South Carolina Pulls Interview with Slurring Steve Spurrier

The South Carolina athletic page has taken down Steve Spurrier's postgame interview from Saturday's 28-25 win over UCF, and reruns of the segment—scheduled to air this week on Fox Sports South—will no longer be shown.

According to Josh Kendall of GoGamecocks.com, Spurrier claims the interview was pulled because he decided it was too negative:

"

Liz [McMillan, an employee of IMG College] and Coach Tanner [USC's Athletics Director], we decided we didn’t have to show it after the first time.

I said, "I’m not very happy with all I said on the thing and so forth. Let’s get it off the air." They said, "We don’t have to show it anymore so I said let’s don’t show it because I have to be more positive."

"

However, some thought that Spurrier was slurring his words and sounded drunk.

Here are tweets from two viewers of the show, via Jon Cooper of Saturday Down South:

Though it's no longer airing on the Gamecocks' website or television, this is the Internet age: Once something gets posted, it exists indelibly.

A quick click to YouTube makes it easy to pull up the interview. Spurrier's segments come at 12:00 and 16:40 on the video below:

All of this might be much ado about nothing. It's not like anyone can prove Spurrier was drunk, and even if one could, it's not like that's illegal—just irresponsible.

Spurrier himself didn't even back off from allegations of drinking after the game. In fact, he almost tacitly confirmed having some adult beverages:

Since this story is so benign, all it really does is add to the mythos of Spurrier, a figure as beloved for his off-field antics as his on-field success.

Nobody—especially members of the USC athletic department—prefers him to stir the pot like this, but so long as there are no serious implications, it's more funny than it is serious.