Finebaum on Muschamp’s Gamecocks: ‘It’s mind boggling how bad this team has looked’
Paul Finebaum has been in the business of calling out coaches since the early days of Will Muschamp’s coaching career.
He was on the now-Gamecocks head man through his Florida tenure and has spent much of his South Carolina tenure on the skeptical side. Now the Gamecocks are in a bad way, and Finebaum’s tone hasn’t changed.
“You add up the LSU loss and this (Texas A&M) loss together, it’s mind boggling how bad this team has looked,” the ESPN college football analyst said Monday on a weekly radio appearance with Birmingham station WJOX. “That really is one thing that Muschamp has been able to overcome. Most of his losses have been respectable. Not anymore.”
That pair of games saw the Gamecocks score 27 points and give up 100. It’s about as ugly a stretch as the team has seen under Muschamp over five years, and that’s coming off a 4-8 season in 2019 and an 0-2 start this season.
This year was supposed to be a prove-it year for the embattled coach, at least before the COVID-19 pandemic threw all of the finances of the sport into disarray. At points it seemed like budget issues likely would prohibit changes, but the mood is growing dark, which can lead to some things.
“After a 4-8 record, he needed to show improvement,” Finebaum said. “Ray Tanner, the athletic director, can continue to go out and say what he’s said for the last couple of years, that he’s doing a really good job and he’s running a class program. But when you get just ransacked at home like that, you have no excuse.”
The Gamecocks are already 10-point underdogs this week against Ole Miss. They might be favored against Missouri the week after, but they won’t be against Georgia at home and at Kentucky to close the season.
Muschamp’s contract buyout sits a hair over $13 million. His staff had five coaches with deals that run into next season.
“There’s just nowhere to go. They have a really difficult decision there because everybody is seemingly all in. But he’s got a double-digit buyout. I think you have to watch that one very closely the rest of the way.”
