Steve Spurrier has played tougher schedules than the one he'll navigate this fall in his 10th season at South Carolina.
But for some reason, he must be awfully proud of this year's slate, because he's taken yet another jab at someone else's schedule: This time, it's Texas A&M in Spurrier's crosshairs. This from gogamecocks.com:
"They haven't played the bigger teams so their schedule has been a little misleading," Spurrier said, referring to TAMU's non-conference opponents as "barely Division I." TAMU plays Rice, Sam Houston State, SMU and UTEP out of conference this year. Three of South Carolina's non-conference games are certainly no tougher than that (East Carolina, Furman, South Alabama), but the fourth is the exception: Clemson.
"I find it interesting that they quit playing Texas," Spurrier added. "They played Texas 115 years like we have played Clemson and then they left that Big 12 conference and both schools got mad at each other and said, 'We aren't going to play you anymore.' It would be like us and Clemson saying we are not playing anymore. Our whole state would go crazy. The governor would get involved in that."
Last week, Spurrier took aim at the strength of the entire bottom end of the Big Ten Conference, suggesting East Carolina is a tougher game. The Pirates went 10-3 last season, something Spurrier is guaranteed to point out as that game approaches. But ECU also breezed through an American Athletic Conference schedule.
The Gamecocks take on Texas A&M in their first game of the season.
Follow Chase Goodbread on Twitter *@ChaseGoodbread.*