Much has already been made of this week's S.E.C. Media Days, but, for those of you who weren't quite up to slogging through the barrage of clichés, platitudes, and obfuscations, here are a few of the highlights.
We begin with assorted snippets showcasing the brutal honesty, constant confidence, and sociological similes of Steve Spurrier:
I believe our players, our team, we need to come to the ballpark feeling like we're just as good as Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and that we can play with those guys to see what happens.
I never said anything about changing the culture. That was Lou Holtz that said that. I said something about changing our attitudes. Attitude, that's my word. I guess it's about the same thing.
But, anyway, the attitude of everything at South Carolina, when you haven't won much, we won our fourth bowl game in school history this year by the way, so we did that, but the history there is not all that super duper. '69, South Carolina won the A.C.C. That's the only championship in 110 years of football.
But what we need to do is understand that the object of a football season is to try to win your conference championship. I really believe that. I'm really sort of a coach that tries to win a championship, which in our situation is the conference. I don't really worry about the national that much. I don't know why coaches do, to tell you the truth, because that's really a long shot and a lot of things have to happen.
What we can control as coaches is trying to win our conference championship, all of us. So that's where we are right here. Just trying to get our fans in the mindset that, you know, don't applaud our guys when we lose close games. You don't have to boo us or anything, but we don't need to be patted on the back for close losses. That was one thing we went through last year that hopefully we don't have to go through again.
After the unvarnished wit and supreme self-assuredness of the Evil Genius, it almost isn't fair to turn to the dreary lack of originality or depth of Tommy Tuberville, but, since I hate Auburn, I'm going to mock that jug-eared jerk in the worst way possible . . . by quoting him accurately:
We were a true blue collar team.
Brandon was a little bit beat up.
We've worked very hard the last few years of trying to have four or five running backs that we feel like can play in this league because they get beat up.
Well, you know, I understand probably why Brandon's not a preseason high favorite to be one of the better quarterbacks in the league. But, you know, he has won 19, lost five, and he did go through a year last year where we asked him to do some things that he wasn't used to doing. But he had to do it because he was a little bit beat up.
We were beat up last year after that game. Brandon was beat up.
We had several other guys. But, again, we go back to our team, and knowing how we were beat up, we still won some big games right after that. Guys persevered and fought through it. That's what I was talking about earlier. When you're beat up a little bit and you got to play hurt, you got to find a way to get it done.
The year we won 13, there were some games we had to find a way to win it, somehow have more points at the end of the game than the other team. That's what's great about this conference.
Spurrier wore you all out. He'll wear anybody out.
Well put, Tommy. Well put.
Go 'Dawgs!