COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -Steve Spurrier isn’t ready to say his improving South Carolina Gamecocks can win the Southeastern Conference championship.
Not yet anyway.
Spurrier does like what his young team has achieved so far at 4-1 and No. 25 in the rankings. He knows, though, the road grows more difficult for players unfamiliar with sustained SEC success.
“We are certainly not a final product team,” Spurrier said Tuesday. “We don’t have a group of fourth and fifth year players out there playing, so we just keep giving players opportunities and go from there.”
It’s a plan that’s worked well for South Carolina so far this season. The Gamecocks have used a solid defense that’s 14th in the country to keep teams off the scoreboard while the offense has shown just enough punch to win games.
ontests, starting Saturday against Kentucky (2-2, 0-2) at Williams-Brice Stadium.
History makes this look like a walkover for the Gamecocks. After all, Spurrier is 16-0 all time against the Wildcats while South Carolina carries a nine-game win streak over their SEC Eastern Division rival.
Still, Spurrier sees two similar programs trying to claw their way into the SEC East’s top tier alongside Florida and Georgia.
“They’re probably a little bit like us in that their number one goal is to have a winning season, go to a bowl, win a bowl game,” Spurrier said. “And then certainly they hope someday to have a team that can win the SEC, just like we do.”
The Gamecocks play has some fans enthused that those goals are closer than others think.
South Carolina has improved its last-in-the-SEC rushing totals from a year ago by nearly 60 yards a game. The team has only had five turnovers (three fumbles, two interceptions), a low through five games in Spurrier’s five seasons.
“Heck, we had four (turnovers) in the first half of the first game last year, somebody told me,” Spurrier said. “So we have come a long way.”
Spurrier even had some compliments for third-year sophomore quarterback Stephen Garcia, who had a permanent cot in the ball coach’s dog house the past two years for his off-the-field suspensions and his slower-than-expected progress at picking up the offense.
ked poised, particularly in South Carolina’s past two games. He played mostly mistake free in leading the Gamecocks to a 16-10 victory over then fourth-ranked Ole Miss, and had a pair of pretty TD passes to Moe Brown to beat South Carolina State, 38-14, last Saturday night.
“We certainly hope and believe that he can continue advancing, continue maybe throwing the ball a little more accurately here and there,” Spurrier said. “But he did throw some good ones the second half last week and that was encouraging.”
Will all this progress and praise spoil the Gamecocks?
Offensive lineman T.J. Johnson doesn’t think so. “We have not arrived yet. Twenty-five is just a number,” he said of the ranking. “We have not played to the potential of this Carolina football team.”
Spurrier has seen the Gamecocks unravel before. They lost their last five games of the season in 2007 after opening 6-1 and rising to No. 6 in the country. A year ago, South Carolina stood 7-3 and No. 24, then lost its last three contests, including the Outback Bowl, by a combined score of 118-30.
Spurrier expects a down-to-the-wire contest with Kentucky, like he’s had so many other times with the Gamecocks.
“Maybe it is good for us,” Spurrier said. “Maybe we mentally say it is going to be a close game and, when it gets tight, hopefully we can make a play there towards the end.”
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