Steve Superior

I guess this dispatch needs to begin with an explanation of why I'm writing it.

Similar to Twitter commentary from fans elsewhere who take issue when I comment on things that are happening outside of Clemson, I'm sure some Gamecocks fans won't be happy to see a guy who covers the Tigers weighing in on the spectacle that happened yesterday in Columbia.

My answer to that: I was born in this state and have been following the two major college football programs in this state for most of my life. In addition, I've followed Steve Spurrier closely since his days at Duke and have even been one of his admirers. So just saying ... I'm qualified to give an opinion.

What happened yesterday was regrettable and even embarrassing, and I say that at risk of being accused of reflexively rallying to the defense of someone in my profession.

I believe the record will show that I have zero problems criticizing the work of my peers. I've also railed against the "protect our own" culture of media folks who don't like it when the light of scrutiny they shine on others is suddenly directed towards them. And on multiple occasions, I have criticized the work of Ron Morris.

That said, Ron and I are friends. So maybe there's some bias there. I'll acknowledge that. I can say this: I feel really bad for Ron. Because not even the most thick-skinned guy out there can go through what Ron went through yesterday without it profoundly affecting him. Ron has a family, and if his family gets death threats from deranged fans it won't be a surprise. That's sad.

Here's what I don't get about Spurrier's rant: He says he's ticked off about a column that was written more than six months ago. Why now?

Is it just a coincidence that, just hours after Spurrier's hissy fit, it was announced that Stephen Garcia had been kicked off the team? Was this a diversionary tactic employed by Spurrier to do Garcia one last favor and diminish the headlines about his woefully troubled quarterback? Was it designed to keep the media and other folks from saying "I told you so" in reference to offseason calls for him to give Garcia the boot?

Maybe Spurrier reached his boiling point in the wake of a few recent columns by Morris that blasted his coaching. This one, written days after the Gamecocks fell on their faces against Auburn, was scathing. And it should reinforce the notion that Clemson's media climate, seen as oppressive by some, is actually quite friendly.

If Spurrier blew his top over the aforementioned column, or maybe that column in addition to a cluster of recent columns that criticized him for an offense that couldn't get out of its own way, he can't walk into that press conference yesterday and say that was the reason he was freezing out Morris. He had to pin it on something he believed was factually inaccurate, and thus his grievances about a column that ran in March.

The crazy thing is, the two columns Morris wrote on Spurrier's procurement of Bruce Ellington from the basketball team -- read them here and here -- seem pretty innocuous on the surface.

Here's the bombshell Spurrier was so ticked about: Morris alleged that Spurrier and his staff took interest in Ellington and began pursuing him when he was on the basketball team. Ellington happened to be an exceptional football player in high school. Spurrier says he never talked to Ellington before basketball coach Darrin Horn gave him his release, and that might well be true. But what about Spurrier's assistants? What about the football players?

Thing is, what's so bad about the football staff pursuing Ellington? The kid is an elite talent. And if he wants to play football, then Spurrier needs to tell Horn: "Deal with it."

This kind of reminds me of the time, a few years ago, when South Carolina's staff pursued Chris Rumph when Rumph was an assistant at Clemson. Rumph turned them down. When the news got out that the Gamecocks went after Rumph, Spurrier completely denied it and said it was not true. Rumph was approached by then-defensive coordinator Tyrone Nix and not Spurrier, so Spurrier -- in his mind, at least -- could issue bold-faced denials based, I suppose, on the technicality that he never talked to Rumph and never made an official offer.

The worst part of Spurrier's professed reasoning is that Morris has a prominent platform and Spurrier does not. Spurrier told reporters yesterday that he can't write a rebuttal in the newspaper, so his only power rests in being the baby he was and trying to conduct press conferences without Morris on the room.

That's laughable. This isn't 1985. Spurrier has an army of media that chronicle his every move and every word, same as most major schools. He has various platforms, including the athletics' department's web site, to rebut and get his side of the story out. Whenever he says something out of the ordinary, it's a story.

He used his platform over the summer when he marched Ellington in front of the media and blasted Morris' account of how Ellington ended up on the football team. Everyone wrote about it then, just as they wrote about yesterday's circus.

If Spurrier doesn't like what Morris writes and he wants to say it, he can single out Morris and say he doesn't like it. If he doesn't want to answer Morris' questions, he doesn't have to.

Yesterday's behavior was over the top. It was bad form. It was embarrassing.

Spurrier is a quirky dude, and a lot of that quirkiness has been good for college football over his tenures at Duke, Florida and South Carolina. This sport needs odd-ball personalities like Spurrier, like Mike Leach, like Les Miles and many others. It'd be a relentlessly boring endeavor to follow if it were populated solely by such Cardboard Coaches as Gene Chizik, Tom O'Brien, Randy Edsall and others.

So sometimes, as followers of college football, we have to take the bad with the good.

But yesterday was far more bad than good.

LW