COLUMBIA — For South Carolina football fans, last season was the same old song and dance. For Steve Spurrier, it was uncharted territory.

After a blazing 6-1 start, the Gamecocks found themselves at No. 6 in the national polls and a team primed to contend for their first SEC Eastern Division title. Instead, the team floundered out to a 6-6 record and failed to make a postseason appearance for the first time in three years, and most importantly, the first time since Spurrier became head coach at USC.

“It’s frustrating the way we’ve lost some of the games,” Spurrier said. “You look back when you lose games and you try to figure out why and what you can do differently and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again if you can. That’s where we are.”

In 18 years roaming the collegiate sideline, Spurrier has only finished the regular season with a .500 or worse record once – his first team at Duke in 1987 finished 5-6. The six wins also make last year’s finish the second-lowest season win total in his career.

But last seasons struggles haven’t deterred from Spurrier’s commitment to continue turning the South Carolina program around. Despite just 52 winning seasons in 115 seasons, the former national championship winning coach believes winning is possible in Columbia.

“It can be done. We can win here,” Spurrier said. “We’ve been in games. We haven’t won many of them. We’ve won three out of nine simple as that, 1-2 (against Florida, Georgia and Tennessee). We’ve had chances, but we haven’t.”

That can-do attitude has carried over to the players, who seemed to have soaked up Spurrier’s enthusiasm for the season ahead.

“If we come together and work hard and keep working hard week in and week out I think we can be the best in the SEC, I think we have that potential to be the best in the SEC,” junior safety Emanuel Cook said.

One of the reasons for that level of enthusiasm might be having players like Cook and seven other athletes being named to the coaches preseason All-SEC teams. Cook, who was selected to the second-team defense, joins linebackers Jasper Brinkley and Eric Norwood (both second team) and cornerback Captain Munnerlyn (first team) as part of a defense that returns 10 starters from last season and 25 total letterman.

While the number of veterans bolster USC’s strength, the key will be how well they play together. Last season, the defense started strong and held opposing offenses at bay. But the Gamecocks could do very little to stop the likes of Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow of Florida as well as finalist Darren McFadden of Arkansas. Both players went on to set personal, school and even SEC records against an overpowered Carolina defense.

The team’s inability to stop the run made them rank last in the SEC in rush defense and 110th overall nationally and led to the five-game skid that doomed USC’s season.

“We’ve got to learn how to finish. We lost five in a row and we made a lot of mistakes,” Munnerlyn said. “People got hurt, but we’ve got to learn how to play and have other guys step up. This year we’ve got a lot of depth on defense. If somebody goes down, someone can fill in for him.”

While the defense has plenty of depth and players ready to take the field, the Carolina offense continues to be surrounded by multiple question marks – the biggest of which being over the quarterback position.

During the off-season, Spurrier attempted to extinguish the flame of who would be under center this year for the Gamecocks by naming Tommy Beecher to the starter for opening day. But with veteran Chris Smelley and highly touted recruit Stephen Garcia waiting in the wings, the situation remains volatile at best.

“I haven’t felt like this in four years,” Beecher said of his new role as a starter. “I’ve got to be a leader out there, make good decisions and lead by example. The more and more I do that, the more the team will buy into the fact that I’m the starter.”

In 15 career games, the Concord, N.C. native has gone 16-for-25 with two touchdowns and an interception. While Beecher has been limited in his time on the field, he has excelled in the classroom – taking home the honor of being the team’s leader in GPA each year he’s been on the team.

Spurrier’s hope for Beecher is to transfer his smarts in the classroom to smarts on the field and play mistake-free football for the season.

“Everyone realizes he gives us our best shot. It's important everyone realizes he's our starting quarterback.” Spurrier said. “He has pretty good leadership qualities. They won the state championship his (senior year). That's the last time he played at quarterback.”

Aside from keeping Beecher under center for the season, Spurrier and the offense continue to search the other two biggest question marks in scoring points – who can carry the running back load, and who will be the No. 2 receiver to Kenny McKinley?

The running back situation continues to be muddled as would-be starter Mike Davis sustained a shoulder injury during the first week of practice and will be sidelined for a few days. The Columbia native is the most experienced runner in the USC backfield with 1,658 yards and 16 touchdowns in three seasons. Replacing Davis for the time will be sophomore Brian Maddox, who was limited to just six carries last fall as Davis and former Gamecock Cory Boyd shouldered much of the load.

Though many of the offensive situations remain unsure, the Gamecocks can be assured that all defenses they’ll play will have their sights set on their All-SEC first-team receiver McKinley. The Georgia native comes into the season riding a 33-game reception streak and sits on the verge of shattering most of Sterling Sharpe’s career receiving records at USC.

And that’s where the search begins, as a counterpart to McKinley continues to be searched for. Spurrier is looking to multiple players such as Dion Lecorn and Joe Hills to help fill that spot, but is also going to give USC’s talented tight ends a chance to shine.

“Dion came in and played well last year, the last half of the season. Took us about half a year to figure out he might be our next best wide receiver. We've got some other players there that are very capable, Joe Hills and Matt Clements are two freshmen last year that we held out. They got some speed, got some quicks. We got to teach 'em how to play. That's what we need to do with those guys. They're very capable,” Spurrier said. “But we also got two tight ends, Jared Cook and Weslye Saunders, which are amongst our best five receivers catching the ball, getting open, so forth. We're a little bit of a tight end team.”

While finding answers to all the questions will be key for success, the biggest obstacle facing USC might be what’s ahead of them on the field. The Gamecocks open the season with back-to-back Thursday night games at home against N.C. State and on the road against Vanderbilt. Carolina will then face arguably the preseason favorite to win it all in No. 1 Georgia at Williams-Brice on Sept. 13. Games against Wofford and UAB might be the Gamecocks only reprieve all season as they travel to Ole Miss and Kentucky on back-to-back October weekends before coming home to host a three-game stretch of LSU, Tennessee and Arkansas. The Gamecocks close the season with road trips to Florida and archrival Clemson.

Though the schedule is daunting at first glance, Spurrier isn’t concerned that his squad will be overwhelmed by what’s ahead.

“It’s all relative to how we play,” Spurrier said.