In the past week, six Gamecocks recruits have decommitted or “reopened their commitment process” and the most recent was one of the jewels of their class: DB Mark Fields. The only commonality of the decommitments was (superficially) Spurrier’s recent comments at the end of the regular season that he had “2 or 3” more seasons left in him. Mark Fields specifically said that when Spurrier visited him he said that all the coaches were on two year contracts. And prospects Paris Palmer and Jozie Milton have cited the uncertainty in why they reopened their process.

So why are some recruits having cold feet and others are doubling down? As has been said before, superficially the cause is Spurrier’s “2 or 3 more seasons” comment and he refusal to smooth that comment on the edges until February. The real reason is that all the player who have decommitted are prospects who would have had to fight through other young players (current Freshman or Sophomores) for playing time and if Spurrier retires after 2015 or 2016, they would be probably a backups with a new regime coming in. Austin Clark decommitted before Paris Palmer did (both are offensive tackles), and he would have been competing with Donell Stanley, DJ Park, Brandon Shell (the starter at RT), Mason Zandi, Mike Matulis and Paris Palmer for two OT spots (one if you assume that Brandon Shell will be starting at one spot). The same goes for Paris Palmer, only he’s a JC transfer so he had to play early or he’s out of eligibility (he went to PSU, who needs OL starters now). Jozie Milton would have been fighting Clayton Stadnik (RS Sophomore now), Alan Knott (RS Freshman now) and Cody Waldrop (RS Sophomore now) for playing time. This is also why Zach Bailey (an OG) and Pellage (an OT in high school but largely projected to move to OG) haven’t budged on their commitment. The Gamecocks have no real starters coming back at OG. Matulis was projected to play at RG until injuries cost him his season and the Gamecocks have kicked around using Park, Stanley and the other OCs at guard due to a lack of talent. Bailey could realistically start at LG for them next August. Mark Fields is a highly rated prospect and would have been in the mix for a starting CB spot, but he also has to fight through four other CBs who will be Sophomores next season, including the highly recruited Al Harris Jr., Chris Lammons (both of whom started in 2014) and the redshirted Wes Green.

This uncertainty hasn’t hurt Gamecock recruiting when it’s come to other recruits: Sherrod Pittman, Zach Bailey, Marquavius Lewis and Christian Pellage have all publicly recommitted to the program with Lewis ignoring a late attempt by Will Muschamp to consider Auburn to sign with the Cocks on December 17th. And the programs seems to be adding potential commitments. They are the favorites to land JC DL Ulric Jones (a former five star recruit) and OL Trey Derouen (who decommitted from Miss State). Sources close to the program also tell Vavel that as of right now, they don’t expect any problems with any of their seven most important commits left (Blackshear, Bailey, Wideman, Nunez, Sawyer, Pittman and Jalen Christian). They concede that they thought Fields was a solid commit a week ago, but they saw the cracks forming in retrospect and think that Arden Key is the only big name that could bolt also.