Steve Spurrier
Steve Spurrier
Stephen Orr Spurrieris a former American football player and coach, having served as the head coach of three college and two professional teams. Spurrier was also noteworthy as a standout college football player, and he spent a decade playing professionally in the National Football League. Spurrier retired from coaching in 2015 and now serves as an ambassador and consultant for the University of Florida's athletic department...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth20 April 1945
CountryUnited States of America
You all think I'm the first guy to ever coach against his alma mater, ... This happens a lot around the country.
Obviously, it didn't start off pretty at 2-3 and tied against Kentucky at halftime. The ball started bouncing our way, defense started getting some fumbles, making things happen and obviously the Tennessee, Arkansas and Florida games were fun for the entire team.
There's a little bit of excitement and certainly I'm looking forward to it. But still, this game's about our players against their players. I know sometimes we coaches get too much in the spotlight of the game.
Anybody wants to come out, we appreciate it. We like to have some people in the stands when our guys are playing. We're going to keep score, offense against defense. The loser has to run. So it's going to be a score-keeping day.
We haven't made a lot of big things happen on special teams, but we haven't had a lot of bad things go against us. So we're probably an average special teams group.
If our fans felt like booing, I would have said they had a good reason to. To me, you only boo if the guys are not playing with effort, (and if the) coaches don't look like they know what they were doing. We were all in that category. The fans will not hurt my feelings if we perform like that again and (they) boo.
I think it was best for all concerned. I had already done my things there and I left, and to do it again wouldn't have made sense for me or for Florida. So I hope people can realize it was time to move on. I feel fortunate South Carolina offered me a chance here to try to do some things that have never been done before. Almost every victory around here is the first time that ever happened.
I thought we could make a field goal there.
It got sticky there in the fourth quarter,
I think today gave him a little more confidence. He threw the ball with authority most of the day.
I said, 'If it happens in the normal course of the game, then that's the way it's going to happen,' ... We had our backups in there.
I said, 'Dang, we've got big, strong, good-looking offensive linemen. How come they're not blocking as well as I hope? I'm trying to figure that out.
I salute and praise the people in Shreveport for having this bowl for 30 years. I know it's not always easy keeping these things alive, but I think the Independence Bowl is the 11th-oldest bowl in the country, so they have done a super job here.
We don't think all this attention will get to him. That's something we talk to him about.