Column: Talent USC's problem

It is not unlike college football fans to overreact to either success or adversity.



And South Carolina supporters are no different.



Lou Holtz might not have left a whole lot for Steve Spurrier to work with in terms of personnel. But one of Holtz’s favorite lines is something Gamecock fans who are in despair over their team’s most recent late-season swoon should heed.



At least a handful of times every year, Holtz would break out the old “nothing’s ever as bad as it seems or as good as it seems. The truth lies somewhere in between.”



If ever a cliché applied to a South Carolina football season, it’s that one this year.



When USC was 6-1 and held down a No. 6 national ranking, many knew the Gamecocks weren’t really that good, despite the talk of Southeastern Conference championships and BCS bowl games.



And now that they’ve lost four in a row, the world is not going to end because of it, and no, the Gamecocks don’t need to disband their football program, as some of the “Chicken Littles” (the sky is falling!) out there would suggest, and only half-facetiously.



There is a characteristic among college football fans that has become inherent over the past several years.



As we’ve grown accustomed to having almost anything we want in an instant, we’ve applied the same principle to our sports teams. And that might be true no place more than it is here in the South, where college football holds a status as lofty as our religion and sadly, for some, even more so.



The only things we don’t want instant here are grits and tea, except in extreme — very extreme — cases of emergency.



A winning football program? That’s a different story.



Fans everywhere want it, and want it now.



South Carolina is no different.



That’s OK. But this faction of USC fans out there who are suggesting that Steve Spurrier might not be the right guy for the job? A serious dose of reality is in order.



Lou Holtz left USC’s program in better shape than it was when he found it, but that’s not saying much. He took over a 1-10 team that ended up losing 21 straight before Holtz ever notched his first victory.



Spurrier was left with a few good players, a bunch of pedestrian ones and several who proved they didn’t belong in college, much less on the football field, as evidenced by their getting in trouble in school or with the law or being dismissed from the team altogether.



Holtz did a decent job of building a couple teams.



But Spurrier is into building a program, and like it or not, that’s going to take a while.



His first recruiting class was so-so. The next one was slightly better. Last year’s, by most accounts, was one of the best in the nation, a consensus top-10 group according to the major recruiting analysts.



Spurrier might or might not be able to keep that up. But certainly, don’t you think the guy who single-handedly changed how football in the SEC is played should get the chance to find out?



Which brings us to another point.



Some of the same reality-challenged ones who question Spurrier’s ability to lead USC’s football program are also suggesting that he has somehow lost his ability to coach.



Is this really even debatable?



Any questions anyone had on that subject should have been answered in his first year at South Carolina, when, quite frankly, the Gamecocks won more games than any rational person had a right to expect.



Now, Bob Davie, the former Notre Dame coach-turned-ESPN color commentator, might have been right during the Arkansas game when he said Spurrier’s scheme is no longer ahead of the curve like it once was.



But the game is certainly not ahead of Spurrier.



There is a simple answer to South Carolina’s problems: players. The Gamecocks don’t have enough of them.



But you don’t throw away the gun because you’re out of bullets. You go get more bullets.



If South Carolina’s program is in the same shape two or three years from now as it is today, then there might be a reason for the doom-and-gloom crowd to really worry.



Because if Spurrier doesn’t win at South Carolina, it won’t be because he can’t coach.



But it might be because USC fans’ worst fears finally will have been realized — that maybe no one can win there.



If that’s the case, not even Spurrier can do anything about that.