Florida Football: Steve Spurrier should regret leaving Gators for NFL
Former Florida football head coach Steve Spurrier admitted he regrets leaving the Gators to go to the NFL, and he should have regrets about his biggest coaching mistake.
Steve Spurrier was Florida football. The former Heisman-winning quarterback returned to his alma mater in 1990 after winning 20 games with the Duke Blue Devils and earned a reputation as one of the best to ever do it.
At Florida, Spurrier’s teams finished in the final AP top 25 10 times in his 12 seasons in Gainesville, won the SEC East his first seven years and nine times overall, played in two national championships and won one.
He is the all-time winningest coach at Florida with a 122-27-1 record but he left it all behind to take a job with the Washington Redskins in the NFL.
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It was Spurrier’s birthday on Wednesday and he appeared on the Paul Finebaum Show for two hours in a wide-ranging interview. One of the topics that came up was Spurrier’s exit from Florida and how it’s one of Spurrier’s biggest regrets.
“I wish I would have stayed at Florida longer, Spurrier said.”
Spurrier opened up to a caller about one of his biggest regrets.
— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) April 20, 2016
"I wish I would have stayed at Florida longer" pic.twitter.com/g1gdfdyk2J
As much as people like to say they don’t have regrets in their life, it’s a lie, everyone has regrets, including the Head Ball Coach. And frankly, he should regret leaving Florida because it was the best stretch of his coaching career and one of the best runs of all-time.
Hindsight is always 20/20 and with the passing of time, there is a greater appreciation or perspective for the decisions we make and Spurrier elaborated on his decision to leave Florida for Washington.
Spurrier was rather blunt saying, “I went to the team that offered the most money instead of the best situation.”
"I went to the team that offered the most money instead of the best situation" - Spurrier on his decision to leave Florida for the @NFL
— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) April 20, 2016
Spurrier only lasted two seasons in the nation’s capital, compiling a 12-20 record, or one more loss than Spurrier had in his last nine years at Florida, combined.
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Florida fell from one of the nation’s elite programs to a borderline top-25 team with Ron Zook succeeding Spurrier as the Gators head coach where he had a 23-14 record before he was fired and Urban Meyer came to The Swamp and made things right again.
Spurrier resurfaced with the South Carolina Gamecocks where he went 86-49 in 10-plus seasons before resigning after a 2-4 start last year and is the school’s all-time wins leader.
He was responsible for the program’s finest moments just as he was at Florida but the highs he had in Gainesville pale in comparison to the highs he had with the Gamecocks in Columbia.
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Spurrier is a Hall of Famer and one of the best coaches in college football history, but not even one of the greats is immune to second-guessing a decision years later.
Years later, he may regret how his tenure at South Carolina ended too. That’s just part of life. Regrets happen. But Spurrier will move on, play 18 holes and have a wealth of great memories to reflect on to drown out those regrets.