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It ain't over — it's only September!

Ron Morris: USC, Clemson can rebound

Posted on 09.09.08
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How will USC fare for the entire season?
How will Clemson fare for the entire season?
Steve Spurrier Tommy Bowden combo

File photos/The State/

Steve Spurrier and Tommy Bowden

Ron Morris

Columnist
  • rmorris@thestate.com
  • (803) 771-8432
.

USC'S REMAINING SCHEDULE

Outlook for the rest of the 1-1 Gamecocks’ season:

Likely wins

Wofford, Sept. 20

UAB, Sept. 27

Arkansas, Nov. 8

Likely losses

Georgia, Saturday

LSU, Oct. 18

at Florida, Nov. 15

Tossups

at Mississippi, Oct. 4

at Kentucky, Oct. 11

Tennessee, Nov. 1

at Clemson, Nov. 29

--------------

CLEMSON’S REMAINING SCHEDULE

Outlook for the rest of the 1-1 Tigers’ season:

Likely wins

vs. N.C. State, Sept. 13

vs. S.C. State, Sept. 20

vs. Maryland, Sept. 27

vs. Georgia Tech, Oct. 18

vs. Duke, Nov. 15

at Virginia, Nov. 22

Likely losses

at Wake Forest, Oct. 9

Tossups

at Boston College, Nov. 1

at Florida State, Nov. 9

vs. USC, Nov. 29

A TRIO OF MEN were despondent about South Carolina football Friday at the Nashville airport. They talked about finally jumping ship, giving up on USC football after many years of unwavering loyalty.

A loss to Vanderbilt for a second consecutive season will shake the allegiance out of even the most die-hard USC fan, just as a season-opening beat-down by Alabama will alter the devotion of the most rabid Clemson follower.

Two weeks into the football season is no time for despair. No time to give up hope. No time to throw in the towel. Now is the time for USC and Clemson fans to come to the aid of their football programs and their respective coaches.

Staying on board with Clemson and Tommy Bowden is a much easier proposition. The season-opening thumping in Atlanta does not mean Clemson’s season is ruined. It merely means Clemson is not among the elite programs in the country.

Besides, it is worth taking a look at the big picture when it comes to Clemson football. Bowden is beyond the building stage in his program. He has established one of the nation’s more consistent programs, one that appears to be close to breaking into elite status.

The bottom line for Clemson fans is Bowden has positioned his team to contend for the ACC championship in nearly every one of his 10 seasons. Four second-place finishes might be hard to accept, but it beats the alternative of occasionally finishing in the basement.

Every one of Bowden’s nine previous teams has been bowl eligible. That is a model of consistency most other programs envy. Most programs would love to have played in three Chick-fil-A bowls and a Gator Bowl the past nine seasons.

There also is every reason to believe this Clemson team will win the ACC’s Atlantic Division. With that title comes an appearance in the ACC championship game. Win that and The Tigers are headed to a BCS bowl.

Clemson is primed to win at least 10 games in a season for the first time since the Tigers posted consecutive 10-win seasons from 1987 through 1989. That alone should be enough to pacify Clemson fans.

Unfortunately, even if Clemson runs the table and concludes with a 13-1 record, it will not be considered among the nation’s best programs. Getting whipped by Alabama on national television does that to a program’s reputation.

Still, that one loss is no reason for Clemson fans to give up the fight. Consider that Bowden’s father, Bobby, was in his 12th season at Florida State before his team emerged as a nationally prominent program. Then it took seven more seasons to win a national championship and shake the widely held belief that Bobby could not “win the big one.”

USC’s situation is much different, yet the fan base appears to be equally fed up following the stunning loss at Vanderbilt. It never is a good thing when USC loses to Vanderbilt, where academic success, not athletic prowess, is the measure of the school. This loss was particularly galling because Vanderbilt was expected to be in a rebuilding season. Rebuilding from what, I am not certain.

When Steve Spurrier took the USC job and proclaimed he wanted to do things that had not been done in Columbia, he did not have back-to-back losses to Vanderbilt in mind. This from a coach who never lost to Vanderbilt in 12 seasons at Florida.

That is part of the rub with Spurrier. His success at Florida and Duke works against him at USC and has fueled great unrest among Gamecocks fans. Heck, even Spurrier believed the job could be done fairly quickly at USC.

Not long after Spurrier got comfortable in his digs at Williams-Brice Stadium, he realized a major rebuilding job was in the works. He also now knows that winning in the SEC is much more difficult than it was during his days at Florida.

Vanderbilt might be the best example of that. There were many seasons at Florida when Spurrier’s Gators needed to just show up to defeat Vanderbilt. Today, Bobby Johnson is considered one of the best coaches in the league, and his Vanderbilt squad is no pushover.

The SEC fields the strongest set of coaches in the country. The days of whipping up on Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Mississippi State are long gone. In addition to a higher quality of coach across the board, SEC teams are faster and stronger than during Spurrier’s early days at Florida.

All of this might sound like excuses, except it best helps explain why it is going to take Spurrier more than four seasons to build the kind of long-term winner USC and its fans crave.

Maybe success came too fast for Spurrier at USC. His first team, after all, finished in a tie for second place in the SEC East with a 5-3 record. His second team won eight games and had Spurrier believing USC was ready to challenge for a conference title.

A five-game losing streak a season ago brought everyone — including Spurrier — back to earth. Then the Vanderbilt loss Thursday sent many USC followers looking for a hole to crawl into, or at least searching for an escape hatch to forever distance themselves from the program.

There is not a football program in the country that does not hit rock bottom at some point. USC fans would tell you that occurred during the 1-21 stretch of 1998 and 1999. USC came out of it to produce back-to-back Outback Bowl victories.

Now Spurrier’s program appears to have suffered its worst setback. That is what the Vanderbilt loss represented — a setback, not the beginning of the end of the Spurrier era.

Besides, for those USC fans who want to abandon hope and jump off the bandwagon now, how are you going to feel when the Gamecocks rebound this week and defeat the No. 2 team in the country?

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