Transcript of Spurrier's ESPN Interview
posted by Scott Hood on Tuesday, July 31, 2007
ESPN: Steve, how do you create a culture of winning championships at a school that really hasn't done it before?
SPURRIER: Rece, I don't really worry about that. What we tried to do when we got here three years ago was, first of all, try to make our team competitive. We've won seven, we've won eight the first couple of years. But obviously we needed to recruit good football players. What gives us hope that we have an opportunity to challenge for the SEC championship real soon is our recruiting group this past year that was ranked fourth in the country by ESPN.com and sixth by a couple of the other polls. We do have better players going into this season and we think we're pretty close talent-wise to Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, our three biggest competitors in the Eastern Division. We think we can play with them. We're going to find out this year if we can or can't.
ESPN: How does this team compare with some of your SEC champions at Florida?
SPURRIER: Rece, I'm glad you asked that because I really believe the team we have here at South Carolina this year, talent-wise, is a little better than maybe two or three of the teams we had at Florida in 12 years there. I remember back in 1992 we started two true freshman offensive tackles - Jason Odom and Reggie Green. It was a year we just hadn't had a chance to recruit very well and whatever. Obviously, '93 through '96 were some of my most talented teams. Looking back, maybe the best team we had at Florida - 2001 - we were first in the conference in offense and defense. But we really didn't win anything. We got beat the last game by Tennessee, didn't win the division, didn't win the SEC. We won the Orange Bowl. But we didn't have any championship riungs with one of the best teams we had down there in 12 years.
ESPN: Last year at South Carolina you had to shuffle the offense, you had to adjust, you changed quarterbacks. You had to change things a lot. You were able to find enough success to win games. A lot of offenses, it seems, come unglued if they have to change quarterbacks. Why have you been able to have success changing quarterbacks?
SPURRIER: Rece, it seemed like the thing to do last year. We struggled offensively early in the season. Blake Mitchell, our starter, is an excellent quarterback but he's not a scrambling, run around type of guy. For him to be effective, we had to have a good strong running game and we have to have pass protection. Hopefully, we'll get our O-Line straight at the beginning of the season and not in the middle of the year. We return almost all of the guys except for a couple of guards, our center and wide receiver Sidney Rice. We have a lot of good talented young guys ready to step in and play. We're excited about not only this year but the next two or three, four, five years here for South Carolina football.
ESPN: Sidney Rice may be gone but Kenny McKinley is back. You have a quintet of young freshmen we're looking forward to seeing. Steve, always a pleasure. Thanks for spending some time with us.
SPURRIER: Glad to be with you Rece.
- Permalink, Discuss, Blog Home
South Carolina head football coach Steve Spurrier was interviewed by ESPN's Rece Davis Tuesday during the daily half-hour program "College Football Live." Here is a transcript of the interview:
ESPN: Steve, how do you create a culture of winning championships at a school that really hasn't done it before?
SPURRIER: Rece, I don't really worry about that. What we tried to do when we got here three years ago was, first of all, try to make our team competitive. We've won seven, we've won eight the first couple of years. But obviously we needed to recruit good football players. What gives us hope that we have an opportunity to challenge for the SEC championship real soon is our recruiting group this past year that was ranked fourth in the country by ESPN.com and sixth by a couple of the other polls. We do have better players going into this season and we think we're pretty close talent-wise to Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, our three biggest competitors in the Eastern Division. We think we can play with them. We're going to find out this year if we can or can't.
ESPN: How does this team compare with some of your SEC champions at Florida?
SPURRIER: Rece, I'm glad you asked that because I really believe the team we have here at South Carolina this year, talent-wise, is a little better than maybe two or three of the teams we had at Florida in 12 years there. I remember back in 1992 we started two true freshman offensive tackles - Jason Odom and Reggie Green. It was a year we just hadn't had a chance to recruit very well and whatever. Obviously, '93 through '96 were some of my most talented teams. Looking back, maybe the best team we had at Florida - 2001 - we were first in the conference in offense and defense. But we really didn't win anything. We got beat the last game by Tennessee, didn't win the division, didn't win the SEC. We won the Orange Bowl. But we didn't have any championship riungs with one of the best teams we had down there in 12 years.
ESPN: Last year at South Carolina you had to shuffle the offense, you had to adjust, you changed quarterbacks. You had to change things a lot. You were able to find enough success to win games. A lot of offenses, it seems, come unglued if they have to change quarterbacks. Why have you been able to have success changing quarterbacks?
SPURRIER: Rece, it seemed like the thing to do last year. We struggled offensively early in the season. Blake Mitchell, our starter, is an excellent quarterback but he's not a scrambling, run around type of guy. For him to be effective, we had to have a good strong running game and we have to have pass protection. Hopefully, we'll get our O-Line straight at the beginning of the season and not in the middle of the year. We return almost all of the guys except for a couple of guards, our center and wide receiver Sidney Rice. We have a lot of good talented young guys ready to step in and play. We're excited about not only this year but the next two or three, four, five years here for South Carolina football.
ESPN: Sidney Rice may be gone but Kenny McKinley is back. You have a quintet of young freshmen we're looking forward to seeing. Steve, always a pleasure. Thanks for spending some time with us.
SPURRIER: Glad to be with you Rece.
- Permalink, Discuss, Blog Home
Previous Blog Entries
Scott Hood. Since February of 2005, Scott has covered the South Carolina football, men's basketball and baseball programs for GamecockCentral. He may be reached by email at scottblog(at)gamecockcentral.com. Replace (at) with @.