GamecockCentral.com Response #1 :: MotorCityChicken's Comment

Evidently someone got a hold of my blog post over at GamecockCentral.com and posted it there. Some of the forum users over there are discussing it and I wanted to do my responding here, if that's alright with everyone. Oh it's not? Well then stop reading. (Otherwise read on!)

Quotes taken directly from GamecockCentral.com forum threads.

MotorCityChicken has over 11,400 posts in the GamecockCentral.com forum so his opinion is well documented to say the least. His comments are very well thought out and very reasonable. While discussing my blog post (at this link), he wrote:

Although the result I think is what he [Marty Simpson] wrote... I seriously doubt Spurrier put Shaw out there knowing he wouldn't play well. That's just silly. I think Spurrier put him out there to see if he could carry over the practice play to the real thing. We are going to need Shaw to play in pressure situations, and what better then to start a game with half (or more?) of the fans almost against you, with one quarter to prove your worth? That's ballsy, and Spurrier was going to find out if Shaw had it or not. And right now he doesn't, but the great news is that Spurrier knew he had Garcia on the bench, so no harm no foul. If Shaw doesn't cut it right away, you go to Garcia. If Shaw does, then you have a great problem. Nothing to be worried about - Garcia will be the man and Shaw will continue to prepare for next season.

I completely agree with MotorCityChicken's assessment. I do not believe that Coach Spurrier put Connor Shaw in the game with intentions of seeing him play poorly. Nor do I think he sabotaged Connor Shaw's efforts. In fact as I re-watched the game this morning Shaw did have a deep ball thrown to Alshon Jeffery. However, I do think it was a simple Win-Win decision for Coach Spurrier to make. Meaning, if Shaw drives down the field and scores and takes charge then the more the merrier. Either way, starting Connor Shaw puts the underdog mentality squarely on Garcia. Coach knows we need Garcia down the stretch and we need the full backing of the fans.

But I do agree with MotorCityChicken that Coach did not WANT Shaw to play poorly. I think HBC is too competitive for any orchestrations that would jeopardize victory!