All Hail the Gamecocks' Steve Spurrier, King of the D in the SEC?

Guarantees in college football don't come easy, but they are there if you look for them.

June Jones will never be known for three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust football. I guarantee it.

Tailgating in Baton Rouge would never include McDonald's hamburgers on the menu, Uga will never don a polka dot bikini on game day, and you would be hard-pressed to not find a future Miss America at the Grove. I guarantee it.

Like the sands of time in an hourglass, now matter how our world changes, some things are consistent and dependable. True to their nature. They never change.

Until now.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the King of Defense in the SEC. The master of great defensive line play. The prince of nasty linebackers.

Stand up and applaud for...Steve Spurrier, head coach of the No. 22 South Carolina Gamecocks. Yeah, that guy.

The guy won a Heisman as quarterback for the Florida Gators. The guy who was an offensive coordinator at Duke. The guy who threw the Fun "n" Gun pass-oriented offense into the SEC and drove defensive coordinators nuts.

The Ol' Ball Coach is King of the D?

While Tennessee's defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin has a legion of believers in his Cover 2 D and his resume of defensive genius in big games seems to grow every week, he's got nothing on the Ol' Ball Coach in college football. At least not this year. The Vols are not ranked in the BCS while the Gamecocks are. And it's all due to the D.

Sure, Tennessee is ranked ahead of South Carolina in total defense, but who is ahead of who in pass D? Cocky, not Smokey. That's right. South Carolina is ranked No. 3, while Tennessee's Cover 2 defense is ranked No. 6.

For all of Spurrier's quarterback-mentoring know-how and offensive schematic brain cells, the thing he may go down for in Gamecocks history is not producing great quarterbacks or prolific offenses, but great defense.

And it's a bit hard to swallow right now.

After all, Spurrier was brought to South Carolina to rev up the program after Lou Holtz retired and most everyone assumed that the Gamecocks would be more competitive in moving the sticks.

But that assumption backfired on everyone, including Steve Spurrier.

The laundry list of ineffective Gamecocks quarterbacks has plagued Spurrier since he began coaching at South Carolina. Blake Mitchell? Syvelle Newton? Who? Chris Smelley and Tommy Beecher? *crickets chirping*

None of these quarterbacks were able to grasp the complexity of a Spurrier offense and Gamecocks Nation sat on their hands, waiting for the sky to fall. But a funny thing happened along the way—a stout defense emerged. And it hasn't left in years.

South Carolina is ranked No. 21 in scoring defense this year, allowing just a little over 17 points per game. A fluke? No. Last year the Gamecocks were ranked No. 30 in scoring defense. Uh huh, the Gamecocks are getting even better defensively. Nastier. More fearsome.

Instead of opposing defensive coordinators worrying about how to stop the offense—which seems to do that on its own with little help from the opponent's defense—it's the offensive coordinators worrying about how to score points against the Gamecocks' defense.

While quarterback Stephen Garcia is slowly (albeit, very slowly) progressing in his quest to become the quarterback all recruiters thought he was capable of being, the defense has become the signature unit of Steve Spurrier's team.

Linebacker Eric Norwood made the all-SEC first team preseason and is nationally ranked No. 25 in sacks and No. 3 in blocked punts, while defensive end Cliff Matthews is ranked No. 7 for forced fumbles. Darian Stewart, a safety, is always one of the team's leading tacklers.

Who are these guys?

They are the guys who are ripe for pulling the upset every week no matter who they play due to their outstanding fundamentals such as tackling plus their ability to keep other teams from scoring.

In week one, the Gamecocks allowed NC State a paltry three points. Last week against Alabama, the Gamecocks were in the game despite Mark Ingram rushing for 246 yards. At halftime, the score was 13-6. Not bad against an offense that had averaged 37 points a game.

Stephen Garcia had a miserable first half, including a 4-for-18 effort, a pick six, and five incomplete passes in the endzone. As it has been the last few years, promising drives ended up stalling with no points on the board, but the defense kept the Gamecocks in the game, picking McElroy twice in his first four pass attempts.

The Gamecocks' defense is the reason why they are ranked in the top 25. The Gamecocks' defense is the reason why they are probably the best 6-2 team in the country. You can point to Ellis Johnson, the defensive coordinator, as the reason why the Gamecocks are so stingy in giving up points, but Steve Spurrier is no Bobby Bowden—he is active in all units of the team.

This is Spurrier's team on both sides of the ball. His ego wouldn't have it any other way.

And right now, you would be hard-pressed to find any defensive prepster in SEC country who hasn't looked at South Carolina as a team of interest.

Spurrier has, unwittingly, become the Pete Carroll of the South—his backyard is now a defensive haven for the next Jasper Brinkley, not Matthew Stafford.

A nice, quiet Columbia, South Carolina awaits those who want to be coached by one of the greatest Gators quarterbacks of all time. A Heisman-winning coach. The Fun "n" Gun offensive guru.

Perhaps one of the greatest producers of defense in the SEC.

Yeah, it's hard to believe, but Steve Spurrier has finally found his niche. Defense.

And while offense wins games, defense wins championships.

All hail the king.