By Brett Hudson
The Ol’ Ball Coach has many a quirk about him that make him the nationally-known character he is.
His visor and its innate ability to find the ground from time-to-time have helped create the mystique, as has his matter-of-fact sense of humor with the media. Finally, he, like no other, uses quarterbacks like pitchers in a baseball game: as if the one that starts the game does not stay in for the entirety almost every time.
His two quarterback system, now featuring Connor Shaw and Dylan Thompson, has taken flack over the years as unorthodox at best and poisonous at its worst.
But, as most coaches will admit, and Florida head coach was nice enough to put into words, “your tape is your resume. You can get up on the board and draw fancy X’s and O’s, but at the end of the day, what you put on the field is who you are as a coach.”
What Spurrier has put on the field, one or the other, has worked well for the Gamecocks.
“They both played in a bowl game, threw a couple touchdowns, threw for over 150 yards, I think,” Spurrier said. “They combined to help is beat Michigan in the Outback Bowl.”
And the subject like it that way.
“I think it works for us,” Shaw said. “I think Coach Spurrier will make the right decision. He’s handled it before and he’ll do it again.”
The outside voices that attack the system say confidence is too key for
quarterbacks to change them out midway through a game and then back again have no bearing on the two.
“It starts at the beginning of the season, just how you start your season, and it builds throughout the season,” Shaw said of confidence. “It’s not an issue for me.”
Spurrier thinks Shaw actually had something to learn from getting away from the game and letting Thompson take over in the spring while Shaw nursed a shoulder injury.
“He was able to sort of watch during spring ball: stand behind the quarterbacks, watch all the pass skill, all that kind of stuff,” Spurrier said. “He thinks sort of standing back there watching, watching the defense may help him out a little bit.”
