Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

8/10/2010 at 10:06am

While Bobby Petrino is busy setting a bar high up in the rafters of high expectations, Steve Spurrier is just plain angry. The Ol' Ball Coach is angry about how his South Carolina Gamecocks lost the http://www.Papajohns.com/menu Bowl to Connecticut to end the last season. He's angry about how his team consistently snatches defeat from the jaws of victory, with 1-4, 0-3 and 0-5 finishes to last three seasons. The 65-year-old former NFL coach and national college champion is probably privately angry that his final years on the football field will be spent dejectedly shaking Urban Meyer's hand at the end of a loss, making eye-contact with the semi-artificial turf.

Gamecocks quarterback Stephen Garcia, second in yards thrown last season only to a certain Heisman candidate in Fayetteville, says he's been spurred on by Spurrier's rancor. He's lost ten pounds. He's releasing the ball when he's supposed to. He's iced down the soreness Spurrier caused last spring when the coach questioned his quarterback's commitment. (Spurrier maintains that he was "motivating" the young man.) Everything's set to go, right?

"The state of our football program right now is we're not very good,'' Spurrier says.

It sounds like just another SEC team trying to play the underdog card going into the season. Good luck with that, Coach.

Tagged: Stephen Garcia, South Carolina Gamecocks, Steve Spurrier, SEC