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Gators have moved far beyond their 'Ol' Ballcoach' era

Staff file photo by SCOTT ISKOWTIZ

Florida's 56-6 victory over South Carolina last season was a moment of transition for Steve Spurrier.

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 12, 2009

Updated: 11/12/2009 11:29 am

Steve Spurrier had the strangest look as he walked off the field last November in Gainesville after his South Carolina Gamecocks lost 56-6 to the Florida Gators.

Spurrier's expression was far from anger at being handed the worst loss of his career – coaching or playing – in the stadium where he used to routinely win championships.

Instead, he had that trademark Spurrier smirk – a look that was one part resignation, one part bemusement.

Whatever juice remained in the storyline of the "Ol' Ballcoach" and the "Ol' School Where He Used to Be Ballcoach" seemed pretty well gone by the time Spurrier reached the visiting team tunnel. It was a true moment of transition.

Florida lived in fear of the sight of Spurrier on the schedule when he first went to South Carolina five years ago, but the Gators have beaten him three consecutive times now – each time worse than the one before.

In this tale of two programs, Florida has won 19 games in a row overall and is favored by 16 points Saturday in Columbia, S.C., to make it 20. The top-ranked Gators remain on track for a possible third national championship in four seasons.

Spurrier, meanwhile, has struggled to keep the Gamecocks in the conversation. They were beaten 33-16 last week at Arkansas to drop to 6-4 overall and 3-4 in the Southeastern Conference. Carolina is 34-26 since Spurrier took over after the 2004 season, including a bland 18-21 in the SEC.

It's hard to forget one of those wins, though. It came over Florida and Urban Meyer in Spurrier's first season, and it was an electric day. If Jarvis Moss hadn't blocked a 48-yard field goal try on the final play of the game the following season in The Swamp to preserve Florida's 17-16 victory, Spurrier might have done it again. We'll never know for sure, since we can't assume that the long field goal try would have been on target.

What we do know is since Moss blocked that kick, Florida is 35-5 with two SEC championships and two national titles and has outscored South Carolina 105-37. Spurrier is 22-16 since that day and has started to get questions a la Bobby Bowden, about just how long he plans to stick around.

By the way, he reaffirmed this week to reporters in South Carolina that it is his "hope and plan to go three or four more years." He is signed through 2012 and gets a $1 million bonus if he stays on the job through the 2011 season.

While this has been going on, not only has Meyer been building his own legacy at Florida, but Tim Tebow arguably has become the most celebrated quarterback in school history – even more than No. 11, back in the day when Spurrier became UF's first Heisman Trophy winner.

Spurrier isn't prone to second guess himself much, but he must wonder at least a little bit how things would have turned out if he had stayed. He shocked Florida by walking away in early 2002 after beating Maryland 56-23 in the Orange Bowl, saying he needed new challenges after a remarkable 12-year run.

He said that day, "I'll always be a Gator" and this is how he'll ultimately be remembered.

The Gators were 122-26-1 on his watch with seven SEC championships and one national title. He spent two seasons with the Washington Redskins, but his style was a mismatch for the NFL and he walked away. In late November 2004, he was back in the college game at South Carolina.

At Florida, Spurrier had his pick of a deep reservoir of talent in the state and his "Fun 'n' Gun" offense was light-years ahead of its time. Now, though, everybody runs variations of the spread on offense, and he is finding that at South Carolina it's not so easy to beat out Tennessee, Georgia and, yep, Florida for the same talent he used to routinely gather.

The Gamecocks are just eighth overall in the SEC on offense and 98th nationally with a pedestrian 21.3 points per game. And coming off consecutive losses, Spurrier is trying to avoid a third straight season of second-half collapses.

Toward that end, Spurrier said this week he'll probably start calling most of the plays again. He grumped that his team has been too conservative on offense. The Gamecocks have used a kind of group system that originated with his son and offensive coordinator, Steve Jr. It hasn't been working.

Besides, play-calling is what Spurrier does best. He has never been conservative.

Because he is Spurrier, the Gators will naturally be wary Saturday – I mean, you never know what can happen in a game like this. It's not like Florida doesn't have questions of its own.

But it's worth noting that these current Gators were in high school or even middle school when Spurrier was winding up his run at Florida. Tebow was just 3 when Spurrier took over the Gators. Time, indeed, marches on. Storylines can change.

The look on Spurrier's face as he walked off the field last year proved that. Like he said, Spurrier will always be a Gator, but the program he built has long since moved on.

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