COLUMBIA — The last two true freshmen to start at quarterback for South Carolina experienced wildly different results.
The most recent was Mikal Goodman, who started games against Ole Miss, Kentucky and Tennessee in 1999, the 0-11 campaign the Gamecocks experienced under Lou Holtz. Before that there was Steve Taneyhill, who emerged from the ashes of an 0-5 start and a player rebellion against head coach Sparky Woods to win five of six starts in 1992 and become a long-haired folk hero in the process.
But the parallels likely end there. As someone who covered every game of that 1999 campaign — and indeed, it was every bit as bad in person as it looks on paper — I don’t think Holtz ever envisioned Goodman as a long-term solution at quarterback, while Nunez certainly holds that potential for Spurrier.