Steve Spurrier disses Big Ten "down the line" teams, would rather face East Carolina.

From the "Quotations from Chairman Spurrier" department comes this item in which South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier delivers a little zinger at the Big Ten. More specifically, the "down the line" teams in the conference (i.e. Purdue, Indiana, and possibly Maryland and Rutgers).

“Well I like the other conferences, too. Heck, those guys deserve the chance to go play just like the big conferences,” Spurrier said. “The SEC – we’ve got some down the line teams just like every conference has down the line teams. The big five conferences all playing each other, I don’t think that makes a lot of sense really. Playing East Carolina is a lot tougher game than maybe picking up one of those bottom Big Ten teams. Plus the fans around here, we’d rather see a team from close by.”

The comment came Spurrier was responding to a media question on the current push for autonomy for the "Power Five" conferences (SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Pac-10, Big 12). The Old Ball Coach used the opportunity to give a shout out to East Carolina, which plays the Gamecocks on Sept. 6. The Pirates went 10-3 in 2013, the team's last season in Conference USA. This includes a win over North Carolina in Chapel Hill. ECU defeated Ohio 37-20 in the Beef O'Brady's Bowl.

Translation: This is Spurrier using a media question about the current state of the college football landscape to hype up a game on the 2014 South Carolina schedule that would otherwise be pretty much ignored by the CFB media. Don Draper would be proud.

(via Dr. Saturday)