GAMECOCKS PICKED FOURTH IN SEC EAST …
|| By FITSNEWS || On the heels of a profoundly disappointing 2014 season (and 2015 offseason), the University of South Carolina football program has found itself in familiar territory … mediocrity.
After embarking on an unprecedented run of success from 2010-13, the wheels fell off last fall.
Head coach Steve Spurrier entered the 2014 season brimming with confidence – but exited it reeling from the feeling. His team – which began the year ranked No. 9 in the nation – was badly exposed in the season opener against Texas A&M couldn’t hold double-digit fourth quarter leads against SEC East rivals Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee.
That’s how 10-3 turned into 7-6 …
Spurrier has taken over play-calling this season but this offensive recalibration – along with the addition of former NFL assistant Jon Hoke on defense – isn’t inspiring much confidence.
Sportswriters attending this year’s annual Southeastern Conference media days event picked Spurrier’s Gamecocks to finish fourth in the SEC Eastern division – behind Georgia, Tennessee and Missouri (and ahead of Florida, Kentucky and Vanderbilt).
South Carolina got just one vote for SEC East champion and zero votes for SEC champion.
The votes …
WESTERN DIVISION (1st Place votes in parenthesis)
School Points
Alabama (92) 1405
Auburn (108) 1362
LSU (10) 870
Arkansas (6) 821
Ole Miss (3) 732
Texas A&M (4) 628
Mississippi State (2) 482EASTERN DIVISION (1st Place votes in parenthesis)
School Points
Georgia (166) 1498
Tennessee (36) 1231
Missouri (20) 1196
South Carolina (1) 830
Florida (1) 768
Kentucky (1) 534
Vanderbilt 243SEC CHAMPION
School Points
Auburn 96
Alabama 80
Georgia 28
LSU 9
Ole Miss 3
Arkansas 3
Texas A&M 2
Tennessee 2
Mississippi State 1
Florida 1
This lack of respect is, well … due. Aside from its nonexistent defense, South Carolina enters the 2015 season without a game-tested quarterback. In fact with the exception of All-SEC wide receiver Pharoh Cooper … what have the Gamecocks got to crow about heading into 2015?
Meanwhile other SEC East programs are on the upswing …
South Carolina opens its 2015 slate against North Carolina in Charlotte, N.C. on Thursday, September 3. It gets Kentucky, Central Florida, LSU, Vanderbilt, Florida, The Citadel and Clemson at home … and Georgia, Missouri, Texas A&M and Tennessee on the road.
To be clear: This website has learned in the past not to count Spurrier out. We were calling for his head after the 2009 season, and he reeled off the four best football seasons the school had ever seen.
But the Head Ball Coach – entering his eleventh year in Columbia – clearly has another rebuilding job ahead of him.
55 comments
Unfortunately, it could be another long year, but we are hoping that they get the job done.
Break even, or 7-5 regular season is my prediction, that is if betting money is involved. Would like to see better, but it is just not there.
Who is the goober responsible for the one 1st place vote?
Gotta admit, that’s funny.
Who is the goober responsible for the one 1st place vote?
Slurrier’s G&T?
what’s a goober?
You must not tempt me so..
… tempt?
Existentially speaking, when you place a juicy and clever retort, which, at once is such an enticing straight line, temptation abounds.
Humor and its relatives can be at its best when it is an immediate response to a straight line, or set up. Some of the posters who leave very heavy comments can also be some of the best at dropping a good laugh. Some of them surprise me in that area. Sometimes I see an opportunity to leave a set-up straight line to see if anyone responds with a funny remark — and there have been many good ones!
Well… that voter, for one.
8-4
Dream on.
I’m really hating the fact that Tennessee is on the rise (justifiably). I’ve enjoyed their latest years of misery and mediocrity.
This fall I may get the house painted and a few other things I neglected to do when we were winning. As for last season, hope was still alive.
A little Johnny Mathis and some BeeGees to cheer up our Sakerlina contingent…
“Chances Are” …?
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You left out getting beat by Clemson. How come?
Don’t recall SC having a 4th quarter double-digit lead against them.
Exactly.
Clemson pwned them the whole game…not just the last five minutes.
Six in row was a difficult task even with a good team, which SC was not in 2014.
And Spurrier still couldn’t help but to take some gratuitous shots at Arkansas and UT in his press conference. What a prince.
Mighty? Kidding right? A few good seasons after decades of less than mediocrity performance does not make a team mighty!
GO GATORS!!!!
Chicken Curse Lives!!!
According the ol’ ball sack Coach Slurrier, there’s a chance they’ll be a top 10 team.
And a better chance he’ll beat Clemson the next FIVE in a row. Your BEST team in the last 30 years is now GONE, along with your de facto head coach. Get used to the ass kickins’ again. (:
It’s always “Wait ’til next year” with you folks isn’t it. After 5 6-6 teams in a row I doubt Slurrier will still be around here. He’s only here these days because he knows if he goes he will have two kids who will be unemployed.
USCe is back to 4th in the SEC East, back to where it was before the East fell upon lean years and the whole east half of the conference sucked.
Since a libel lawsuit is pending against FITSNews, should we also consider it defunct or fallen?
Because that’s what will happen if FITNews’ darkest day is the only way it is ever defined. Fucking narrow-minded idiot.
GrandTango is alive and well.
Thank God. Can you give me his contact info.? I NEED some sanity about now.
This site is almost unbearable without his levity, intellect and insight.
Spurrier has left a trail of carcasses of Dumbasses, who have rushed to bury him.
Remember: FITSNews sided with MoRon Morris, when MoRon compared the defection of a basketball player to the the USC football team to the Penn St. Homossexual Pediphile Rape case.
MoRon is now FIRED, and the player is in the NFL. Fools NEVER learn, do you? (:
Spurrier’s time has come and gone. A couple of years, 3 or 4. The only hobbling that old boy will be doing is to his golf cart.
I fear we will only win 5 games this season….
And that after all the investment in infrastructure, coaching and recruiting. What a waste!
Also this way Pastides will never become head of NCAA
Why would the NCAA select Pastides as their president, he wouldn’t know a football bat from a golf racket. He raised his kids to be Broadway actors.
Pastides son is the Broadway actor, daughter is art museum guide. Pastides has no serious sports interest, prefers wine and 2 vacation homes. No matter, the NCAA members want a president who will do their bidding, and Pastides excells at being a patsy for the USC BOT.
Like a true Southerner the morning before Gettysburg, every Gamecock has hope of victory. You know how that came out. Still.. Gooooooooooooo Cocks!
Just like you liberals thought your NAZI Party would rule the world, and the Democrats wanted slavery forever.
You kinda got FUCKED in the end on both deals, didn’t ya?. (:
LIBERAL? MOI?
The sky is falling in Columbia, y’all predict. Yet at Clemson, after one good team, you think you are ready to win that always-guaranteed, but so elusive, NC. (:
No matter what SC does, it will defy your (always) dire predictions.
It will be enjoyable: when you’re picked to win it all, with all those high hopes in Tater-Town, how quickly you will turn on Dabo, when the wheels come off (like they almost always do.) (:
Is this a USCe fan calling Clemson fans fairweather fans? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. USCe fans will be calling for Slurrier’s head after their first loss and talking about how they’ll be lucky to win 2 games this season. If they beat UNC they’ll be talking about making reservations in Atlanta for the SEC championship game.
Baseball , basketball, football at USC – a ‘ray of hope’ and then the reality. Just not ready or prime time. All we can hope for is a bit of entertainment in 5 points, Frank Martin being recorded f-bombing and the ‘lady cocks’ -again- getting to the final four and being devoured by Connecticut – where our illustrious president has one of his two holiday houses. oh give them cake to eat !
Frank should really tone it down, they’re “transexual cocks”. Gay men are more feminine than those players.
Carolina is greedy.
Whenever a team does well, Carolina chucks the team in favor of building facilities, hiring personnel and negotiating contracts that make a handful of people filthy rich.
I have worked at USC for 22 years and have seen this time and time again. Don’t believe me? Just get a copy of the latest 10 year contracts for merchandizing, TV rights etc. A close read will infuriate you.
You support the usc because you like football. They support football because they like money.
Good point. All the other teams in the SEC, and throughout the country, operate as charities.
PS: Winning aids greed, you fucking idiot. “Chucking” is bad business.
Also: If you look at SC’s football rise, it came as the country’s economy began a freefall that coincided with total Democrat rule. That made it much more difficult to capitalize.
Along with the fact that SC had an ultra liberal AD (now gone) who believed women’s’ soccer was more important than men’s’ sports, even though that’s not how the money is made.
As long as Slurrier gets his $947,000/year Under Armor contract that’s all that matters. He deserves it, it’s a lot of work to decide what uniform manufacturer to use. I doubt he even has much of a say in the matter, it’s probably a University lawyer who makes that decision, but doesn’t see a dime of the money.
Good point. Just like Clemson wears Starter merchandise, and Dabo has a $50 a year contract, along with free rotisserie chicken at the Seneca Wal-Mart.
And that’s fitting. You get what you pay for. (:
A father was discussing his daughter who made the cheerleading squad. “She goes to Clemson University. She could have gone to the University of South Carolina, but its one more letter she would have to remember.”
Years from now, people will be talking about the good ol’ days of USCe football and then suddenly someone will bring up that even then they couldn’t win the conference championship… and people will be sad.
Coach Dabo Swinney stormed into the Clemson University president’s office and demanded a raise right then and there. “Jesus Christ, man,” protested President Clements, “you already make more than the entire Engineering Department.”
“Yeah, maybe so, but you don’t know what I have to put up with,” Coach Swinney blustered. “Look.” He went out into the hall
and grabbed a jock who was jogging down the hallway. “Run over to my office and see if I’m there,” he ordered.
Fifteen minutes later the jock returned, sweaty and out of breath. “You’re not there, Coach,” he reported.
“Oh, I see what you mean,” conceded President Clements, scratching his head. “I would have phoned.”
Hey lets hang another massive banner of Spurrier down the side of the stadium, that’s a great a idea.
win a championiship. any championship. then we’ll talk.
“It’s deja vu all over again”. Yogi Berra
How big will the meltdown be in USCe loes to UNC? Will it be worse than the Texas A&M ass whipping last year?