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Meeting between Gators, Spurrier just isn't the same

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 13, 2009

Updated: 11/13/2009 12:33 am

There was always a lot of juice in the storyline whenever the "Ol' Ballcoach" and the "Ol' School Where He Used to Be Ballcoach" were scheduled against each other. Everyone knew Florida should win, but there was always the thought South Carolina could win because Spurrier might come up with something no one had seen before.

That's how it used to be, anyway.

It might be stretching a bit to say that South Carolina is just another game on the Florida Gators' schedule now, but it isn't stretching things to say the gap between the programs has never seemed wider.

They get together Saturday in Columbia, S.C., and Florida is favored by 17 points. The Gators have won three in a row in this series - each time worse than the one before. They have outscored South Carolina 105-37 the past two seasons, including 56-6 last year in The Swamp.

The Gators have won 19 in a row and continue to stay atop the national rankings and on track for a possible third national championship in four seasons.

And South Carolina?

Spurrier hasn't been able to fulfill the promise that accompanied his arrival on campus in November 2004. I was there for his inaugural news conference, and it was electric, more of a pep rally, really. After years of inconsistency South Carolina fans believed they had found the man who would lead the Gamecocks to the top.

Instead, while Carolina is 34-26 since Spurrier took over, the Gamecocks are a bland 18-21 in the SEC. They are 6-4 this season and 3-4 in conference play after last week's 33-16 loss at Arkansas. Spurrier has started to get the same kind of questions being asked these days of Bobby Bowden, namely about just how long he plans to stick around.

He told reporters this week that it's his "hope and plan to go three or four more years." He is signed through 2012.

Just this week, Spurrier implied he will take over play-calling duties again. Carolina has been using a kind of "call by committee" approach - starting with his son, Steve Spurrier Jr., and involving various assistants.

It hasn't worked.

The Gamecocks are eighth overall in the SEC on offense and 98th nationally with a pedestrian 21.3 points per game. That's not the Steve Spurrier people have come to know and who was expected to be on the sideline in Columbia.

Still, there was a time ...

Spurrier outcoached Urban Meyer all over Williams-Brice Stadium the first time he got to face the Gators, winning 30-22.

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 that since Moss blocked that kick, the Gators are 35-5 with two SEC championships and two national titles. Spurrier is 22-16 since that day and 2-6 against SC's main rivals - Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. There was also a loss to Vanderbilt tossed in there.

While this has been going on, Meyer has been building his own legacy at Florida and 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 at Florida, where he 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, basically everybody runs variations of the spread on offense, and he is finding that at South Carolina it's not so easy to beat Tennessee, Georgia and, yep, Florida for the same talent he used to routinely gather.

Because he is Spurrier, the Gators will 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.

It's worth noting, though, that the 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.

A storyline can change.

In this case, it did.

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