense sputters as it did in USC’s 7-3 victory against N.C. State a week ago. That is why he kept muttering the final score to himself as he left that postgame media gathering, and why he said maybe USC will some day win a 42-39 game, although he was not holding his breath.
The scoreboard matters to Spurrier, and not just in determining the winning team. That is why he went searching for answers this week, pointing to conservative play-calling as a big reason for USC’s paltry 256 yards of total offense against N.C. State. He also wondered aloud why USC can’t change more plays at the line of scrimmage, and get better plays called from the sideline.
“It has been a struggle, even compared to our Duke teams,” Spurrier said of his USC days. “It’s not as much fun as it used to be, but we’re getting there.”
Part of the problem is that the college game — more specifically, defenses — has caught up with passing attacks over the past decade or so. Defenses are adept at disguising pass coverages. Zone blitzes and other stunts are commonplace. Athletes on defense are bigger and faster.
It used to be that Spurrier could draw up a play on the sideline, send it in and stand a good chance of watching his offense execute it successfully. Now, he admits, there are plays called in which he and his assistants are not certain the line can provide adequate blocking for the quarterback to properly execute a play.
This is not uncharted territory for Spurrier, specifically at USC. The 256 yards of total offense against N.C. State tied for the 10th lowest output in Spurrier’s college coaching career. Not surprisingly, eight of those 11 lows have occurred in his four-plus USC seasons.
More revealing of the conservative play-calling against N.C. State were USC’s 148 passing yards, which rank as the 11th lowest output in Spurrier’s college coaching career. Again, six of those 11 grounded-attack games have been at USC.
The real beauty of USC’s victory was the play of its defense, which might be the quickest ever assembled in Columbia. The Gamecocks allowed N.C. State 133 yards, the lowest total permitted by a USC team since N.C. State managed 96 yards to open the 1999 season in Raleigh.
The 133 yards were the sixth fewest allowed by a Spurrier-coached team at Duke, Florida and USC. The difference in those other standout defensive efforts under Spurrier is that his offenses ran up huge numbers in every one of those games.
In those games, as in most games Spurrier coached at Duke and Florida, his offenses were blessed with loads of talent and created mismatches for nearly every opposing defense.
That is not the case with this USC team. It proved capable in defeating N.C. State of playing the percentages and playing within its limitations. Yes, it was a conservative approach with 42 running plays and 22 pass attempts. It also was an offense that played virtually free of mistakes with one turnover and one 15-yard penalty for pass interference.
In playing tight to the vest, Spurrier and his staff removed much of the pressure from quarterback Stephen Garcia, thereby not asking him to make big plays and carry the offense. Garcia had a respectable game, throwing for 148 yards, including a key 33-yard strike to Moe Brown that sealed the win.
If nothing else, the game plan showed Spurrier is capable of adapting to his personnel, and thus the win proved to be one of his better coaching jobs since coming to USC. You have to believe the same conservative approach and same reliance on its defense and running game will provide USC with the best chance to win at Georgia.
Should that strategy play well the remainder of the season and USC challenges for the SEC East championship, Gamecock fans will celebrate Spurrier’s new ways. No doubt, they will be more than happy to toast Spurrier as a “defensive genius.”
Listen to Morris Tuesdays from 4-5 p.m. on ESPN Radio 93.1 FM
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