Was South Carolina Quarterback Stephen Garcia Point Shaving?

The University of South Carolina’s reprobate quarterback Stephen Garcia was kicked off the football team today, this time apparently for good. The official reason for the dismissal is an ‘undisclosed violation’ of team rules, with the widely circulated story being that Garcia failed an alcohol and drug test which indicated he’d been boozing it up and smoking ‘da chronic’. It’s been a rough couple of weeks in a bad year for Garcia—his performance on the field has been a disaster, he just lost his grandfather and was benched in favor of Connor Shaw. The fact that Shaw went out and threw for 311 yards and four touchdowns in a 54-3 victory over Kentucky was no doubt another blow to Garcia’s damaged psyche.

Garcia has been in trouble literally since he set foot on the University of South Carolina campus and has been suspended six times for his malfeasance. He was reportedly on a ‘zero tolerance’ behavioral contract stemming from a suspension due to a bowl week booze binge last winter and a spring time fracas at a SEC organized ‘life skills’ conference where he got the boot after mouthing off to one of the speakers. He was also kicked off the team (and out of school) as a freshman. In other words, there’s a lengthy pattern of behavior demonstrating that Garcia is a head case—and more specifically, one that ran out of opportunities to redeem himself.

There are some rumors afoot both in Las Vegas and Columbia that—to paraphrase the late Paul Harvey—we haven’t heard ‘the rest of the story’. There is some interesting speculation that the ‘failed booze and drug test’ leading to his dismissal is a subterfuge for point shaving allegations. Sports bettors are by nature a paranoid bunch, so hearing this type of rumors in the Las Vegas ‘wise guy’ community isn’t surprising. More surprising are the rumors coming out of ‘Gamecock Country’–there’s plenty of sports betting there to be sure but most bigtime football boosters exist outside of this milieu. Garcia is hardly the first discipline problem to wear the ‘garnet and black’ during my long association with the program, and just the latest of many football players to get kicked off the team and/or out of school. What makes this noteworthy is Garcia is the first of a long line of malcontents that I’ve heard point shaving speculation about from a number of Gamecock insiders.

I’m not ready to say that there’s anything to these rumors but as an expert on sports betting I do have to say there’s at least some interesting coincidences that could be used as ‘circumstantial evidence’:

–The Gamecocks have as much skill position talent as anyone in the country with arguably the best wide receiver in college football (Alshon Jeffrey) and a top tier running back (Marcus Lattimore). Yet the team has struggled to score points against overmatched competition. The Gamecocks dropped big numbers on East Carolina and Georgia, but those were padded by defensive touchdowns. In the other three games Garcia started the Gamecocks scored 24, 21, and 13 against Navy, Vanderbilt and Auburn. The 13 point output against Auburn at home is especially bizarre—consider that Utah State scored 38 on the road against Auburn, Mississippi State 34, Clemson 38, and Arkansas 38.

–The Gamecocks are 5-1 SU but have been a poor ATS investment in the games Garcia started. They failed to cover against East Carolina and Navy. They lost outright to Auburn and barely covered against Vanderbilt. They either pushed or covered by ½ point at Georgia. Having watched the Gamecocks for a long time they’ve not always played up to their abilities as big favorites so their ATS record this year is less of a concern than Garcia’s play in the individual games. Against Vanderbilt, for example, Garcia was intercepted four times including once in the end zone during the fourth quarter. Of course Garcia is far from the first quarterback to make bad decisions and bad throws, but problematic in this case is just how bad some of the decisions he made have been—badly overthrowing and underthrowing receivers and in some cases throwing right to an ‘open opponent’. Line movements and pointspread performances can only tell so much, of course, but for what its worth he’s 19-19 ATS in his career as a starter at South Carolina.

–Garcia’s quarterback coach G.A. Mangus is not only a reprobate in his own right, but was suspended for six games while a player at Florida due to a gambling scandal where players were betting on pro and college games. The Gator players were never implicated in any scheme to compromise the outcome of these games—at least nothing was made public. Then again, the nature of journalism and the ‘reach’ of a story like this has changed dramatically since 1984.  And lest you think that Mangus may have just been guilty of a youthful indiscretion, he’s not exactly a ‘changed man’–earlier this year Mangus was suspended from the team following a drunken incident in Greenville, SC where he was caught urinating in the street and was uncooperative with the police officer trying to arrest him.

–Finally, there’s the matter of South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier’s odd outburst at his Tuesday press conference. Spurrier called out Ron Morris, a reporter for the Columbia, SC newspaper The State—the largest daily in South Carolina. Spurrier’s gripe was a story Morris had written about wide receiver Bruce Ellington who had quit the basketball team to play football. Spurrier contended that Morris’ assertion that he’d ‘lobbied’ Ellington to switch from hoops to grids was ‘a lie’ and refused to continue with the presser until the chastised reporter left.

Spurrier’s behavior is what initially set off the suspicions on at least three of my Gamecock sources. “The Ol’ Ball Coach” is famously affable with the media—by his own admission he’s only had a beef with one other reporter during his coaching career. Not only were Morris’ claims not exactly revelatory—obviously someone made overtures to Ellington—they were six months old. Morris has been sitting there in Spurrier’s face ever since then but he chose today to go off on him. You can watch the video of his tirade here and we’ve got a transcript of his comments below.

The Gamecock insiders I spoke with independently came to the same conclusion: “it was a classic diversionary tactic” intended to divert focus from the Garcia dismissal. Another speculated that Spurrier wanted to simultaneously send a message that digging around looking for dirt that portrays the program in bad light will be met with repercussions. Yet another Gamecock booster—who wouldn’t go so far as to call it ‘diversionary’–did recall speaking with Spurrier about this very issue several months back. At the time, “The Ol’ Ball Coach” laughed it off and dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

In all fairness, Spurrier was already having a bad day having to kick Garcia off the team. Morris could have been in ‘the wrong place at the wrong time’ and caught Spurrier’s wrath. It’s so out of character for Spurrier, however, that the timing is especially curious. Even if Spurrier didn’t intentionally take the focus away from Garcia with his antics (described by one mainstream sports outlet as “Steve Spurrier going berserk”) that’s what happened.

Garcia isn’t the first highly touted quarterback to underachieve. Nor is he the first to sabotage his own career with booze, drugs and general bad behavior. As I said above, at this point I’m not ready to conclude there’s something to the ‘Stephen Garcia shaving points’ rumors but at the same time having watched his play and as an expert on sports betting I’m not ready to entirely dismiss them either. He’s demonstrated that he’s enough of a knucklehead to do something like this. He’s also reportedly in complete denial—the party line from pro-Garcia folks is that he’s trying to get his act together but that the South Carolina Administration and Athletic Department has it out for him. You’ll hear things from them like “they put him through hell” and “they broke his will”. From the outside looking in, the opposite seems to be true—it looks like Garcia was given every chance to man up and change his ways. Assuming that the take of his supporters reflects his opinion—and he’s enough of a punk that it’s likely it does—he could have even wanted to screw over his own team, school and coach.

For now, there’s at least three reporters in the Columbia area looking in to the point shaving allegations along with a couple here in Las Vegas. I’m not really expecting any sort of ‘smoking gun’ or proof that Garcia compromised games. Then again, it wouldn’t really surprise me either.

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Steve Spurrier’s tirade transcript:

“This has been weighing on my, on my chest, and I’m getting it off my chest right here today. As all of you know we’ve got a negative guy over here that tries to hurt our football program. He’s got a right to do that. The criticism he shows me is okay. I don’t mind that.”

“I just don’t like stories that aren’t true, and last spring he wrote a story about me recruiting Bruce Ellington, and luring him away from the basketball program, and raiding and jilting coach (Darrin) Horn. A completely fabricated story, and I took exception to that, but that’s the only thing I take exception from sportswriters, when they write stuff that isn’t true.”

“I didn’t talk to Bruce Ellington until after he had met with coach Horn and he came over here. Completely untrue story.”

“In 26 years as a head coach, I’ve had have two guys that didn’t write the truth that I had to disassociate with. He’s one of them over here. (Pointing to Morris). … And then I’ve learned that since he sits in on all these meetings it’s basically … I’m helping him to contribute writing negative stuff about our football program, simple as that.”

“So I’m not gonna talk when he’s in here. That’s my right as a head coach.”