Throughout this past offseason, head coach Steve Spurrier has, at various points in time, hinted that starting quarterback Stephen Garcia‘s starting job is in jeopardy, refused to guarantee the starting job to the incumbent and, generally, publicly challenged the junior and his commitment to the game at seemingly every turn.
The public criticism simultaneously caught Garcia’s attention and struck a nerve.
“I’m not going to lie, I was pretty upset about it,” Garcia said in April. “I’m just going to have to use that as motivation and try to prove him wrong.”
Fast-forward to South Carolina’s media days Sunday, and Spurrier has no idea what all of the Garcia fuss and hurt feelings was all about.
“I haven’t been hard on him at all,” Spurrier said according to The State. “He didn’t have a very good last game. I didn’t have a very good last game.”
Spurrier then addressed the biggest criticism most everyone has of Garcia: turnovers and the mental mistakes that marked his sophomore season.
“I’m not saying one mistake and he’s out of the game,” the coach said. “Nobody’s mad at Stephen. ... Stephen has been told what he’s expected to do. ... We expect him to play well and not have those critical errors and mistakes.”
Garcia threw ten interceptions and was the 84th-rated passer in the country in 2009; we get the feeling the presumptive starter won’t have the opportunity to even come remotely close to repeating that feat, either through improved play or because of the fact that Spurrier seems to have grown weary of his inconsistent starter and itching to the pull the trigger, even if it means relying on woefully inexperienced backups Andrew Clifford and Zac Brandise.