Why Is Steve Spurrier Dogging Garcia?
posted by Scott Hood, Thursday, November 20, 2008
Actually, he doesn’t. It just seems that way.
By pronouncing, in a very public way, that Garcia isn’t ready to play quarterback for South Carolina, Spurrier is dishing out a heavy dose of tough love to the redshirt freshman quarterback.
In my opinion, Steve Spurrier is doing this for multiple reasons. First, he sincerely believes Garcia is not ready, willing and able to run his offensive system the way he wants to see it run.
Remember, Spurrier demands a lot from his quarterbacks, everything from recognizing defenses to audibling at the line of scrimmage to “knowing where everybody is going” to being a team leader on and off the field.
Physically, Garcia has all the talent to operate Spurrier’s system effectively, a fact the HBC readily concedes. However, it’s the mental part of playing the position where Garcia falls short.
In Spurrier’s world, the latter is just as important as the former. Now, that doesn’t mean Chris Smelley grades highly in every respect, just that he’s a little more advanced when it comes to understanding the nuances of the offense.
Moreover, as Spurrier has explained on numerous occasions, Garcia must learn to stand in the pocket and, possibly showing more patience than he's used to, wait another second or two for his receivers to break open and then throw the ball where he's supposed to.
Right now, Garcia is relying too much on his natural instincts and is too quick to scramble out of the pocket when he feels the first whiff of pressure from the pass rush.
I’m sure that worked quite well when Garcia was playing quarterback for Jefferson High School in Tampa, but it won’t succeed too often against SEC caliber defenses.
Spurrier intends to break Garcia of these “old bad habits,” as he calls them, before he puts him out there on a permanent basis.
But, besides the fact he wants Garcia to grasp the importance of running the play that’s called, there are two additional reasons for Spurrier’s reluctance to play Garcia more.
First, in my opinion, Spurrier is uncomfortable with the cult that has developed around Garcia. Spurrier is well aware many Gamecock fans view Garcia as the savior, a sort of reincarnation of Steve Taneyhill, probably the most popular USC player since the school joined the SEC in 1992.
Well, Spurrier is going to make every effort to keep Garcia grounded in reality. SEC defenders don’t care what the opposing fans think of a certain player. They’re going to smack him in the mouth anyways.
Finally, Spurrier has concerns about Garcia’s work ethic. The HBC called out the young quarterback on his call-in radio show a couple of weeks ago regarding doing the little things like spending extra time on his own to study film or the playbook.
Remember, a coach is allowed only 20 hours per week of contact with a player, and that includes games. Factor in the mandatory day off (Sunday) and that allows a coach 17 hours of contact from Monday to Friday, an average of a little more than three hours per day.
When you consider practice lasts about two hours, that leaves about an hour for meetings and other activities. With today’s defenses getting more sophisticated and complex all the time, there simply isn’t enough time for a young quarterback to learn everything he needs to know during those 17 hours. So, he must be willing to sacrifice some of the partying and other “fun staff” that comes with college life and concentrate on becoming a better quarterback.
Here’s the question Spurrier is asking: Does Garcia want to be a great quarterback?
But, just because Spurrier isn’t willing to throw Garcia out there right now on a long-term basis doesn’t mean that will remain the case in the future.
Spurrier contends Garcia needs a good spring practice followed by a summer throwing the ball to his teammates and studying the playbook before he’s ready to declare him ready to go.
Frankly, while I’m sure Garcia hoped to be the full-time starting quarterback by now, he has no one to blame but himself for the fact he‘s not Spurrier‘s favorite QB at the moment.
By this point, Garcia has been on campus for close to two years. But his well-documented and highly publicized indiscretions off the field prevented him from participating in both spring practices in 2007 and 2008.
He was also barred from being on campus this past summer. Instead, he had to work out on his own in Tampa. Obviously, that’s not the same thing. Nor was it a good thing.
Make no mistake, though. While Garcia has been a handful, Spurrier believes he has the skills to become a great quarterback. Following Wednesday's practice, Spurrier talked about former Florida QB Rex Grossman and how it took him until his third year in the program before he emerged.
Would Garcia be the No. 1 QB right now had he not been suspended? Possibly. But I’m sure Smelley would have competed hard, not to say that he didn’t anyways considering he was battling Tommy Beecher for the job.
Hopefully, Garcia will walk the tightrope well enough to participate in all 15 spring practices next March and April, then hang around Columbia next summer for the 7-on-7 workouts and conditioning.
If he does, he could be USC’s starting quarterback when USC opens the 2009 schedule against N.C. State in Raleigh.
But he must travel a long road filled with plenty of potholes and obstacles to get there.
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So, why does Steve Spurrier hate Stephen Garcia?
Actually, he doesn’t. It just seems that way.
By pronouncing, in a very public way, that Garcia isn’t ready to play quarterback for South Carolina, Spurrier is dishing out a heavy dose of tough love to the redshirt freshman quarterback.
In my opinion, Steve Spurrier is doing this for multiple reasons. First, he sincerely believes Garcia is not ready, willing and able to run his offensive system the way he wants to see it run.
Remember, Spurrier demands a lot from his quarterbacks, everything from recognizing defenses to audibling at the line of scrimmage to “knowing where everybody is going” to being a team leader on and off the field.
Physically, Garcia has all the talent to operate Spurrier’s system effectively, a fact the HBC readily concedes. However, it’s the mental part of playing the position where Garcia falls short.
In Spurrier’s world, the latter is just as important as the former. Now, that doesn’t mean Chris Smelley grades highly in every respect, just that he’s a little more advanced when it comes to understanding the nuances of the offense.
Moreover, as Spurrier has explained on numerous occasions, Garcia must learn to stand in the pocket and, possibly showing more patience than he's used to, wait another second or two for his receivers to break open and then throw the ball where he's supposed to.
Right now, Garcia is relying too much on his natural instincts and is too quick to scramble out of the pocket when he feels the first whiff of pressure from the pass rush.
I’m sure that worked quite well when Garcia was playing quarterback for Jefferson High School in Tampa, but it won’t succeed too often against SEC caliber defenses.
Spurrier intends to break Garcia of these “old bad habits,” as he calls them, before he puts him out there on a permanent basis.
But, besides the fact he wants Garcia to grasp the importance of running the play that’s called, there are two additional reasons for Spurrier’s reluctance to play Garcia more.
First, in my opinion, Spurrier is uncomfortable with the cult that has developed around Garcia. Spurrier is well aware many Gamecock fans view Garcia as the savior, a sort of reincarnation of Steve Taneyhill, probably the most popular USC player since the school joined the SEC in 1992.
Well, Spurrier is going to make every effort to keep Garcia grounded in reality. SEC defenders don’t care what the opposing fans think of a certain player. They’re going to smack him in the mouth anyways.
Finally, Spurrier has concerns about Garcia’s work ethic. The HBC called out the young quarterback on his call-in radio show a couple of weeks ago regarding doing the little things like spending extra time on his own to study film or the playbook.
Remember, a coach is allowed only 20 hours per week of contact with a player, and that includes games. Factor in the mandatory day off (Sunday) and that allows a coach 17 hours of contact from Monday to Friday, an average of a little more than three hours per day.
When you consider practice lasts about two hours, that leaves about an hour for meetings and other activities. With today’s defenses getting more sophisticated and complex all the time, there simply isn’t enough time for a young quarterback to learn everything he needs to know during those 17 hours. So, he must be willing to sacrifice some of the partying and other “fun staff” that comes with college life and concentrate on becoming a better quarterback.
Here’s the question Spurrier is asking: Does Garcia want to be a great quarterback?
But, just because Spurrier isn’t willing to throw Garcia out there right now on a long-term basis doesn’t mean that will remain the case in the future.
Spurrier contends Garcia needs a good spring practice followed by a summer throwing the ball to his teammates and studying the playbook before he’s ready to declare him ready to go.
Frankly, while I’m sure Garcia hoped to be the full-time starting quarterback by now, he has no one to blame but himself for the fact he‘s not Spurrier‘s favorite QB at the moment.
By this point, Garcia has been on campus for close to two years. But his well-documented and highly publicized indiscretions off the field prevented him from participating in both spring practices in 2007 and 2008.
He was also barred from being on campus this past summer. Instead, he had to work out on his own in Tampa. Obviously, that’s not the same thing. Nor was it a good thing.
Make no mistake, though. While Garcia has been a handful, Spurrier believes he has the skills to become a great quarterback. Following Wednesday's practice, Spurrier talked about former Florida QB Rex Grossman and how it took him until his third year in the program before he emerged.
Would Garcia be the No. 1 QB right now had he not been suspended? Possibly. But I’m sure Smelley would have competed hard, not to say that he didn’t anyways considering he was battling Tommy Beecher for the job.
Hopefully, Garcia will walk the tightrope well enough to participate in all 15 spring practices next March and April, then hang around Columbia next summer for the 7-on-7 workouts and conditioning.
If he does, he could be USC’s starting quarterback when USC opens the 2009 schedule against N.C. State in Raleigh.
But he must travel a long road filled with plenty of potholes and obstacles to get there.
Link to this entry - Discuss this entry - Return to Blog Home
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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 @.