South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier has a decision to make that should be very easy, as long as he doesn’t mind admitting he was wrong.

He needs to acknowledge that his best quarterback isn’t the guy he chose to start last night’s opener, Tommy Beecher. He needs to bench Beecher and choose Chris Smelley as his starting quarterback for next Thursday’s game at Vanderbilt, and going forward.

“Our offense really sputtered for three quarters,” Spurrier said after the game. “We’ll have to watch film to see what in the world happened to Tommy. We’ll evaluate that and make a decision. … Yes, it is up for debate after what happened.”

After all that sputtering for three quarters, Beecher suffered an injury, apparently a mild concussion, and Smelley came in. The offense immediately came to life.

This is a game where the box score really does tell the whole story. Beecher was 12-of-22 for 106 yards, no touchdowns and four interceptions. Smelley was 5-of-5 for 92 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions. Obviously, five passes isn’t a large enough sample size to evaluate Smelley, but considering that Smelley also played pretty well in six games as the Gamecocks’ starter last year, this is an easy call.

As long as Spurrier can admit he was wrong to start Beecher in the first place.