One More Day to Gator Football: Steve Spurrier!

[Escambia94]

Stephen Orr Spurrier. SOS. Ol’ Ball Coach. Darth Visor. Whatever you want to call him, this football genius from Miami Beach, Florida made Gator bait of opposing defenses as a Heisman Trophy '66 winning quarterback and head ball coach. As quarterback for Ray Graves‘ Florida Gators from ’64 to ’66, he is remembered for waving off the placekicker in order to nail a 45-yarder to beat Auburn in his senior season. Steve was so impressive in the 1966 Orange Bowl that he won MVP honors, even though his team lost to Missouri, 18-20. Steve was the UPI and SEC Player of the Year in 1966, Fergie Ferguson Award winner, and was a 1st-team All-American in his junior and senior seasons.

In 1989, the Old Ball Coach was invited to come home and revive his alma mater’s football program, and he brought it to new levels of national prominence with a swagger that is now well renowned throughout the football landscape. In his 12-year tenure as Ol’ Ball Coach, he won the 1996 Bowl Alliance National Championship, six SEC Championships, was named SEC Coach of the Year five times, won at least 9 games every year he coached, finished in the final poll top fifteen every year, and was ranked every week except his first week as coach (202/203 polls).

Steven Orr Spurrier is a member of the Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame, University of Florida Athletic Association Hall of Fame, and Gator Ring of Honor. In 2011, UF erected a statue of him outside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium alongside likenesses of fellow Gator Greats Danny Wuerffel and Tim Tebow. Steve Spurrier will always be remembered for his greatness as a Gator player and Gator coach…except on days he coaches against his alma mater. Gator bait!

1964 65/114 57.0% 943 YDS 8.3 YPA 6 TD 10 INT 126.3 RAT
1965 148/287 51.6% 1893 YDS 6.6 YPA 14 TD 13 INT 114.0 RAT
1966 179/291 61.5% 2012 YDS 6.9 YPA 16 TD 8 INT 132.2 RAT

Career 392/692 56.6% 4848 YDS 7.0 YPA 36 TD 31 INT 123.7 RAT

Be sure to compare how Spurrier compares to the other great Gator passers in this thread.

 

[InkedAdrenaline]

Gotta love the Ol ball coach! Even tho he almost lost to Vandy last night. Vandy looks tough.

GO GATORS CHOMP CHOMP

 

[Leakfan12]

It's a no brainer even though he's in South Carolina now though at least he gave the NFL a try. He was Gator Bait until the 2010 and last season (and 2005 but I think they got lucky) when his team were better. I think the Gators has a chance but I'm unsure.

 

[Escambia94]

I love Steve Spurrier, but I hope he never beats the Gators again. Connor Shaw is not that good. Just contain the scrambling and dare him to wobble the ball over to his only good receiver. Dare him to hand the ball off to the running back. Repeat next year and the next with the next group of SC players.

 

[DRU2012]

Yeah--they certainly looked REAL beatable last night: Sure, "Vandy looked tough", especially compared to their past teams, but in the end last night they basically were beaten by their own expectation of defeat late (that'll take a few seasons of sustained improvement and some signature wins to reverse--but they've been accumulating enough Gator cast-offs, and the first signs of a true attitude-adjustment, to eventually begin to pull that off). The Gamecocks will likely remain the media-favorites in the East for now, Georgia's "advantage" remaining it's fortuitous schedule rather than any obvious talent bulge, so many examples of post-highschool hype notwithstanding. SS will clearly have to grit his teeth and stick to handing it off to Lattimore for his best chance at making it to Atlanta in Dec., but if our Gator defense can begin to dominate, as it is capable of doing, in the early (say, first 4 games or so) part of the season, while the offense shapes up, tightens up, and itself begins to come into its own, we have a chance to make some noise in the East ourselves, maybe even shock all the "experts" (not to mention all the satisfied haters out there) who are content for now to ignore us completely (again, we weren't even mentioned on last night's telecast: I hope our guys took quiet, determined note of that, sharpened another point on that big chip on their collective shoulder--and more important, continued to drive them even closer together).
On a wider note, more in keeping with the actual theme of this, the last of E-'s excellent (not to mention sanity-saving) summer-long series of articles on "Greatest Gators", the last 3 days' worth have been excellent and total embodiment of WHY "It's Great, To Be, A Florida Gator!". 3-2-1: Wuerful, Tebow, Spurrier. There's nothing more to add here in terms of the names, the men, and/or E-'s details and comments on their place in Gator greatness and/or the lore surrounding it...
Finally, leading up to tomorrow's first big day and full slate of games nationwide, the match-up earlier tonight had some interesting overtones--the most notable in my view being that no matter how they try to spin it, when a much-hyped Spartan team has that much trouble (especially on offense) with Boise State at the start of what figured from the start to be a down-year in which the latter has lost virtually all its playmakers AND depth on offense (PLUS their OC--ours now, btw) from an offensive-oriented team and program, it's clear that both overall performance and final score show that Mich. St. is at best merely "one of the better teams" in what is STILL "The Big and Slow Ten"...Never mind the talk at the top of this week's primetime "season openers" about supposed "challenges" being brought by this or that team in one or another "much improved" conference, the qualitative gap between "the SEC and everyone else" is growing larger. Here's the danger: let's face it, if they can't catch up to us the legitimate way--ie. hard work by good, young and dedicated coaches on the recruiting trail AND the practice field, given patient support by a supportive administration and fans in it for the long haul--they'll try to use rule changes, politics, back room alliances, cynical agreements and the manipulation of what's left of the old system to try to "even the odds" in the committee room rather than on the playing field.

 

[Leakfan12]

Good luck against Lattimore. If I recall Lattimore didn't play and THEY STILL BEAT US. I do think we have a chance consider USC (south) play against Vandy. Just hope the offense gets good.

 

[DRU2012]

Leakfan12
Oh, for sure--in giving us "a chance" to do some damage in the East, I'm assuming a certain significant improvement in our offense over last year's moribund "Weis' failure-to-ignite", "the only reason I'm not asleep is 'cause I'm too frustrated" offense! The defense will keep us in games, and will be our saving grace, if we have one, early on...but it'll be the offense, how fast and far it comes over the first month or so of the season, that will decide what kind of year this will be: merely one of "promising improvement", or something more--just what exactly remains to be seen (and which I hesitate to speak about in anything but vague terms until we get some idea of who we are, what we've got or where we're going, as a team--from the top of the coaching staff down to the red shirts and practice-squad walk-ons...).

 

[Escambia94]

Leakfan12 It was stinkin' Connor Shaw that beat us with his mobility. The defense was embarassingly stupid when it came to mobile QBs. It was as if the Gator defense never saw a mobile QB before! The defense has no excuse this year for sucking. The offense has built in excuses. I do not buy into that garbage about returning 10 starters, but 2-3 are out of position. Two of those out of position were supposed to be able to rotate amongst Sam, Mike, and Will with occasional rotations at Buck. If they cannot move amongst those positions, then stop telling the world that they are running a 3-4 defense and just call it a confused 4-3 defense.

 

[DRU2012]

Escambia94, Leakfan12
That WAS one of our worst DE-fensive performances last season--like it was a big surprise still by the 4th qrtr., when it had obviously been the only thing that worked for the Gamecocks all game! That and the LSU game were two examples of games that maybe we'd have won with some offense, but that somehow a strange blindness and resulting somewhat baffling ineptitude on defense were in these cases what ultimately cost us chances at big wins.