The Spurrier Fallacy

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smokingmirror

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What is he doing here?

The reporter had asked about the spring practice schedule, but the only question on which Urban could focus was the one reverberating through his mind like an electric shock.

What is he doing here?

Surely, that’s not him, is it?

The lanky figure stood at the back of the media room encircled by a number of beat writers who appeared as giddy as schoolgirls to see him. He had poked his head into the session a moment earlier and with a half-grin, little smirk called out, “I’m not interrupting anything here, am I?” The east Tennessee, hillbilly twang was unmistakable.

But that couldn’t be him, could it?

No active coach would drop in on another’s opening spring press conference, especially a division rival who bested the program he was intruding upon 30-22 just a few months prior.

But it was him. Steve Spurrier, the Florida legend and now South Carolina head coach, was holding court with a press corps whose hearts and minds Urban was still vying to win. The Gators had finished a respectable 9-3 in his first season on the job, but questions remained about whether such a foreign, quirky style of offense would succeed within the rugged SEC. South Carolina had cost the Gators a potential appearance in Atlanta that year, and now the South Carolina head coach was swaggering throughout the Florida facility as if he owned the place.

And, frankly, many Gator fans believed he did own the place. In fact, many likely questioned why it was Urban standing in front of that podium right then as head coach, and not the familiar face glad-handing reporters at the back of the room. He had been available, after all.

In that moment, Urban’s throat tightened and he knew the reclamation project he had undertaken in Gainesville would be a lot more challenging than he ever imagined while sitting in his Salt Lake City living room the previous year.

--------------------------

Chasin’ the ghost of a good thing
Haunting yourself as the real thing
It’s getting away from you again
While you’re chasin’ ghosts

These Dashboard Confessional lyrics played on my mind as I took in the surprising news about Jim McElwain’s ousting.

The offense had been bad, everyone knew that. But had it ever really been given a chance, what with a star QB ripped away after a mysteriously failed drug test, a star WR and RB sidelined due to alleged credit card fraud, and countless injuries to other key contributors?

The word out of Gainesville was that it transcended X’s and O’s. There had been perceived arrogance and unwillingness to be a team player within the athletic department as a whole. But wasn’t it football that paid all the other programs’ bills?

Mostly, they said, it just wasn’t fun. It had been fun under Spurrier. The new AD would set out on a mission to find a coach who could re-create those entertaining afternoons of the 90’s.

And that’s when it occurred to me: the Florida program has become the same thing for which they used to make fun of Alabama. “What do Alabama fans and maggots have in common?” the old joke used to query. “They can both live off a dead bear for 20 years,” was the punch line.

Only, Florida’s bear isn’t dead. It’s still very much alive and casting a long shadow over the program. It has an office in the corner. It does radio and TV interviews. It’s buddy-buddy with every scribe on the beat. It offers unsolicited advice about plays, even though many of those plays have become outdated and obsolete in this new era of college football.

Just bend the pieces til they fit
Like they were made for it
But they weren’t made for this

Even one of the system’s golden boys, Danny Wuerffel, had admitted that the “Fun’N’Gun” wouldn’t work against today’s more sophisticated defenses.

Had it ever really worked the way Gator fans imagined?

Spurrier spent most of the 90’s beating up on a lot of bad coaches. Bill Curry, Gerry Dinardo, Ray Goff, Brad Scott, to name a few. When Phil Fulmer is one’s greatest challenger, you know it’s an easy path. Out of conference, the Ball Coach didn’t fair so well. He was owned by Bobby Bowden, Lou Holtz, Tom Osbourne, Butch Davis, and other giants of that era. His one national title required a miracle rematch that likely wouldn’t have been granted in later eras. In the latter half of his Florida career, the conference began to catch up to him and he only won 1 more SEC title (an SEC championship team that was routed by both the Noles and Canes).

So, what exactly did the guy ever really do? “He put the UF program on the map,” they say. It’s Florida. Some coach eventually would have put it on the map. And, as Urban proved, the program is capable of far more than just “being on the map.” It can dominate nationally and contend for 3 national titles in a 4 year period.

Steve Spurrier and his “Fun’n’Gun” system are outdated relics. The modern game is about organization and “The Process.” Recruiting, over-signing, facilities, support staff, technology. While Spurrier’s legacy may have been bringing the forward pass to the conference, Nick Saban has professionalized it. It’s about a “Football First” mentality and ignoring no detail, no matter how small.

The Florida program will never fulfill itself until it stops chasing the ghosts of the highly overrated Spurrier era and embraces the new reality of college football. It requires a full investment – not a partial one with some semi-autistic hillbilly drawing up special “ball plays” in the dirt and cracking rib-ticklers at the press conferences before heading out for a late afternoon 9.

The Spurrier Worship must end. It’s what drove Urban away (he won 2 national titles, but was told “Steve didn’t need that stuff and still won games” when he asked for facility upgrades. How do you think that made him feel when he saw Nick Saban enter the league and get whatever resource he wanted from Alabama? It’s enough to make any coach’s esophagus spasm…). Muschamp also was driven out, but look what he’s building at South Carolina. There’s a good chance he will achieve more than Steve ever did there and likely would’ve succeeded at Florida if given another year. The latest casualty, McElwain, was driven out despite delivering the program’s most NFL-credible WR’s (Calloway, Cleveland) and RB’s (Scarlett, Perine, Davis) in ages. It’s not his fault so many pieces couldn’t get on the field when the university makes them clear so many hurdles about which rival programs don’t have to worry.

There’s so much talk about which coach will be brought in next. I’m not sure it really matters when the program is so hung up on the Spurrier fallacy.

Chasin’ the ghost of a good thing
Haunting yourself as the real thing
It’s getting away, away, away, away from you again
 

stephenPE

Senior Member
Lifetime Member
Jul 20, 2014
20,385
15,395
The Florida program will never fulfill itself until it stops chasing the ghosts of the highly overrated Spurrier era
Revisionist history at its best.
  • Won one national championship (1997), and played for another (1996).[7]
  • Won six SEC championships (1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000).[7]
  • Named SEC Coach of the Year five times (1990, 1991, 1994, 1995, 1996).[7]
  • First Heisman Trophy-winner to coach a Heisman Trophy-winner (Danny Wuerffel).[7]
  • Won at least nine games in each of his twelve seasons, one of only three coaches in major college history to do so.[7]
  • Averaged more than ten wins per season.[7]
  • Ranked in the final top fifteen in each of his twelve seasons, including nine top-ten finishes, five final top-five rankings, and an average end-of-season ranking of 6.8.[7]
  • Appeared among the top twenty-five teams in the weekly polls 202 of a possible 203 weeks, including each of his last 202 consecutive weeks. The Gators were ranked number one in the polls twenty-nine times, appeared among the top five team for 117 weeks, and among the nation's top ten teams for 179 weeks.[7]
  • Appeared in a bowl game in each of his last eleven seasons—every season in which the Gators were eligible—one of only five schools to do so during the same time period.[7]
  • Only coach in major college history to win as many as 120 games in his first twelve seasons at one school (an overall record of 122–27–1, with a winning percentage of .8167).[7]
  • One of only two coaches in major college history to win ten or more games in six consecutive seasons (1993–1998).[7]
  • Only college football team to score at least 500 points, including bowl games, for four consecutive years (1993–1996) since the NCAA began keeping statistics in 1937.[7]
 

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