Steve Spurrier had a golden opportunity for a fun-and-gun run in Columbia, but misses on the recruiting trail helped lead to the program’s demise.
It didn’t have to be this way. South Carolina could be piling up yards and lighting up the scoreboard. Instead, the Gamecocks are 3-8 and reeling after last week’s loss to The Citadel.
The nightmare ends on Saturday when Clemson heads down to the state capital.
Imagine this for a second: Quinshad Davis running alongside Pharoh Cooper. Talk about a nightmare for Clemson. Instad, Davis left the state for Chapel Hill. Now, he’s the most decorated pass catcher in UNC history.
South Carolina could have had him, and the decision to pass helped signal the beginning of the end of the Spurrier era.
By the time his senior year at Gaffney rolled around, he was ready to commit to South Carolina. But their 2012 wide receiver board was already filled by Shaq Roland, Kwinton Smith and Jody Fuller.
None of the three are still with the program. Fuller and Smith transferred after two seasons. Roland left the team last December before the Independence Bowl.
Fuller is the only one who’s still playing football. He’s now at Wingate. Smith played baseball last spring at Florence-Darlington Tech. Roland first surfaced at Prairie View A&M. At last check, he was a student at Winston-Salem State, but not yet apart of the football team.
They caught a combined total of 61 passes at South Carolina. Roland had 56 of them for 891 yards.
Those misses wouldn’t have been so bad for South Carolina had Mike Williams not signed with Clemson. Early on, most folks thought that’s where he was headed.
As Williams was transitioning from basketball player to football player, South Carolina was a run-first, ground-and-pound team, utilizing Marcus Lattimore, Brian Maddox, Kenny Miles and Brandon Wilds.
There were moments of intrigue from Alshon Jeffery and Tori Gurley, but the Gamecocks’ offensive style didn’t fit what Williams wanted when he left Lake Marion. It certainly couldn’t stack up to Clemson’s aerial-assault.
After watching DeAndre Hopkins’ monster sophomore campaign in 2011, Williams was intrigued. By July, before his senior year, Williams favored Clemson. He committed a few weeks after his trip for that month’s Cookout. In February of 2013, Williams signed with the Tigers.
The final piece to the puzzle that could have been is Oklahoma State quarterback Mason Rudolph. That, of course, is assuming that he would have reciprocated the interest. South Carolina passed on the Rock Hill-Northwestern product and opted to take Connor Mitch.
Rudolph barely got a sniff from the Gamecocks. This season, he’s passed for 3,591 yards and 21 touchdowns for the 10-1 Cowboys.
Hindsight, in all three of those situations is 20/20.
Roland was widely considered the state’s top overall prospect in 2012 and Smith wasn’t too far behind.
The style of offensive play in South Carolina’s golden era didn’t match what Spurrier put together in Florida, but it was very effective. It was good enough to beat Clemson five times. But it wasn’t good enough to lure Williams to Columbia.
If there was any concern about Rudolph being a system quarterback, it would have been understandable. Justin Worley enjoyed a highly-decorated career at Northwestern before going on to a less-than-stellar run at Tennessee.
Lucky for Clemson.