Clemson Football: Is Gamecock program imploding right before our eyes?

While the Clemson football program continues to rise to new heights, it seems that in-state rival South Carolina may be bursting at the seams.

Dabo Swinney has led the Clemson football program to two National Championships in the past three years, four-straight ACC Championships and five-straight wins over in-state rival South Carolina.

As we prepare for the upcoming matchup between the Tigers and Gamecocks, it seems that the South Carolina football program is facing some extremely troubling problems.

Following a 4-7 record to this point in the season, a solid portion of the Gamecock fanbase has expressed its disapproval of Coach Will Muschamp. Not only has the fanbase questioned Muschamp’s leadership, but they have also asked whether Athletic Director Ray Tanner should remain in his position.

A couple of weeks ago, members of the Board of Trustees openly discussed Will Muschamp’s buyout. Though AD Ray Tanner released a statement that the Gamecocks were completely behind Muschamp- backed by University of South Carolina President Bob Caslen- Caslen has now been quoted in two South Carolina newspapers with less than confident responses.

Caslen reportedly told the Greenville News that Muschamp was his coach “through the end of this season,” but later said that the quote was taken out of context.

In an interview with The Morning News in Florence, SC, Caslen said that Tanner had been in contact with Florida State about how the Seminoles went about buying out Willie Taggart’s contract. Following the publishing of that article, Caslen released a statement saying that Tanner hadn’t been in contact with Florida State about contracts. However, The Morning News later released the audio that showed Caslen had said exactly as he was quoted.

Even if Caslen did misspeak, there were two other interesting quotes and points of interest within the article:

• Though Caslen said he stuck by Tanner’s statement in full support of Will Muschamp, he said that if the Gamecocks get blown out and fans don’t show up for the matchup between South Carolina and Clemson, they’ll “have a discussion.”
• Second, when talking about South Carolina’s upset over Georgia, Caslen was quoted as saying: “That just shows we have the potential to be halfway decent.”

Even though the administration of South Carolina has consistently said they support Will Muschamp, all the peripherals point otherwise. Why, as the president of a University, would you say anything other than you fully support Muschamp, unless you don’t?

Instead, he’s putting conditions on it. If fans don’t show up, then they’ll revisit it. If they get blown out and ‘implode’ they might have a discussion. It’s a bunch of ‘ifs’ and ‘question marks’ despite the unified front that they’re trying to put up.

No matter what the outcome is from all of this, this certainly can’t help recruiting or give Will Muschamp a sense of security as he tries to move forward. Gamecock fans aren’t happy with Muschamp or the administration. They’ve handled the whole situation about as poorly as they could’ve and it’s going to be interesting to see how they move forward.

Is the Gamecock football program imploding right before our eyes? It’s astonishing to think that a loss to Clemson football could potentially be the final straw in this series of strange events between the administration and Muschamp.