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Using Steve Spurrier’s own verbiage, there’s still a few hours left in ‘talking season’ before the official start of fall practice.
Along those lines, South Carolina was one of seven SEC teams ranked in the preseason USA Today Amway Coaches Poll, but the Gamecocks were the league’s only squad worthy of a first-place vote.
RELATED: Seven SEC teams ranking in preseason coaches poll
No love for defending SEC champion Auburn. Zero nods for media darling Alabama.
Was this the Ole Ball Coach’s doing?
Spurrier’s been known to vote a little on the homer side before, providing former school Duke with its only preseason vote for several years, but for the most part sends in an honest ballot when he’s not asking for someone else to handle within South Carolina’s sports information office.
The news shocked Spurrier who told Josh Kendall of The State he didn’t do it. He has yet to reveal his ballot but did say he ranked the Gamecocks in the Top 10.
“Somebody voted us No. 1?” Spurrier said. “Must have been my buddy Bobby Stoops. Does (former South Carolina assistant) Rick Stockstill still have a vote? He might have done it.”
If Spurrier didn’t boost the ninth-ranked Gamecocks with a top vote, who did? Stoops is a longtime colleague and family friend, so he’s a possibility. Did Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze, who was on the wrong end of a bet with Spurrier at a recent golf game, lose another round?
There is one coach we can all but eliminate as being ultra-confident in this year’s Gamecocks: Dabo Swinney.
