if your school is a media darling, like mine and yours, I think you should embrace it
True dat. I'm enjoying how some of the talking heads are finally giving South Carolina credit on the 10-2 regular season. All they talk about is overcoming the loss of the "big three" (WR Jeffery, RB Lattimore, QB Garcia), how Spurrier has done one of his greatest coaching jobs ever, and how our defense is legit. Now that I think about it, another almost-cliche is how SCAR is winning by running well and playing good defense, and not like the "Fun-n-Gun" pass happy teams Spurrier dominated with at Florida.
Still, I wish they'd replace one of those story lines with a more in-depth analysis. For example, does Spurrier finally have the makings of a great QB with Connor Shaw? It is astonishing that Steve freaking Spurrier has not produced one of those brilliant system QBs since his first season with S.CAR in 2005. We've never had a QB who we can truly look at and say, "
there's no way that he will cost us the next game, and if we do lose then it damn sure won't be the QB's fault." Garcia was way too hot and cold, and his party rage level was top-10 in the nation.
Shaw, on the other hand, is a coach's son who lives and breathes football. Spurrier recruited him largely because he fell in love with the idea of having a dual-threat QB around 2006. The Head Ball Coach gave Syvelle Newton (primarily a WR/DB/RB in college) the starting QB job for a few games over standard pocket-passer Blake Mitchell. Newton was a decent passer and had quite a bit of success, but ultimately proved to most effective as a WR/DB when Mitchell earned his job back. Newton was not a true QB in size or passing ability, but he was able to step-in and win games when Mitchell was in a slump. Spurs was uber-impressed with the possible advantages of a
true dual-threat QB, as opposed to a QB who is mobile only by virtue of good footwork in the pocket and decent scrambling ability.
Connor Shaw can run like hell and is great at the
zone-read. He ran the zone-read in high school, and now it is USC's main strategy on offense (I-formation was still heavily used the previous season). In the zone-read, the QB is operating an option in which he can hand the ball to a RB or keep it to run or throw (often faking to the RB). It is all about being able to read the defense and make quick, effective decisions to gain yardage. The QB must act quickly to take advantage of what the defense is showing him (hand off to RB if the free DE is containing, pull the ball from RB and run towards the side of the DE if he goes for the RB, etc). There are plenty of QBs with the ability to make those decisions correctly, but if the QB can make the reads quick AND throw well AND he's a damn good runner..that is a lot for the defense to think about and physically defend. If you can sustain long drives and get the defense physically tired and mentally confused/discouraged, you're doing your job.
Shaw knows when to slide, when to protect the ball and go down or take a loss, and when to dart into the open spaces left by opposing defenses. He can put a deep ball on the money...Our best WR Alshon Jeffery dropped a couple of long-balls from Shaw not long after Shaw was named the starter, and he NEVER drops footballs when they are even near the money...It was almost like Jeffery was so accustomed to having to make crazy good catches (courtesy of many Garcia passes), that he had to get used to the possibility of turning around in-stride with the football right where it should be, just like the play is designed . Shaw likes to spread the ball around, and he's been pretty damn consistent in making the easy throws and avoiding stupid ones. He doesn't force shit when it's not there.
The collective blood pressure of Gamecock fans has decreased big-time since Shaw showed us how he rolls.
Even when Garcia was "on," there was always a great sense of nervousness as we'd wait for his next mind-boggling mistake...And I mean every single one of our fans, unless heavily medicated, had that nervous feeling about Garcia. How does a guy look NFL-bound on one play, and then on the very next play do something like, oh I don't know,
THROW THE BALL DIRECTLY TO THE OTHER TEAM!?!? I get on him, but he's still in great football shape and I hope he earns an NFL practice squad job. If he can mature or rededicate himself to the game or whatever, he could have a successful career as a back-up QB. He is definitely a gamer and will put his body on the line to get those extra yards running. He's physically able to take big hits, not get himself injured, and bounce back up despite the pain. A lot of guys come from college to the NFL, only to get beat to hell and never recover or develop. As a QB who is not built like Tebow, Garcia needs to learn to avoid unnecessary hits.
But I digress. It is nice to finally have Connor Shaw running shit for my Gamecocks. He is still very young and made plenty of mistakes this year, but it is evident that he has learned from his mistakes. In other words, Shaw is not as amazing as I might have described him, but at this pace he could be a great one. For a sophomore with only 7 games under his belt (6-1 as a starter), he has exhibited mental maturity and has made improvements from week to week. He's made some clutch plays this year, and there is no way the Gamecocks are close to 10-2 without him.
He's a God damned breath of fresh Flowery Branch, GA air. With his exceptional athletic ability and impressive work ethic, and under the guidance of a certain Steve Spurrier, Shaw could one day become a top college QB.
I understand if you good folks don't want to read all this junk about a team you probably don't give a crap about, but please allow this die-hard Gamecock fan to gloat!
If someone out there has no team to pull for (or lost interest in a team) and wants to get into (or back into) the spirit of the great sport of college football, the
South Carolina Gamecocks would be a good team to give a chance! We are historic underdogs with a chip on our shoulder. NO ONE gave us a chance to EVER be consistently good, even after Spurrier got here! We are proving those people very, very wrong, but not so much in an "I told ya so" sort of way, if that makes sense. Plus our female fans, a
truly fine bunch, enjoy triumphantly saying "Go Cocks" and wearing shirts/hoodies that simply say "Cocks" across the boobs. You can laugh and say "
So, you like having Cocks on your tits..." and not be immediately smacked in the face. Nice, huh?
Lol I remember the last time Georgia came to play USC, there was a group of UGA dudes who kept egging on the USC chicks to say "Go Cocks"...They were all "man that shit is GREAT haha, I just love hearing that, say it again!"
Good times.
