Re: SCAR will easily start 0-3, and be underdogs in all 3

quozzel

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Apr 20, 2015, 7:14 PM

I see 2-1.

I think they lose to UNC. Spurrier usually still has grass in his golf shoes for the opener and doesn't usually know his players' names yet, owing mostly to the fact that he hasn't been back in his office since the Spring Game, so they've traditionally looked awful in Week 1. To say the Gamecocks have been slow starters is putting it mildly. Spurrier's a short-hours guy who very much enjoys his Augusta membership and he tends not to check back in for work until he reluctantly wanders off the golf course that last week in August. Against Texas A&M it got ugly last year. It could do the same against UNC, who had a VERY strong offense last season and return all but one starter off it.

That makes Spurrier grumpy, so at that point he usually goes and actually does some film study, learns his players names, comes up with a coherent gameplan...and then unloads on UGA in Week 2. He's got so much of a whammy on Mark Richt it isn't funny. Like I said, I really do think Richt will shoot Spurrier in the face at some point.

Maybe UCF will shock us...but if USC has just beaten UGA - and they will, we've seen that particular ###### so many times that I'm amazed anybody questions it, anymore - then I really don't see them losing to UCF. Maybe UCF will surprise. If you look at O'Leary's coaching roster, they look like a coaching All-Star team from 15 years ago...all the hot names from 2000 are there, and while their coaching stocks may have plummeted since then those guys have coached a boatload of football games over their careers. But in terms of resources and talent UCF should not be competitive with the likes of South Carolina.

So past history tells me 2-1. I'd love to see 0-3...but alas, you will not catch me betting against the Visor. Personally I think they finish around 8-4 on the year, even with all those issues at QB. I think their D will be improved - Hoke is a good coach by all accounts, and the D can't be much worse - and if Spurrier has trouble moving the ball and scoring touchdowns, it will be the first time that has ever happened to Spurrier. He's very much in Paul Johnson's class when it comes to offensive acumen - and folks, it NEVER matters what Johnson has (or doesn't have) on paper; he figures out a way to move the ball with what he's got.

People, this is one of the top 4-5 offensive minds of all time in college football. Love him, hate him, I don't care. Anybody who argues that is just...off. Maybe he's lost his touch. Maybe. But I didn't see it last year, whatever people tried to say...their offense was still plenty effective last year; their main problem was the fact that their defense was one of the worst in college football. Which Spurrier does not, and never had, anything to do with. He hires people for that.

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> I would not flinch at betting the line against UNC or
> UCF , but UGA is a loss barring a complete Dawg
> meltdown like last year @ Columbia.
> I think they start 0-2 , but UCF is not going to beat
> them in their home opener.

Richt is good for those. All Spurrier has to do is confound him and keep the game close...and Richt, inevitably, will try to out-clever Spurrier. At which point he calls the QB's number on 4th-and-2 instead of just handing the ball off to Todd Gurley or Nick Chubb 45 times in a row like he did against us. Richt is a religious man, and I'm not talking about his Christianity. Richt is also a fervent adherent of a much stranger religion called Balance. (Tommy Bowden had the same problem.)

When you worship at the altar of Balance, it doesn't matter if you've got a new QB or nondescript wide receivers - and a huge nasty O-line and arguably the best stable of running backs in college football. You're still going to have a 50/50 run-pass ratio, you're still going to waste 35%-45% of your play-calls running plays your team in no way can execute, and in key situations, at key moments, you're going to do exactly the opposite of what your strengths are...to confuse the opposition, see. Watch UGA sometime. There's a reason they can level Clemson one week, beat Mizzou by 40...and still fritter enough games away in incomprensible fashion that Mizzou still winds up in the SEC Championship Game. Richt just does not, and has never had, a realistic grasp on what his strengths are as a team. If I was Richt, with the RB stable he had last year, I would have literally run the ball 80% of the time - or until the other team basically lined up in a 5-5-2 with NO safety help whatsoever over the top. Then, and only then, would I have considered throwing the ball. He literally wastes a third of his offensive plays trying to do stuff his team CANNOT DO. And he's done it his entire career. He may also make a Nice Guy public persona, but there's also clearly some serious negative coaching going on - his guys are always wired up TIGHT, and tend to get the yips and drops and fumbles at weird moments. They are distinctly un-clutch in pressure situations. Whatever's going on at UGA, his guys are not having a lot of fun out there.

Spurrier doesn't care about any of that. He just figures out what he's got that'll work, lets it rip, then whacks you over the head with it until the game's over and calls it a day.

SCAR will easily start 0-3, and be underdogs in all 3