Steve Spurrier has resigned as South Carolina’s head coach following a 2–4 start to the 2015 season and coming off the heels of a somewhat disappointing 7–6 season last year.
To be clear, that the 7–6 record is even considered a disappointment is a testament to how far Spurrier brought the program in his 10 1/2 seasons in Columbia.
In the 15 seasons prior to his 2005 arrival, South Carolina had only achieved that kind of “success” three times, and Spurrier’s worst season—a 6–6 campaign in 2007—is the best “worst” full season of any coach in the last 70 years of the Gamecocks’ 112-year football history.
In addition, his three straight 11-win seasons from 2011 to 2013 were the first the school had ever seen, and that they came in the most difficult conference in the nation—the ridiculously deep SEC, of which they’ve only been members since 1992—made it all the more impressive.
That Spurrier felt the need to resign after a slow start shouldn’t be all that surprising. The ultra-competitive coach has had only one losing season ever—a 5–6 campaign in 1987 when he was a first-year coach at Duke.
