Steve Spurrier explains his pick of Alabama, Kalen DeBoer to win 2024 SEC Championship

Former Florida and South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier went with a bit of a surprising pick to win the SEC this season. Spurrier didn’t go with the favorite Georgia, newcomer Texas or either of his former teams. Instead, he chose the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Under most circumstances, picking Alabama to win the SEC wouldn’t be a surprise. However, considering the Crimson Tide lost head coach Nick Saban and several key players this offseason, Alabama is far from the favorite.

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Spurrier appeared on The Paul Finebaum Show Friday afternoon and explained his reasoning. A big part of his decision came down to a belief in new head coach Kalen DeBoer.

“I was on Pat Dooley’s show. We do a podcast every Monday. And we were talking about, ‘Well, who you think’s going to win the SEC?'” Steve Spurrier recalled. “And obviously Georgia’s favored. And they easily could do it. But I said ‘I’m going to go out and say Kalen DeBoer.’ You know what his won-loss percentage is as a head coach? It’s almost 90 percent — 89.7.”

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As Spurrier said, DeBoer has won everywhere he’s been, including at Washington, as he led the Huskies to the national title game last year.

No, DeBoer hasn’t coached in the SEC before, but Spurrier is impressed enough with his other stops to pick Alabama to win the league. Spurrier believes that you don’t accidentally win nearly 90 percent of your games, and he’s a big believer in other coaches in the SEC with a strong winning percentage.

“This guy, now, he hasn’t coached in the SEC. But he’s coached 10-12 years or whatever it is — over 100 games,” Steve Spurrier said. “You look at a guy’s winning percentage, and then the next best is Kirby Smart. And then after him, [Brian] Kelly at LSU. So I picked those guys to go 1-2-3 in some order. But maybe Alabama because everybody thinks they can’t do it without coach Saban.”

Steve Spurrier believes Florida football has ‘everything here to be successful’

No Steve Spurrier didn’t pick Florida to win the SEC, but he does believes the Gators can get back to the top of the college football world.

“Three losing seasons in a row, first time since the 1940s. None of us were here in the 40s,” Spurrier said. “We’ve got everything here to be successful. We’ve got ballplayers in our state, of course you go all over the country, now. And we’ve got the fans, we’ve got the stadium. And I think we’ve got the coaches and the facilities are as good as anybody. So it’s all here and we need to put it all together.”

The question of putting together has, arguably, been where it’s fallen short for the Gators of late. And head coach Billy Napier, entering his third year with an 11-14 overall record, certainly would benefit from not only a win this weekend, but getting the Gators back to a more consistently successful spot — one Spurrier thinks shouldn’t be too hard to find.