Morris: Will this year be different?

ORLANDO — WE ARE TOLD this bowl season is different. South Carolina is better prepared this time around. The Gamecocks are more focused on winning. There is history to be made with a victory against Nebraska in the Capital One Bowl.

Funny, similar talk came out of the USC camp in preparation for the Chick-fil-A Bowl a season ago, and the Papajohns.com Bowl the season before, and the Outback Bowl the season …

Yet the results have been pretty much the same throughout Steve Spurrier’s bowl history at USC. Only a 2006 Liberty Bowl victory against Houston of Conference USA stands in the way of total embarrassment for Spurrier-coached bowl teams at USC.

DeVonte Holloman, the junior strong safety, has been through the past two bowl debacles. He knows there is only one way to show USC fans and the college football community that things are different this season.

“Hopefully, we’ll show you on the second,” Holloman said of Monday’s bowl date. “We want (the outcome) to be different. … We’re hoping for a different result. It’s a big difference this year, a lot of energy and a lot more focus.”

Despite the poor showings in Atlanta, Birmingham and Tampa following the past three seasons, Spurrier and defensive line coach Brad Lawing insist there have been no major changes in preparation for this bowl.

A year ago, the coaching staff preached the importance of producing a second 10-win season in school history. This time, the mantra is to garner the program’s first 11-win season.

“There’s probably a little bit more at stake because we’ve got a chance to do something they’ve never done here before,” Lawing said Wednesday following practice. “We’ve worked hard at other bowl games, but we just haven’t finished it off on the field. We’ve got to do that in this one.”

That sounds well and good. Yet there is little history to make the outside observer believe the results could be different. The bowl history under Spurrier is unsightly, and that is being kind.

After Missouri rallied from a 28-7 deficit to defeat USC, 38-31, in the 2005 Independence Bowl, Spurrier cleared the seniors out of the locker room and promised his underclassmen that such an outcome would not happen again.

That appeared to be true when USC hung on to defeat Houston 44-36 in the ’06 Liberty Bowl despite a highly questionable, late-game call by Spurrier. Leading by 8 with four minutes remaining and facing a fourth-and-1 at its 37, Spurrier opted to go for it and failed. His defense then needed a sack and two final stands to secure the win.

Highlights since have been few and far between.

Not long after USC’s regular season ended with a loss to Clemson, Spurrier named Stephen Garcia his starting quarterback for the 2009 Outback Bowl. A month of preparation obviously was not enough for Garcia, who threw three interceptions and lost a fumble on USC’s first four possessions in the 31-10 pasting by Iowa.

Then came the Papajohns.com Bowl disaster, a 20-7 shellacking from a Connecticut team attempting to make a name for itself on the national scene. A couple of players left the sideline and headed to the locker room before the game clock expired, and a wide receiver and assistant coach engaged in a shoving match afterward.

Finally, there was the 26-17 loss to Florida State a season ago in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, which started badly with star running back Marcus Lattimore knocked out of the game early and ended months later with news that Garcia had kept improper company a few nights before the game.

Whew!

After each of the past three bowl games, there has followed a fit of rage from the USC fan base, properly upset that its team appeared ill-prepared and poorly coached in the postseason. Those feelings seem to subside annually as the following season unfolds, but at least one person of importance has not forgotten all the bowl misery.

“We hope the senior leadership on this team is a little different and the makeup of this team is a little different (than on the three previous bowl trips),” Spurrier said upon learning of USC’s Capital One Bowl bid.

“We have no excuses,” he said. “We just got our tails beat the last three bowl games, and we’re going to try not to get beat this time. We will try to balance it the right way. Our players, coaches, we all know the importance of this game.”

All that talk sounds good. But until USC produces a bowl win, it is all just that — talk.