Steve Spurrier plans to attend Florida-Texas game with Gators

The ‘Old Ball Coach’ Steve Spurrier said he’ll be in attendance for the Florida-Texas game this weekend with his wife.

Spurrier got to travel with the Gators and make his first trip to Austin. In fact, Spurrier is excited for more than just Florida-Texas.

He and his wife are hoping to see a certain celebrity on the sideline!

“Getting ready for Texas, I’m going on this trip,” Spurrier said on Another Dooley Noted Podcast. “I’ve never been to the University of Texas and got permission from the AD … You gotta ask. Can’t just say, ‘Hey, I’m going.’ I’m going with the team, part of the traveling party. And hopefully I see Matthew McConaughey on Saturday. And my wife, Jerri said, ‘we need to see Matthew, if he’s there’ and he’ll be there, I guess.”

Florida-Texas game will be first for Steve Spurrier

The Florida-Texas matchup will be the second between Billy Napier and Steve Sarkisian and the latter showed significant respect for the Gators’ coach.

“We’ve got to put in a lot of work and it starts this Saturday against the University of Florida, a team that’s very talented and really well-coached,” Sarkisian said Monday. “I know a lot of people are going to look at the record, so on and so forth. But you can just look at their last three games, they lose in overtime to Tennessee, they’re beating Georgia and have got a chance to kick a field goal to go up late in that ball game, and they muff the snap. They’ve been playing good football.”

When it comes to the Florida defense, the Texas coach acknowledged the challenge of their front that features 449-pounder Desmond Watson and a number of other athletic defenders.

“This will be arguably one of if not the best-looking teams in our conference,” Sarkisian said. “They’re big, they’re long, they’re athletic. I think they played 14 guys in their front seven this week against Georgia. They’re depth got challenged in the secondary this week with a couple of corners getting nicked up, but they’ve got versatile guys there.”

The two coaches met as opponents once before just as Sarkisian’s career at Texas was starting. Sarkisian’s first ever game at Texas was a 38-18 win in September of 2021 that would stand as the only blemish for the Ragin’ Cajuns that year as part of a 13-1 campaign.