South Carolina is going to win the SEC East because of returning starters

That would be the conventional wisdom speaking.

Sounds, well, sound. After all, if you have a decent year in 2010, and you get a lot of those guys back, particularly the more impactful (which is actually not a word) players, it might stand to reason that you'll be better in 2011.

But, let's think about this for a second, and use South Carolina as an example. Who's returning? Let's take some key players and look at their situations, starting from the top.

QB Stephen Garcia returns for his senior season. He definitely took a step forward in 2010, with a solid QB rating, though he still was prone to throwing the ball to the other team. We're told we're getting a Stephen Garcia who's turned his life around, but dollars to donuts something else will arise. Even if it doesn't, is he really expected to be better than last year? Not really.

Then we look at WR Alshon Jeffrey. With over 1,500 yds and 9 TDs last year, he had about as good a season as a WR can have in college. He's an absolutely known quantity (a damn good one) that teams will scheme against. He'll get his yards and TDs, but honestly, is he going to have a better year than 2010? It's almost a statistical impossibility. Oh, and it becomes even more of an improbability when you look at his current physical conditioning...




Moving on to RB Marcus Lattimore. Tallying over 1,600 yds of total offense and 19 total TDs, he was who many consider to be responsible for uSC's surge offensively last year. He may actually do even better this year, but that will be more in the pass-blocking category. Still, moving from your freshman to sophomore year could yield some benefits, even after such a great rookie campaign.

On defense, the Gamecocks were very average last year, and they may actually improve under DC Ellis Johnson this season, especially with the addition of all-everything freshman DE Jadaveon Clowney. The Cocks return ~7 starters (always a wishy-washy number anyway, considering some guys don't start every game for various reasons).

Without getting into too much more detail, though, let me make my point. The Gamecocks lost 5 games in 2010, and they showed little to no improvement as the season went on. Each good thing was followed by a bad. They failed to handle any amount of success with more success.

You can talk about Georgia losing to UCF all you want, but getting outscored 82-34 over the last two games is hardly reason to be excited about the next year.

So, what is really so exciting and alluring about South Carolina returning a bunch of guys that, quite frankly, weren't all that spectacular as a whole in 2010?

Good teams can definitely take a step back if they lose a bunch of key starters (even though those key starters were not always key starters, either). However, returning a bunch of starters from a slightly above average team does not a championship season make. Just ask the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Georgia Bulldogs, and those teams were far better than the 2010 Gamecocks could ever dream of being.