Paul Mainieri, Steve Spurrier have this in common when it comes to USC-Clemson rivalry
There is something jarring about the South Carolina-Clemson rivalry. It’s not necessarily the passion, but the indoctrination — the type of initiation that will cause outsiders to wonder if the Palmetto Series is part of the school curriculum.
And if you’re not from the state of South Carolina, the disdain Carolina fans have for Clemson — and vice versa — can be striking.
Just ask Paul Mainieri, the Gamecocks’ first-year baseball coach who moved to Columbia over the summer. He arrived with the same big-picture goals that guided him as LSU’s coach for 15 years: Win the SEC, and win national championships.
Then he realized there’s another goal at South Carolina: Beat that team in the Upstate.
“All anyone in this town talks about is playing Clemson,” Mainieri said after Tuesday’s win over Gardner-Webb. “I’ve never seen anything like it. ... I’m starting to think fans care more about how we do against Clemson than how we do in the SEC.”
Sound familiar? Two decades ago, there was another Gamecocks coach in his 60s who shared a very similar outlook.
When Spurrier arrived at South Carolina in 2005, there were signs in the locker room, in coaches offices and anywhere he turned with the message, “Beat Clemson.” He went to booster club events where fans would tell the Old Ball Coach they’d be happy if Carolina won just one game, so long as that game was against the Tigers.
Spurrier couldn’t believe it.
“I’d rather win them all and lose to Clemson if that was the choice,” he told fans.
Even without the South Carolina coaching connection, Mainieri and Spurrier have a number of similarities.
Both played at SEC schools (Mainieri started his career at LSU; Spurrier won the Heisman at Florida). Both eventually coached at their alma mater and won a national championship there.
Both took a coaching hiatus late in their career only to land jobs at South Carolina. And both took over the Gamecocks with no major ties to the Palmetto State and no prior experience at USC.
Which meant both had to grapple with how to handle this rivalry that meant everything to the fans and very little to the coaches’ goals of winning SEC titles.
“My belief is you don’t talk about one team the entire year,” Spurrier said in 2012. “We take it seriously, but we don’t talk about beating Clemson all year long anymore.”
A result of that change in focus and philosophy: Spurrier inherited a USC team that had lost seven of its last eight Palmetto Bowls and finished his South Carolina tenure with a 6-4 record over the Tigers — including five-straight wins from 2009-13.
Even as his own perspective evolved, Spurrier still held SEC glory in the highest regard.
“What I’ve also learned at South Carolina, our fans realize there’s more to life than winning the SEC championship,” former USC football coach Steve Spurrier said at the 2014 SEC Media Days.
“If you ask our fans at South Carolina,” Spurrier continued, “I can assure you a majority would say, we would rather beat Clemson than win the SEC. That is how big it is to them, that one game. Personally, I’d rather win the SEC. I don’t mind saying that.”
Obviously the rivalry differs from football to baseball. When Spurrier was coaching at South Carolina, there was no College Football Playoff. Lose to Clemson and you could still win the SEC, but you weren’t making the national title game. Baseball is a different story.
On Wednesday, former USC baseball coach and athletic director Ray Tanner called Mainieri and spoke about the rivalry. He told Mainieri about the 2010 Gamecocks squad that lost two of three to Clemson in the regular season — including a 19-6 loss in Columbia — then beat the Tigers twice in the College World Series.
“I’m not downplaying the importance of these games — they’re very, very important,” Mainieri said Wednesday. “But when these games are over — no matter what the results of them are — we’re going to have a lot of baseball games left in this season.”
He’s right — and it’s a tough spot for a coach. Make the Clemson series feel like the World Series and then what? Win the series and maybe your players think they’re just going to cruise to Omaha? Lose the series and does their confidence just fly out the window?
“I preach to our players all the time that every game is important and every practice is important,” Maineiri said. “The reason I tell them that is because then when the big games roll around, you don’t have to try harder than you do every day.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2025 at 7:30 AM.
