I not only still wear my Spurrier throwback jersey, I wore it today. Proudly. I lived through Gary Darnell. Screw that.

And it appears that the door was open for a possible return when the Zooker was jettisoned. From my outsider perspective, I could never tell what the problem was. I heard the talk about Foley telling Spurrier to submit his resume, and his supposed response that it was in the trophy cabinet. I’m just curious which was the bigger impediment: Florida’s pride over the way he left, or Spurrier’s ego over them not rolling out the red carpet for him.

You said the Gator fanbase is the most arrogant in college football, but I don’t believe we’re more so than any other elite program. Like fans of USC, Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio State, etc., we expect to win every game we play… that’s really the main difference between our fans and yours. I can see how that might be construed as arrogance because you’ve never had a program that gave you that level of confidence.

At Florida, it’s not an unrealistic expectation, either. Spurrier waved the white flag at Tiger Stadium when he went for a field goal on 4th and short in the 3rd quarter against LSU. Florida had a 10 point lead against LSU in the 4th quarter and were a minute and change away from winning the game, despite the fact the most of our team is comprised of freshmen and sophomores.

You can put Florida up against any team in the country and I’ll tell you that I expect them to win it. We’re competitive at the highest level.

If arrogance is an expectation of excellence, then we’re guilty as charged. If you use the word ‘arrogant’ to describe an undue sense of entitlement that our fanbase holds, I think you’re about 5 years too late to make that observation. Ron Zook killed any shred of entitlement mentality that the Gator Nation had as result of their amazing run through the 1990s. We lived through Zook. We were rescued by Meyer. We know it takes fantastic recruiting, the best facilities, the best coaching staff and the best program prestige in the nation to be considered elite year in and year out.

As for Spurrier himself, I don’t actually “hate” the guy. This is sports. It’s entertainment. The word “fan” is short for “fanatic” and that means some of us (raising hand) get a little too wrapped up in this at times. But we all know this is a game, and while it’s important, the people involved are worthy of our respect. Spurrier has mine from that perspective.

But the old saying “Once a Gator, always a Gator” floats to mind. Spurrier can’t have a truly successful season unless he beats the Gators. He — not the University of Florida — put himself in that position. He — not the University of Florida — quit a job that would have been open to him for life had he wanted to hold on to it. He — not the University of Florida — has caused many of us who love Spurrier for what he did for the Gators to have these conflicted emotions every year.

Spurrier is now the enemy. While I don’t think he centers his entire career at USCe around beating his former team, obviously, I do think he gets special pleasure from it. I don’t want Spurrier to succeed at USCe. After he leaves, if y’all want to make a run at some SEC East titles, go for it… you’ll be just another SEC team then. But for now, this week, this moment, this second, you are the mortal enemy, captained by our former golden son.

I wish misery upon you starting at 7:45PM ET Saturday night, ending around midnight or so after we win. (I hope.)

You’re right, though, at USC we don’t really have a Bear Bryant-like coach, although people often forget that we were fairly successfull in the 80s under Joe Morrison. But still it’s hard for us to understand your feelings on this, especially because both Holtz and Spurrier came to USC after experiencing great success at other schools.

I don’t mind people pointing out facts but what I can’t understand is why you feel qualified in pretending to know what a Gator fan thinks. Your entire post is peppered with your perception of what we’re thinking. Unlike you, I won’t pretend to speak for an entire fan base.

Instead, I’ll try to explain where our confusing like/dislike of Spurrier comes from: Spurrier is our Bryant, our Neyland, our Rockne, our Bowden and our Woody Hayes. Except, none of those other legends coached against their teams after they left their respective schools. It’s unique. All of those coaches forever changed the fan’s (and the country’s) perception of their program and someone from outside of the program just wouldn’t understand. You wouldn’t understand, nor would any of your Gamecork brethren. I say this without an ounce of pretension. I’m saying this simply to explain where our confusion comes from. You can believe what I’m saying, or you can sit in a different state as a fan of a different school and continue to believe whatever you want. I don’t care. All I care about is enjoying the game and I’m sorry I can’t be up in Columbia to party with a fan base I greatly respect and always have a fantastic time with when Florida plays USC. Good luck ‘Cocks~

2. This article is completely narcissistic. So Spurrier is coaching at USC solely in order to have the chance to show up UF? Why can’t you take Spurrier at his word: he says he likes the challenge of winning an SEC title at a school that has never seriously challenged before. This seems reasonable.

3. Gator fans are fond of saying that Spurrier reserves his best game for Florida, but I would disagree there, too. I thought Spurrier’s best game last year was against Auburn. This was at a point in the year when Auburn was ranked second and playing much better than they ended up playing at the end of the year. Their defense was considered to be the best in the country, and we scored at will against them and could have taken the game to overtime if not for a dropped pass.
The idea that Spurrier has it in for Florida is sheer self-obsession.

4. Your love for Urban Meyer seems a little premature. He won a national title with Ron Zook’s players, and I’m not so sure that Zook himself wouldn’t have won if he had been given the chance. You people love to blast Zook, but he inherited a program that didn’t have the talent to win the SEC, which was partly Spurrier’s fault. When he finally built the program, they fired him and let Meyer come in and win a title with his players. Don’t get me wrong; I think Meyer is a good coach. But he’s made some gaffs this year that make me wonder if he’s all he’s built up to be. He’s completely neglected to develop a solid tailback, and that cost him against Georgia while Tebow was hurt. I’m sure the Urban Evangelists will say it was bad luck; I say that the blame for the loss falls squarely upon Meyer. We’ll see if Urban is really an elite coach next year, when his talented team will be expected to win the national title.

5. These things all have a lot to do with each other. I think UF fans are really eager to malign Spurrier and to praise Urban because they know that Florida would have never risen to the level they did without Spurrier, and that’s a troubling thought to them. You say Florida was a sleeping giant, and certainly they sit on a hot recruiting area, but I don’t buy that anyone could have come in and taken UF all the way; if that were the case, someone would have done it before Spurrier. Furthermore, maligning Spurrier’s work with the Gamecocks, which I would say has been very good but not spectacular, makes Florida fans feel that maybe it was the greatness in UF all along, and Spurrier was just the guy lucky enough to be around when it happened.

In the end, all I think I’m saying is that there’s no reason for Florida fans to hate Spurrier. Articles like this read like complicated psychological diseases, and there’s no need to feel an inferiority about this stuff. Florida has proven they can win without Spurrier, although it remains to be seen whether or not Urban is all he’s cracked up to be. As far as Spurrier goes, I think you guys should just let him do his thing. At the very least, South Carolina is competitive now, and that’s a good thing for the SEC. If you want an easy road, maybe you should join the Big East. You Gator fans don’t seem to like the idea that another SEC team can rise from the depths like you did. It could happen, and it’s exciting to watch. Get over it. Saying that Carolina has won games that they shouldn’t have under Spurrier betrays your dislike for rising programs; I think what you really mean here is that it’s just not right for Carolina to be competing with the SEC East triumverate of UF, UGA, and UT. There was a time when Florida couldn’t hang either, but most Gator fans choose to think that football wasn’t played before 1990.

Narcissism and an Oedipal complex; all in a day’s work for one of the most arrogant fanbase in college football.

COACH SPURRIER:
“Nice to be here again. My 15th year. I know a bunch of you sportswriters still got me by a lot of years, but good to be here again. Looking forward to the coming season.

At South Carolina, first couple of years we felt like, with our team, our goal was to win more than we lose, and to win the Bowl game would be a pretty good year for us. We did that last year. We finished with three wins and won the Bowl game.

First year we lost the Bowl game, so we felt like, you know, that was a pretty decent year.

WE’VE RAISED OUR GOALS THIS YEAR. WE’RE GOING TO TRY TO WIN THE CONFERENCE. We felt like we’ve really increased our talent level at South Carolina. We’ve added a lot of players that we think are at a pretty close level with Florida, Georgia and Tennessee.

Obviously you need to be at their level to win the conference. We lost some close games last year, didn’t play our best maybe or didn’t coach our best. But we feel like our talent level is good enough now we should say, HEY, LET’S GO TRY TO WIN OUR CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP.

I know it will be a huge assignment, but I believe our players, our team, we need to come to the ballpark feeling like we’re just as good as Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and that we can play with those guys to see what happens.

Don’t know what’s gonna happen, but that’s gonna be our mindset going into the season, to see what happens. So we’re looking forward to it. We think, again, our players, our talent level is up pretty close or maybe even even with some of those teams.”

Spurrier has come close in some games and won a few he had no business winning, but let’s face it, this year’s Cock squad isn’t much better than his first one.

As for average or sub-average… 650 yards. That’s all that needs to be said. No team, no matter what the conference, can consider itself average or above when they give up that many yards in one game.

If Florida’s on its way back to being “nothing” in this conference, it’s rather odd that we’re sitting on a national championship only 2 years into Meyer’s reign as head coach.

You don’t make much sense, you silly Cock, you.

I don’t agree with your score prediction, either. It’ll be one of those 1-3 point spreads. I’m terrified of my Gators losing to the Visor. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.