Earlier this week on the Paul Finebaum Show, former South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier addressed some of the current shortcomings with the Gamecocks program.



“I had done a poor job and our assistant coaches did a poor job of recruiting,” Spurrier said, when addressing his departure from Carolina at mid-season of 2015.



He’s correct in saying that the Gamecocks roster certainly fell a long way in a short amount of time. After peaking in 2013 with a third consecutive 11-win season and a final ranking of No. 4 nationally, the talent on the South Carolina roster began to dry up.



In 2014, the offense still had players. Carolina was ranked No. 11 in the preseason, but dropped its opener to Texas A&M, 52-28, a clear sign that the defensive talent had fallen off significantly. The Gamecocks finished a respectable 7-6, but blew two-touchdown fourth quarter leads against Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee. Had Carolina won those three games, the Gamecocks would have won the SEC East. Likewise, South Carolina went up and down the field against Auburn at Auburn and dropped a 42-35 decision.



In 2015, the talent on both sides of the ball left a lot to be desired. The Gamecocks were 2-4 when Spurrier resigned and finished 3-9 after interim head coach Shawn Elliott posted a 1-5 record that included a loss to FCS member The Citadel. It was South Carolina’s first losing season since 2003 and snapped a seven-year bowl streak for the program.



Spurrier also made mention toward the end of the interview that he did not “surround himself with the right personnel” toward the end of his career to make his “plan”, which had worked brilliantly throughout a Hall of Fame career work.



That was perhaps the most telling comment of the interview. During the rise of South Carolina, starting in 2010, the Gamecocks had a staff full of assistant coaches who were excellent recruiters and evaluators. One-by-one, they left the program for other opportunities. Recruiting coordinator Shane Beamer left after signing day 2011 to join his father’s staff at Virginia Tech. His duties were filled by wide receivers coach Steve Spurrier Jr. Running backs coach Jay Graham left following the 2011 season to accept a position at Tennessee, his alma mater. He was replaced by Everett Sands. Defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson left to accept the head coaching job at Southern Mississippi and his job was filled on-staff by Lorenzo Ward, who in turn filled out his defensive staff with Kirk Botkin (high school) and Grady Brown (Southern Miss).



South Carolina also lost its strength coach Craig Fitzgerald to Penn State during this time and Spurrier promoted from within to fill his position.



Ward had talent on his defense and led the Gamecocks to some good years. A career secondary coach, he received plenty of help from veteran defensive line coach Brad Lawing in 2012. Lawing helped design and call the defensive front. When Lawing left for Florida (ironically to coach under current South Carolina head coach Will Muschamp), he was replaced by Deke Adams, who wasn’t nearly as experienced with evaluations, player development or calling a defensive front.



In all cases, these were coaching and recruiting downgrades and in many cases, coaching downgrades. As those assistants departed, he promoted one of the least successful recruiters on the staff to recruiting coordinator, promoted a first-time defensive coordinator that could not coach the entire defense and who subsequently made poor evaluation after poor evaluation in the secondary in recruiting, promoted an assistant strength coach to strength coach, hired a running backs coach (your running backs coach always should be a strong recruiter) who couldn't recruit (one in-state FCS coach was stunned when Sands was hired and told TBS off the record that he was not a strong recruiter) and who could not develop relationships with his players very well, hired a linebackers coach out of a Texas high school where he wasn't a coordinator, hired a secondary coach who had never coached anywhere bigger that Southern Miss. and hired two special teams coordinators who could not recruit. Then he hired a defensive line coach who was woefully inadequate in terms of player development and coaching the defensive line.



It was a disaster waiting to happen.



Spurrier probably didn’t realize it at the time. After all, during his run at Florida, he got the Gators going and the Gators kept on going and outside of hiring Bob Stoops to run his defense from 1996-98, which led to a national title, it wasn’t as if he made a ton of great assistant coaching hires during his time there. He really didn’t need to.



At South Carolina, there were a slew of staff changes before he hit the lottery after the 2008 season when he brought in six new assistant coaches. The Gamecocks, despite finishing with a 7-6 record and being blown out by their last three opponents, still signed a top 15 recruiting class that included Alshon Jeffery and Stephon Gilmore. The 2010 class featured Marcus Lattimore and the 2011 class brought Jadeveon Clowney to South Carolina. That set up the Gamecocks run in the coming years. It was no coincidence that the recruiting and coaching across the board improved with the addition of these staff members.



That should have been a learning experience for Spurrier, but it obviously wasn’t. South Carolina isn’t Florida and quite frankly Florida isn’t Florida like it was in 1996. Urban Meyer won two national titles with the Gators, replaced numerous staff members who went on to head coaching jobs and then all of a sudden was coaching with folks he really didn’t know at the end of his tenure (2010, when the Gamecocks beat UF in The Swamp, 36-14 to win the SEC East) and admitted on the record he wasn’t as comfortable without the likes of Dan Mullen and Charlie Strong on the staff.



What that tells you is when you compete in Power 5 football, because of the importance of recruiting, you have to have not just a competent, but a very good staff. So Spurrier is right, he did not surround himself with the right personnel to be successful late in his tenure at South Carolina. You can't downplay what the guy accomplished at South Carolina (86-49 overall, multiple records set, multiple firsts for the program), but you can trace the beginning of the end of his tenure in Columbia and why things are like they are now from a roster standpoint. It was simply a case of him not understanding how teams in the SEC these days build the rosters they build and how a head coach, no matter how good he is at dialing up ball plays, is only as good as his staff.