Florida has had two National Championship coaches, Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer. Spurrier coached Florida from 1990 until 2001. He won 6 SEC championships and won a National Championship in 1996. Urban Meyer was Florida’s head coach from 2005 to 2010. He won two national championships for Florida. While Meyer has mixed reviews from the Florida fan base, Spurrier is largely loved by the fan base. It wasn’t just that he won; he was a brash, fast-talking coach who Florida fans loved. Since Florida is searching for a new head coach, two candidates could fill the shoes of a modern-day Spurrier—Eli Drinkwintz Missouri’s Head Coach, and Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss Head Coach.
Eli Drinkwintz has done a good job at Missouri with a record of 38-24 in his four seasons as head coach. He is coming off an 11-win season in 2023 and a 10-win season last year. This season, Missouri’s record is 6-1, and they are still in the hunt for an SEC Title. Drinkwintz is known as someone who is not afraid to share his opinion on topics. He is a brash talker who isn’t afraid to say things to ruffle people’s feathers. An example was this week, when Missouri is playing at Vanderbilt, and College GameDay will be there. Drinkwitz said the following: “I don’t think they even want to talk to us”. College GameDay has been to Missouri only once, back in 2010, and a slight Drinkwitz has now seemed to enjoy rubbing it into College GameDay's face of the crew. If he said similar comments to Florida fans, they would love him as well.
Lane Kiffin might be Spurrier’s spirit animal. Spurrier loves to troll fan bases and make funny jokes. He constantly does this to fans, coaches, and teams. Sometimes it's in person and other times it's on Twitter. An example was earlier this year, when after he beat LSU, he trolled him on Twitter when he was talking about how Brian Kelly mentioned they were going to win the game this year. Lane Kiffin can also coach. He currently has a record of 50-19 while at Ole Miss. He has also won 10 games twice and 11 games once. Plus, he currently has his team 6-1 on the season. Kiffin would fit the Spurrier model of a trash-talking head coach who can call plays. Florida fans would love Kiffin as a Spurrier-type coach.
Florida just wants to desperately win and be relevant again. Hiring Kiffin or Drinkwintz would give them a good chance at being good as a program again. Both are good offensive minds and would provide some real juice to the Florida program. Plus, they might do some trash-talking as well, which Florida fans would love.
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