AJC > Sports > Blog > Archives > 2005 > November > 02
Wednesday, November 2, 2005
Give Spurrier some credit for Gator victory
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Steve Spurrier did a lot of impressive things during his 12 years as the head coach at Florida.
He won 122 games, an average of 10 per year. Not bad considering that when he took the job, Florida had NEVER won 10 games in a season.
Until he got there, Florida had never won an SEC championship. He won six.
He won a national championship (1996) and became the single most dominant SEC coach of his era.
Still, all of that pales in comparison to what Spurrier did to the psychology of the Georgia-Florida game.
Florida just beat Georgia for the 14th time in 16 years. Think about that. Nobody should beat a top drawer SEC team 14 out of 16 years. But that is what Florida has done. And they won last Saturday’s game, I believe, because of the mindset created by Spurrier.
When Spurrier was hired back in 1990, the Florida people wanted the Georgia game out of Jacksonville. Vince Dooley had just retired after going 17-7-1 against the Gators. Ray Goff won his first game against Florida in 1989. The Gator fans wanted the game back on campus.
Spurrier’s reaction to that idea went something like this: “Shoot, the game is played one hour from our campus. It’s in the state of Florida and it’s played in a place called the Gator Bowl. Let’s go play.”
And play he did, winning 11 of 12 games against Georgia. More important than just winning the games, Spurrier changed the entire mindset of Florida to the point where every year the Gators went to Jacksonville expecting to win. Now they have won three out of four since he left.
Mark Richt has done a remarkable job at Georgia, but the record shows that he is 1-4 against the Gators. Turning the psychology of the series back toward the Bulldogs may be the toughest obstacle he will face in his tenure in Athens.
