Never the less our softball team is poorly coached in fundamentals, coaches make bad recruiting evaluations, and apathy is so evident. I mean what is two year buyout on a softball coach. Cannot be that much. USC deserves better than what we are getting. Beverly Smith is not the one to take us back to the level where we once were. Sure she is a nice person, runs a clean program, but she is not the coach to take us to the level. Sorry she is not. The roster really needs to be evaluated and the ones who are not part of the plan to take us where we need to be should be told to transfer. Harsh but true. No other school would tolerate Beverly Smith especially with the resources that have been put into that softball facility. The sooner we can make a change the better off we would be.
It's going to be a hard sell for any A.D. to fire a coach who had one subpar year after straight NCAAs. I think it will take more than that for a change to happen, and to a large extent, Smith has more than earned the opportunity to rebuild. She took over a program 11 years ago that had fallen so far behind that they weren't even competitive in the SEC.
SEC softball is a tremendous conference from top to bottom and there have been several years where all 13 teams have made the postseason.
That being said, I do somewhat agree that the program has plateaued. During the 7 year NCAA Tournament stretch, they've made only 1 Super Regional and Clemson did a nice job in only their second year as a program thanks to good recruiting and picking up some good grad transfers, which unfortunately is the wave of the future.
This year's team was a bit strange because they got their seniors back who were supposed to graduate last year - 2 of them were outstanding, but 2 of them, who are pitchers were awful. Smith is a former pitcher and she has never been able to get that star pitcher. Most of the young pitchers from this year were mediocre at best. Long story short, they should have been better. Outside of their top 2 hitters (who were 5th-year players), the offense regressed.
So with all of that, the next year or two will be telling and Smith deserves the opportunity to still be there, but it can't stagnate. I hope it's better next year. I've taken my daughters to games for years, and Smith is great and recruits good kids. Go Gamecocks!
