Ray Tanner’s message to Will Muschamp after South Carolina’s 0-2 start
When South Carolina’s football team takes the field in Nashville this Saturday to play Vanderbilt, it will be just shy of exactly one year since the Gamecocks pulled off arguably the biggest win of coach Will Muschamp’s tenure — a 20-17 road upset of No. 3 Georgia.
In the time since that upset, USC is 1-7 overall, with its lone victory coming against the Commodores, perennial dwellers of the SEC standings’ cellar. For the first time since 1999, South Carolina has started the season 0-2, as the coronavirus-impacted schedule has hit Muschamp’s team hard with conference games right away.
From the outside looking in, times are tough in Columbia. Muschamp was already considered to be on one of the hottest seats in the country entering the season, and perceptions haven’t changed for the better since then.
But when asked Tuesday what sort of message or encouragement he’s received from South Carolina’s administration, particularly athletics director Ray Tanner and president Bob Caslen, Muschamp sounded an optimistic note.
“I saw President Caslen before the game Saturday (against Florida), wished us good luck,” Muschamp said. “And then coach Tanner and I talk three or four times a week, just about kind of where where things are with the team. Obviously his experience as a coach obviously helps in those situations sometimes, and you lean on that, but he’s been nothing but supportive about what we’re doing and where we’re heading with things.”
Muschamp endured a storm of speculation during and after last season’s 4-8 finish about his job security, leading Tanner to issue a rare public statement in support of his coach late in the year. The head coach then voluntarily agreed to forgo pay raises, keeping his salary at $4.4 million per year — a move that reduced his buyout to $13.3 million if he is fired after the 2020 season.
But the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has muddied the waters of what was considered to be a must-win year for Muschamp. And with eight SEC games still to play, Muschamp projected confidence Tuesday that the Gamecocks are closer to success and more confident than some might think.
“We’ve got to clean some ... things up but, again, we had a really spirited practice, a lot of energy and competition (Tuesday),” Muschamp said. “And it tells a lot about the team and it tells a lot about the leadership of the team to know where we are right now. And I challenged our staff yesterday, I said we’re gonna need to bring the energy and juice. And we got on the field and that wasn’t the case — our players did.”
This story was originally published October 9, 2020 at 11:08 AM.
