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| Cool Picture of Garcia Running for a touchdown would be here if I could afford the licensing fees to photos taken by the Gamecock photographers |
For months now, Gamecock fans everywhere have been drastically divided on whether or not to get behind Stephen Garcia because of all of his antics. Some message boards have even questioned whether or not Garcia should have been let back on the team at all! Coach Spurrier realizes that he cannot win an SEC Title or a National Championship without an entire city, school, and team united behind it's quarterback. (This may be overly dramatic, but certainly Coach Spurrier believes the media darling role has never come naturally to Garcia so he needs a little help in this department.)
So Coach Spurrier decides to honor the militant, over zealous work ethic of Connor Shaw and reward him the start. This was the most UNIFYING thing Coach Spurrier has ever done in his tenure as the Gamecocks coach. I will repeat, THIS WAS THE MOST UNIFYING thing that Coach Spurrier has ever done since becoming the coach at South Carolina. How is this unifying when everyone hated it, you say? Well you answered your own question! Coach Spurrier decides to use his cockiness and arrogance to manipulate the media devils into spinning this story in favor of his quarterback.
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| Photo from Rivals.com |
So in an act of seeming grand posturing and control-freakishness, Coach Spurrier puts all the negative on HIS "decision," (instead of his players' actions) and FORCES the media devils to start writing positive things about Garcia. I am telling you, this man is a genius. I bet even Ron Morris himself was ready to throw Garcia a bone of encouragement over this decision. I am certian Ron Morris will slice Coach Spurrier in half over it based on how stupid this decision looks in hindsight. I can predict Coach Spurrier's comments will be, "Yup, we just had to play the best quarterback from camp in that first quarter, and that was Connor, but old Stephen came in and played pretty good, so he'll probably start against Georgia." You can almost feel the wink from Coach Spurrier as he says it!
If Garcia goes in and plays in the first quarter of the first game in the sweaty humidity and fumbles like Shaw did, folks would immediately instinctively start wondering, "Did he work hard enough in the off season, did he really put the time in, can Connor Shaw be a better player this year for this team?" Doing it this way throws ALL of the positive forces BEHIND GARCIA who Coach Spurrier KNOWS is the key to the magical run ahead of the Gamecocks. As great as Lattimore and Jeffery are (and now we can say Clowney too, right?) they can only probably get us 8-10 wins on their own with any old quarterback. That gutsy intangible quarterback play provided by Stephen Garcia is what is going to make this year HISTORICAL. I am not saying that Lattimore and Jeffery aren't the bigger reasons for greatness, I am just saying, without the "Garcia factor" we won't win it all!
NOTE: As I am typing this blog post, ESPN is recapping the ECU vs Gamecocks game and the announcer said, "After coming in for relief, The GARCIA show continues..." Come on! You think Coach Spurrier didn't KNOW this was going to happen! Why are we calling plays with Shaw throwing to Barnes (who is a fine player, not taking away from him) but Garcia's first pass play is a fake reverse bomb to Alshon? Incomplete, I am just saying.) If Connor Shaw's first scripted plays would have been dumps to Marcus and deep balls to Alshon, don't you think he would have done better? THIS WAS ORCHESTRATED PEOPLE!
A quick google tonight for the word, "gamecock" rendered this interesting result.
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| Google News Result for the word "gamecocks" after the ECU win. |
Now the media will be instinctively rooting for Garcia to pull this thing off. At least for a few weeks. I am sure their questions will be, "Did it feel good to go out there and provide that seasoned leadership that we have seen from you in the past? Did it seem odd that you didn't get to start as a fifth year senior?" And Garcia will get to answer in Coach Spurrier trained fashion, "Well sort of, but really, I just go out there and play the best I can and see what happens. We'll just take the win how we can get it and try and correct our mistakes."
I am telling you - Steve Spurrier orchestrates these things, and the media won't give him credit for it. It takes a comedian to write a blog post about it to reveal the truth about Steve Spurrier. And if he is asked, I am sure his response will be, "Naw, we don't think about those things, we just think about ways we can beat Georgia, you know?" He knows if he ever lets on, the gig will be up. So he will continue to brainwash the media into writing about his supposed arrogance and cockiness and manipulate them into writing stories he wants written about his team, like "How great was Stephen Garcia tonight?"
Other Examples of Same Type Thing in the Past
Yes, Coach Spurrier comes across as arrogant or cocky at times, but I have always felt like it was part of his cosmic plan. A few years ago after the Kentucky game that USC won in a nail-biter that included a Hail Mary completion in the waning seconds that ultimately fell short but scared everyone, Coach Spurrier was asked, "Why were we in such a loose prevent and still gave up that long pass at the end?" His answer was simply, "You know what? I was thinking the same thing, let's get the defensive secondary coach in here and let him answer that." This played out cocky and arrogant at first glance, but what it really did was give that coach a chance to impress the media with his explanation and actually be held accountable for his coaching. Which is yet another fancy "cocky" way the Head Ball Coach manipulates the media for his own team's ultimate success.
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When Tommy Bowden was crying about his salary not being as high as Coach Spurrier's his response was simply, "Why doesn't Coach Bowden just go and ask the President for more money, I am sure they will pay it to him." This looks cocky at first glance, but what Coach Spurrier was actually doing was forcing the hand of the media to actually take that comment back to the Clemson campus and put it in Bowden's face. Which he then could use on recruiting trips. "Hey All-American Player XYZ, don't you think it's odd how Clemson's coach probably asked for more money like I did, but Clemson decided not to give it to him?" Again, the method behind this madness is lost in the media's fascination with trying to point out that Steve Spurrier is simply arrogant....
When Len Robbins picked South Carolina as a pre-season number one ranked team for the New York Post, Coach Spurrier's comment to this was, "Yeah, we are the sexy pick this year aren't we?" This seems arrogant on the surface, but what the media fails to inject into their stories about Coach Spurrier is what affect this confidence has on the PLAYERS. You don't think the players are not whispering in the locker-room about how Coach Spurrier flat out predicted great things for this team?
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How about when practices were "going to be closed to the public?" This was also orchestrated by the underground forces of Coach Spurrier's genius plan. This way he gets to tell the media, "Well, NFL teams open up those practices so why can't we?" And then he comes across as the coach that "looked out for the fans!" And also he kept other practices of opponents open as well in case we have spies there. (I made this last part up, but that sounds good if you understand the dynamics I am discussing.)
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So to all the Gamecock Nation out there that thinks starting Connor Shaw at quarterback makes Coach Spurrier strange, unpredictable, and over the hill, I say, you couldn't be more wrong about your assessment! Do your homework. Look back on what Coach Spurrier has accomplished and simply TRUST HIM!
GO COCKS!
P.S. -Also noteworthy: Look for upcoming blog posts about how Bruce Ellington is the x-factor in this year's championship run. I have been saying for a full year since I was privileged enough to do Berkeley's high school highlight film for Dr. Jerry Brown's team that Bruce Ellington is the best player in South Carolina since Freddie Solomon!
From coach to comedian: Marty Simpson is a former USA Today high school All-American and collegiate Academic All-Conference player for USC who scored the Gamecocks' first 6 points in the SEC. During 8 years as a high school varsity coach, Simpson led his team to the state finals and saw one player advance to set an NFL rookie record. Simpson now divides his time between his family, running a multimedia company named Blue-Eyed Panda and getting the same pre-game jitters by performing stand-up comedy nationwide.
Check out Marty's performance dates here.
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