Doing the Spurrier shuffle
Posted on Sunday, November 9, 2008
COLUMBIA, S. C. — South Carolina quarterbacks Chris Smelley and Stephen Garcia got their extra running in during the game.
They got quite a workout.
Smelley and Garcia replaced each other on almost every play Saturday, as South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier brought back a gimmick from his Florida days.
“I thought it was kind of fun,” Smelley said. “But I would like to calculate how many miles we logged running on and off the field.”
The Gamecocks beat Arkansas 34-21, but a review of the South Carolina quarterback play was mixed. Smelley, a sophomore who was under center for the first play of the game, and so technically the starter, was 9 for 19 for 148 yards and a touchdown. Garcia, a freshman, was 4 for 11 for 71 yards, 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Garcia also ran for 35 yards.
“We tried it in practice this week, so we were anticipating this,” Garcia said. “But it was weird. It is something I’ve never done in my life, but it wouldn’t bother me to do it again. We got plays in quick, and we had a mental picture of what the play should be. It worked pretty well.”
Spurrier played coy with the media in the days leading up to Saturday’s game against Arkansas, refusing to name a starting quarterback before the game for the first time this season.
Then he tried to have a little fun with the situation after the game.
“Earlier in the week we talked to you all about it,” Spurrier said. “What, you didn’t catch that one ? I said one would start, or the other.”
He essentially went with both quarterbacks.
Spurrier has done this shuffle, as he called it, before. In 1997, Spurrier rotated Florida quarterbacks Doug Johnson and Noah Brindise virtually every other play as Florida defeated previously unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Florida State 20-17.
In 1998, in an overtime loss to Tennessee, Spurrier shuffled Johnson and Jesse Palmer on every other play. The next season the Seminoles got their revenge, beating Florida 30-23, with Johnson and Palmer again rotating.
Arkansas seemed to hardly notice the different quarterbacks.
“They were both doing the same thing, so it wasn’t anything different,” Arkansas defensive coordinator Willy Robinson said.
“Their quarterbacks are so similar that I didn’t notice a difference between them,” said Arkansas defensive end Malcolm Sheppard, who sacked Smelley twice.
“It looked like just one of them played the whole game to be honest. They look the same. Pretty good young guys and they did well for their team.”
Some schools, like Auburn, like to use a more mobile quarterback in a running formation and a “throwing” quarterback when the situation calls for a pass. Spurrier said he wasn’t changing his quarterbacks to give the Razorbacks any kind of change of pace.
There was a more practical reason.
“We said we would play both of them, might as well send one in with the play,” Spurrier said. “It eliminates signals, gets them up there early. When one has not separated themselves from the other, why not ? It eliminates crowd noise; really not a bad way to do it.
“ Stephen can’t get the hand signals right anyway, so why not ?”
Garcia was 1 for 9 at one point, but he said a lack of rhythm from the rotation was not the cause.
Smelley, likewise, said he felt fine during the times he was in the game.
“You hear about rhythm, but we felt good, so that didn’t take away from my performance,” Smelley said. “I think we felt comfortable doing it.”
Spurrier, a former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback who in the past has said he doesn’t believe that taking a quarterback out every other play has any effect on rhythm, laughed when asked if he thought Saturday’s unorthodox substitution patterns adversely affected his quarterbacks.
“Naw, we don’t have enough rhythm on this team to worry about that,” he said.
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