The Hangover Week 6: BCS Standings; South Carolina and Steve Spurrier’s Legacy

Oct 6, 2012; Columbia, SC, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Steve Spurrier directs his team in a timeout against the Georgia Bulldogs in the second half of the game at Williams-Brice Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Blake-US PRESSWIRE
The Hangover is fuzzy on the outlook of the first BCS standings, released Sunday. But crystal clear is that Steve Spurrier and South Carolina are prominently factored into the initial national title scene. Always the bridesmaid and never the bride, the Gamecocks looked finally ready to take the next step in cementing the Ole Ball Coach’s already impressive legacy.

After pasting SEC East rival Georgia, South Carolina is ranked No. 2 in the BCS standings. There’s genuine championship crowing in the Cocks’ play. This strut into football’s elite is precisely why Spurrier was called into Columbia.

South Carolina hired Spurrier in 2005, a bold move in the perpetual keeping up with the Joneses that is SEC football. He already had the resume proving he could win in college football’s most celebrated conference and deliver national championships, but heading into the 2012 season the Gamecocks were cooped up where they had always been since joining the league.

Legacies aren’t built overnight, and neither are championship programs (unless it’s Auburn, but more on that in a moment). Spurrier has painstakingly crafted the current Gamecocks brick by brick.

Sept. 24, 2009: a Thursday night in Columbia, S.C., produced what was then the defining game of Spurrier’s tenure at South Carolina, when his Gamecocks knocked off No. 4 ranked Ole Miss.

Oct. 9, 2010: defending BCS champion Alabama visited Williams-Brice Stadium and was dispatched with a 35-21 loss, another landmark moment in the Spurrier legacy. The win was a springboard into the Gamecocks’ first SEC championship appearance.

Oct. 6, 2012: Georgia was the latest to visit Columbia, with ESPN College GameDay en tow and the budding rival Bulldogs sporting a top 5 ranking. South Carolina’s 35-7 win was as emphatic a championship case as any team’s made in one performance these past six weeks.

Reaching Miami and the BCS championship game is no easily built process, nor is booking a December trip to Atlanta. Next week takes the Gamecocks to Death Valley to face LSU, a team that saw its own championship aspirations take a hit at Florida. Oh yeah, and there’s Florida.

The omnipresent footnote on every milestone Spurrier reaches at South Carolina is that he already did it, and more, while head coach at Florida. There would be something poetic if the next level built onto the Spurrier legacy and South Carolina’s ascension in the SEC comes via the Gators. The teams are scheduled for an Oct. 20 clash in Gainesville.

The high octane, pass-centric offense Spurrier employed at Florida is a far cry from the more methodical approach employed at South Carolina. But should it produce the same results, the constant comparisons might finally cease.

Navigating that two-week minefield would put South Carolina on pace to meet the SEC West champion — likely Alabama, at the current pace. The Crimson Tide is the only team atop the Gamecocks in the BCS standings.

Oregon’s dismantling of Washington has the Ducks at No. 3, just ahead of Florida at No. 4 and Notre Dame at No. 5. The Fighting Irish is making its most compelling for national championship consideration since 1993, when it had a title shot all but wrapped up after beating Florida State.

Barring something profoundly unforeseen like in ’93, if there is a hurdle to UND and the Orange Bowl it won’t be the Seminoles. The ACC lacks the clout for FSU to overcome its loss to NC State should the Seminoles end the season jockeying with another one-loss team for BCS priority. Florida State’s been susceptible to trap games on its return to national prominence, and NC State was a match-up for which SaturdayBlitz.com sounded the Admiral Ackbar alarm back in the spring.

Difficult as leaping the 13 teams behind which FSU is ranked would be for a one-loss ACC member may be, climbing the ladder looks even more arduous for the Big East. The conference’s top three — Louisville, Rutgers and Cincinnati — sit at 18-20. In fact, the oft maligned ACC has two one-loss teams ahead of the Big East with Clemson at No. 17. The Big 12 also has two one-loss teams (Texas and Oklahoma), four total (West Virginia, Kansas State) ahead of the Big East’s unbeatens; same for the Pac-12. The SEC has a pair of one-loss members and six overall ahead of the Big East.

Louisville got some help from North Carolina’s win on Saturday, but some of the luster comes off Cincinnati’s defeat of Virginia Tech. At least Rutgers got some boost from Arkansas. The struggling Razorbacks took frustrations out on Auburn, in the process shifting the distinction of SEC downtrodden to the Tigers. Just two seasons removed from a BCS championship, is Gene Chizik on the hot seat?

HOT SEAT WATCH
Oct 6, 2012; Auburn, AL, USA; Auburn Tigers head coach Gene Chizik walks the sidelines before the game against the Arkansas Razorbacks at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Shanna Lockwood-US PRESSWIRE
Auburn built its championship campaign quickly, as mentioned above. Though sizable credit goes to Cam Newton, in some ways his contributions are overstated. That’s in way meant to disparage Newton’s outstanding 2010 Heisman campaign, but Auburn wasn’t a one-man team. One-man teams don’t win national championships. War Eagle has had other problems aside from Newton’s departure from the NFL, including but not limited to the transfer of Michael Dyer.

Surely, the presence of rusher who easily surpassed 1000 yards twice would alleviate at least some of the offensive woes plaguing the Tigers this season. After mustering just seven points against an Arkansas defense that was getting gashed weekly, AU ranks No. 117 nationally in scoring offense.

Chizik’s also done himself few favors, though, specifically in his handling of the quarterback situation post-Newton. He benched Kiehl Frazier on Saturday in favor of Clint Moseley, mirroring a similar move last season with Barrett Trotter in Frazier’s role. Trotter publicly took Chizik’s choice to task after leaving the program.

Taking the reins from Frazier accomplishes…what, exactly? The Tiger offense is unlikely to improve with Moseley under center and the meat of the schedule still ahead. Allowing the youngster Frazier to work through a rough patch in a season destined to end without a bowl at least demonstrates investment in the future. Inserting Moseley comes off desperate.

Chizik showing signs of desperation is a fascinating study in the current coaching climate. He’s two years removed from a national championship, but even in 2011 won eight games. That’s really not a bad season. Chizik has recruited well and better days should be ahead when young talent develops.

The length of tether a coach is given shrinks every year, as Chizik is learning. Might the same be true for Skip Holtz? The USF head coach is in just his third season as the Bulls’ head coach, but suffering his fourth straight loss in a 37-28 defeat at Temple might have the heat on Holtz.

Holtz was given an extension in the off-season, and USF is out of the pressure cooker that is the SEC. Both means that barring Holtz going Jim Leavitt on a player, he’s in Tampa to at least 2013. But Holtz inherited a program on the rise, and USF is on a decidedly downward trajectory.

The Bulls missed the postseason for the first time since 2004 last year, are in an 0-2 Big East hole this year and have such unsightly losses as Saturday’s to Temple and another to Ball State.

Elsewhere, Frank Spaziani all but ensured his dismissal after Boston College lost to a previously Army team. Spaziani coached the Eagles to a 4-8 finish last year, the program’s first season without a bowl game in over a decade. BC appears resigned to a similar fate this year. So dire is the situation, Soaring To Glory is calling on Spaziani to resign before the season’s end.

Conversely, Cal head coach Jeff Tedford improved his outlook somewhat with a thoroughly dominating defeat of a ranked UCLA bunch. Most noteworthy in the Golden Bears’ 43-17 shellacking of the Bruins was Tedford outcoached counterpart Jim Mora. The praises sang of Mora restoring UCLA glory may have been just a bit premature, because issues vexing the program under Rick Neuheisel persisted Saturday night in Berkeley: lack of offensive consistency, discipline (UCLA was flagged 12 times), and the defense giving up big plays: three of Cal’s final four scores were of 32 yards or more.

Make no mistake, Tedford dug a deep hole from which he has to climb. Making a bowl game is the absolute basement for returning in 2013, which means finishing 4-2. Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford and Washington all remain on the schedule.

“IN THE END, IT’S JUST A FOOTBALL GAME”

The above quote is attributable to Washington & Jefferson head coach Mike Sirianni.

“It was a victory for our team to take the field today,” he said in the Div. III university’s athletic website recap of the Presidents’ loss to conference rival Thomas More.

WJU played without senior running back Tim McNerney, who was murdered this week. The WJU site shows his President teammates taking the field on Saturday with a framed photo of their fallen comrade and hands showing five fingers, signifying his No. 5 jersey.

Remember Sirianni’s quote, which seems like a fitting follow-up to the hot seat discussion. Wins and losses are treated with such importance, but there’s so much more beyond these quantifiers of a mere game.

GAME BALLS

Dana Holgorsen

Congratulations, Coach Holgorsen. Your team is 5-0, ranked No. 6 in the BCS standings and just won its first ever Big 12 Conference road game. And this wasn’t just any road win — your Mountaineers went into Darrell K. Royal Memorial Stadium, the flagship venue of the Big 12, and forced Mack Brown’s Texas Longhorns to play your game.

Part of playing your game meant challenging the Texas defense on fourth down five times. Talk about confidence in your quarterback, though that’s warranted when your quarterback is Geno Smith. Smith and Co. converted on all five.

Now, I am not among the increasing throng of the anti-special teams — quite the opposite. Rather, I advocate play calling that gives a team its best chance to win. When you have a quarterback like Smith and the offensive talent surrounding him, sidelining the punt team really is giving your team the best chance to win.

So what if your defense leaves much to be desired? If you can keep making other defenses play your game so effectively, why change?

Giovani Bernard

Though the North Carolina running back scored only one touchdown in the Tar Heels’ win over Virginia Tech, Giovani Bernard played the game of a lifetime. He rushed for 262 yards on Bud Foster’s defense, rolling off an astounding 11.4 yards per attempt.

Marcus Williams & the North Dakota State Defense

Defending FCS national champion North Dakota State has a lot from the 2011 season it can look back on and be proud of. But there was one blemish to the Bison’s championship run — a Missouri Valley Football Conference loss to Youngstown State. Perhaps motivated by that defeat, the Bison welcomed the previously unbeaten Penguins into the Fargodome and handed them the thrashing of the season.

NDSU shut out YSU after a first quarter touchdown. Included in the 48-7 rout was cornerback Marcus Williams’ 98-yard interception return of a Kurt Hess pass attempt.