Thread by @D1scourse, The South Carolina coaching change has me thinking about one of my [...]

The South Carolina coaching change has me thinking about one of my favorite college football subjects: What it takes for a program without top 10% advantages to break through.

Gamecocks are a great example, in large part b/c it has top-20ish interest/investment. (1/)

One huge problem is they have to play three teams every year that, when they're maximizing their various advantages (institutional and fan investment, geographic access to talent, to a lesser extent history), are top-10 programs.

Clemson, Florida, Georgia. (2/)

So not only does South Carolina have to get the right coach (which it did with Steve Spurrier) and procure and develop high-end talent, but having at least one of those other three programs underachieve is really, really helpful. Borderline necessary, really. (3/)

Maxing out while those rivals leave wins on the table obviously helps in head-to-head games. But those results, in turn, make it much easier to sell a program to future recruits rather than getting drubbed year after year. (4/)

So let's take a peek at the Gamecocks vis-a-vis Clemson/Florida/Georgia over the five years before Spurrier (2000-04), Spurrier's first five seasons (2005-09), Spurrier's last five full seasons (2010-14) and from 2015, when Spurrier checked out midyear, to 2019. (5/)

(I'm leaving out 2020 because ...

a. It's not over
b. It's weird, especially with the absence of OOC games
c. Doing so ensures the balance of the five-year windows throughout the exercise)

(6/)

2000-04

Georgia 50-14
Florida 43-20
Clemson 38-23
South Carolina 33-26 (3-12 vs. Clem/Fla/UGa)

2005-09

Florida 57-10
Georgia 48-17
Clemson 41-24
South Carolina 35-28 (4-11 vs. Clem/Fla/UGa)

(7/)

2010-14

South Carolina 49-17 (12-3 vs. Clem/Fla/UGa)
Clemson 48-18
Georgia 46-21
Florida 37-26

2015-19

Clemson 69-5
Georgia 54-15
Florida 44-20
South Carolina 29-34 (2-13 vs. Clem/Fla/UGa)

(8/)

Even at the end of the Holtz years, South Carolina was in shouting distance (in aggregate) of Clemson and Zook-era Florida. Same was true of early Spurrier vs. late Bowden era/early Dabo Clemson.

(9/)

Then came the Spurrier peak, and the Gamecocks certainly contributed to their rivals' woes. They were really, really good.

But the issues at Georgia (inconsistency), Clemson (waiting for for the Dabo machine to kick in) and especially Florida went beyond South Carolina. (10/)

And since 2015? Clemson is a top-two program. Georgia's averaged 10+ wins. Florida made the right hire to fix its program. All three finished in the top 10 in both 2018 and 2019.

Wasn't a big opening for a South Carolina to distinguish itself even if it was near-perfect. (11/)

Spoiler alert: It wasn't.

South Carolina wasn't as good as it probably should have been the last three seasons. But even it was more like an 8-5 team, it was still straggling behind the powerhouses it invariably will get compared with. That's not good for any coach.

(12/)

A program/coach can control a lot of things, but it can't control how competent its rivals are.

Sure, you can win head-to-head recruiting battles, and there is value in that. But making the most of a program's advantages does go beyond that.

(13/)

You can't get shredded like South Carolina did the last three games, and it should've been better than 4-8 last year. Few will weep for Will Muschamp as he collects his eight-figure buyout. He's going to be just fine.

(14/)

But the list of coaches who could have enjoyed high-level success there the last three years is brief. And it's going to be really, really hard for whoever comes next in Columbia so long as Clemson, Florida and Georgia remain at an elite or near-elite level.

(15/)

Sometimes (and this goes for a lot of situations), better-resourced rivals fritter away their advantages. That was true for the Gamecocks not too long ago, and they maxed out and pounced.

But short term? It won't be easy for any coach to meaningfully narrow that gap.

(16/16)

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