If you’re a fan of a good ol’ Southern football catfight, this is like Christmas in, um, December.
First, the back story: a tweet was making the rounds earlier this week that, following South Carolina’s win over Clemson, Steve Spurrier had said when asked about the current state of his football program, “we aren’t LSU, and we aren’t Alabama. But we sure ain’t Clemson.” The only problem with that? Spurrier didn’t say it, at least publicly. Instead, those were the words of a South Carolina radio voice that were somehow attributed to the Ol’ Ball Coach -- by a team-controlled Twitter feed.
Fast-forward a couple of days, and Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney finally addressed what he thought were Spurrier’s words. And, suffice to say, Swinney was far from pleased with Spurrier’s purported shot at his football program. Here’s the video, with the relevant rant starting at roughly the 1:49 mark:
[/slams microphone into mat]
My favorite part?
“He’s exactly right they ain’t LSU, Alabama and they certainly ain’t Clemson. That’s why Carolina is in Chapel Hill and USC is in California and the university in this state is and always will be Clemson. You can print that you can tweet that.”
[/chugs beer from the middle rope as Jim Ross screams “good god almighty! Look at the carnage!!!”]
For the record, South Carolina owns a three-game winning streak in the in-state rivalry; Spurrier is 4-3 while Swinney is 1-3; and Clemson owns a lead in the all-time series, 65-40-4.
That said, and while I love a good rant as much as the next guy, this was an absolutely asinine move on Swinney’s part. Both before and after he went thermonuclear on Spurrier/USC, the coach said he couldn’t believe he was being asked questions about this two days before the ACC championship and yet he still went on a nearly five-minute verbal rampage over something Spurrier never said.
Sorry coach, any distractions that stem from this fall solely, totally and squarely on your shoulders. It may be dumb to ask the question, but it’s even dumber to answer two days before the biggest game of your coaching career.
UPDATED 8:46 p.m. ET: The Twitter feed responsible for original, erroneous tweet, @GamecocksFB -- which as we understand it is controlled by the USC football office -- sent out a clarification earlier this evening, explaining that football broadcaster Todd Ellis “accidentally misquoting Coach Spurrier” during the game this past weekend. The audio can be heard by clicking HERE.
The football program’s Twitter feed goes on to state that “Coach Spurrier often points out that our team isn’t LSU or Bama, (one of the elites in the country) He didn’t make the comment about Clemson”.