South Carolina Football: Why Spurrier Is Not the Most Important SC Coach Ever

Steve Spurrier is not the most important South Carolina coach in the history of the program. 

There, I said it. 

Would you like to know the name of the coach that is undoubtedly the most important coaching figure in the history of South Carolina football? 

Yeah? 

Well, here he is:

T.B.D.

That is "to be determined," for those of you that are terrible at abbreviations.  

That's right.  The most important coach in the history of the South Carolina program has yet to be named.  Because he hasn't been hired yet.

Steve Spurrier has done a legendary job building a program from a four- to five-win per season team to a seven- to eight-win team.  While that is not up to where the fans would like yet, it is getting there, and 2011 has the potential to be the year that the team turns the corner and wins 10 or 11 games. 

The talent is there, they just have to put it on the field. 

However, Spurrier is not going to be around for 10 more years.  When he retires, South Carolina will undoubtedly be at a crossroad.

The team will be coming off a generation of coaching success unseen.  Spurrier will retire as the winningest coach in Carolina history and has established a type of recruiting success that the other coaches have only dreamed of. 

South Carolina has a history of hiring older, more experienced coaches to run the program.  However, that may not be the case for the next coach.

The next coach must be able to take the team further.  They must be able to sustain the recruiting level established by Coach Spurrier and must be able to keep South Carolina in the eight to 11 wins per season level. 

If that sounds like a tough task, believe me, it will be.  It will be easy for a new coach to come and turn South Carolina back into the mediocre program it was.  South Carolina must find a perfect replacement for Coach Spurrier. 

When you are mediocre, you have nothing to lose when you hire a new coach.  When you are established as a perennial contender, you automatically draw the top coaching talent to your school.  If you are just turning the corner and on the verge of major success, you have to be super careful. 

The next coach SC hires must be a home run.  If it isn't, everything that Coach Spurrier and the Carolina faithful have worked so hard for will come crashing down.

And won't that be a shame for the fans who have waited so long to have a competitive program again? (the 80s were pretty good to the Gamecocks.)

So, with all due respect to the amazing job Steve Spurrier has done, the most important coach in the history of South Carolina football is yet to be.