Why was Spurrier unable to bring the air raid offense he had at Florida to USCe?

Well for one he had Marcus Lattimore who was a stud running back before he got injured.

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SC as a state has a ton of high end D1 players

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Not really.The state is lucky to produce 50+ P5 players every year.Guys like Lattimore and AJ Green are few and far between in the palmetto state.

QB Dylan Thompson led the conference in passing yards just last year.

Spurrier never ran the "air raid."

Edit: Do you even know what the air raid is? It's what Mike Leach runs. It is NOTHING at all like the Fun 'N Gun (Spurrier's UF offense).

Spurrier ran a decently balanced attack (I would say 60/40 run/pass). His run game included a lot of draw plays and he typically passed to setup the run (which is why his draw plays had success). He usually had top notch running backs like Eric Rhett and Fred Taylor who made a big impact. It wasn't uncommon for his teams to have 200 yards rushing.

What made his offense unique at the time was he threw lots of deep balls. He wasn't the only guy having success throwing, but he threw it deep successfully more than almost anyone.

Spurrier didn't run an Air Raid for one and defenses have adjusted to pass heavy offenses . It isn't the 80s where I formation and veer is run exclusively

1. Spurrier is a great coach, but he's not a recruiter. Gator fans know this. Gamecock fans have finally figured this out. We've reeled in our occasional elite talent (Gilmore, Lattimore, Jeffery, Clowney) but even then, most of that was homegrown. At UF, when you have great recruiters and it being Florida, the school recruits itself. At SC, you need a bonafide recruiter.

2. Like others have said, Spurrier's offense is no longer innovative. Defenses have long surpassed it and know what to expect. It's still effective to some degree (when he has the athletes) but the fun n' gun of the 90's is no longer the fun n' gun when you don't have the athletes because you refuse to recruit at a high enough level.

3. SC is not the talent hotbed that you think it is. Look at the roster, almost half of our kids come from Georgia. Even during our good years when we were bringing in top 15ish classes, SC was competing really hard with schools like Clemson, UGA and the occasional NC school for our state's elite talent. Between 2007 to about 2012 SC was in the middle of this 5-6 year trend where the state was producing more elite talent than average but now the talent level is really low and SC (a school that has never really had much luck recruiting in other states not named Georgia) is suffering, whereas Clemson (a school that recruits extremely well in and out of state) was able to supplement their lack of in state talent with out of state studs. The good news is that the talent level in SC is creeping up again.. the bad news is that Clemson is a recruiting juggernaut right now and that program has a great trajectory while SC is no doubt about to undergo a big coaching change ( I wouldn't be surprised if the entire staff turns over). Along with Clemson, SC also has to fight off UGA (who has a history of coming into SC and cherry picking what little elite talent we produce).

I think a coaching change is inevitable after this season. Going 7-6 and now possibly 3-9/4-8 after three seasons of 11 wins will not go down well with SC fans and even Spurrier has said that he will leave once things start getting bad. Well that day is here. The good news for SC is that Spurrier has shown that you can win lots of games here, people easily forget that if you take away a few hiccups (2011 Auburn/2012 1-point loss to LSU/2013 Tennessee) or games that SC should've won the Gamecocks would have 3 divisional titles instead of 1. All of that to say that you can have big seasons here. SC also has great facilities now and has the money to improve them even more (especially with a donations boost that typically accompanies the excitement of a new staff). We have plans for a football operations facility down by our new IPF and adding suites/revamping Williams Brice on the way.

The importance of SC's next hire can't be understated. Spurrier will leave us in good hands. Our next hire will have to be a guy that can build off of that momentum and propel us forward. Our next coach will have a better foundation than when Spurrier arrived.