Tuesday Night Tailgate: He’s Got Stephen Garcia Disorder…

Published September 27, 2011 - 6:47pm

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Tuesday Night Tailgate comes out every Tuesday night in season…TNT discusses the important and not-so-important issues in the world of college football each week. Why? Because nothing makes more sense than mid-week tailgating and football talk.

Tailgate time. Let’s cut to the chase.

The week 4 of football action has led our group to three consensus views:

1. We love college football – quite literally we didn’t take our eyes off the television from 12noon until midnight. While we saw some awesome games, it also means we had to watch Ole Miss / Georgia which was average at best.
2. Houston Nutt’s flat bill hat during the Georgia game was awesome
3. We are officially naming a mental disorder after Stephen Garcia

Since the first two are self explanatory, I’ll use most of this article outlining #3.

If you watched the South Carolina / Vanderbilt game, you know that Stephen Garcia threw 4 interceptions. Now, Vanderbilt has accumulated a lot of interceptions so let’s not forget to give them credit. That’s enough credit; Garcia’s play was awful. Just watch how he tosses this one in the air:

This guy is the oddest talented quarterback I’ve ever seen. And this isn’t like John Brantley at Florida who frankly just turned out to not be very athletic or good at football. Garcia can dominate games at times. And other times he can be horrific. He’s probably going to single-handedly drive the Ol’ Ball Coach out of the game forever and straight into retirement.

Since Garcia has the physical skills (the good arm, good running ability), the problem is likely between the ears. You know, it is the same issue that tells you that keying your professor’s car is a good idea.

It’s sort of like Rick Ankiel – once a talented pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. One year, in the playoffs, he absolutely could not throw a strike out of nowhere. In game 1 of the divisional playoffs, Ankiel imploded in the third inning walking a bunch of hitters and throwing 5 wild pitches. In the next playoff game he pitched, he lasted for 20 pitches, 5 of which were wild pitches.

Ankiel of course never really recovered and is now an outfielder.

Pitcher Steve Blass from the 1970′s is really the first pitcher known for the inexplicable loss of control. “Steve Blass Disease” was coined as a result.

So, we’re coining “Stephen Garcia disorder” which is characterized by poor judgment, erratic performance on the field, heavy drinking, and the tendency to have a grungy appearance.

Now for a real world example. Let’s say you sell insurance. One of your co-workers just seems really hot and cold. You notice he’s gaining a little weight and not really clean shaven much. His overall hygiene is iffy and frankly, you smell booze on him sometimes. Pretty good chance that he’s suffering from Stephen Garcia disorder.

The good news for Gamecock fans is that Garcia possibly got his horrible performance out of his system last week in the Vanderbilt game and comes back big against Auburn. Last season, he played average against Furman and threw a couple interceptions, then came back and played well at Auburn throwing for 3 TD and no picks. Of course, this was also that weird game that Spurrier yanked Garcia out of the game and let Connor Shaw try to lead the team back against Cam Newton. Shaw threw 2 INT’s late in that game.

The bottom line is that South Carolina has a good football team, but the last thing you should expect is for the season to unfold in any orderly fashion. Get some alcohol and get some Tums. You’re going to need it.

For the good news, South Carolina’s Marcus Lattimore might rush for 600 yards against the worst rush defense (by far) in the SEC. Auburn is giving up well over 200 yards a game on the ground through the first four games. Spurrier might pull a Dan Mullen against Florida circa 2010 when his offense ran a single passing play during the entire second half and won the game.

But enough about the Gamecocks… the feature game this week is of course Alabama at Florida. Ladies and gentleman, this is why the SEC is the best football conference in the country. It is about the marquee matchups. It is about dominant programs playing each other time and time again throughout the season. It’s not about playing one good team then playing a bunch of no name schools (Boise State) and it’s not about beating a bunch of dinosaur programs all year then getting slaughtered in the BCS (Ohio State). It is about bringing it each week against the best. This is SEC football.

More nonsense next week..