Steve Spurrier says Florida, South Carolina 'didn't look very good' in Week 1

Steve Spurrier capped Week 1 off by returning to Duke, where he was once the head coach. There he saw South Carolina‘s major rival Clemson lose in what was Duke’s first top-10 win since Spurrier led the Blue Devils. It’s hard to imagine it wasn’t a good night for Spurrier.

However, it wasn’t a great week for Spurrier’s SEC schools, Florida and South Carolina. During an appearance on the Paul Finebaum Show, he shared his thoughts on the Gamecock’s loss to North Carolina.

“Yeah, they didn’t look very good,” Steve Spurrier admitted. “Sometimes, the offseason hype — and there was a lot of hype up there from what I heard about how good maybe they’re gonna be this year and this, that and the other. So they got to come back down to earth.”

Spurrier also pointed out that South Carolina wasn’t the only team to get off to a slow start over the weekend. His other SEC team, the Florida Gators, lost in a game where the offense struggled to get going.

“A lot of teams don’t play their first game. The Gators went out to Utah, did not play very well at all. And we got to regroup and we got a team, hopefully, we can beat [in] McNeese State this week. But Tennessee‘s next week. So that’ll be a big game, really, for both schools next week.”

Part of the issue that both South Carolina and Florida ran into was that they played non-conference games against talented Power Five opponents. In both cases, these weren’t home games, either. In other words, these were tough opening games in both cases compared to a lot of traditional Week 1 games.

Next week, Florida will take on McNeese State. For its part, South Carolina takes on Furman. After that, the two will take on Tennessee and Georgia respectively in Week 3 to kick off SEC play.

Steve Spurrier thinks Billy Napier has done a good job

While Steve Spurrier knows that Billy Napier hasn’t won as much as most fans would like on the field, he still thinks that Napier has done a good job. That’s largely because of recruiting wins that Napier has had, indicating the program is moving in the right direction.

“I think he’s done a pretty good job. Obviously, 6-7 is not what we’re looking for. You know, if we’re heading in the right direction and recruiting seemed to be going very well, hopefully, if all the players that are committed sign. Obviously, that’s a sign of where your football program is, is the recruiting staying at a high level, and so forth,” Spurrier said.

“So, we’ll see. I think he’s got better coaches this year. Sometimes, as fans, we always look at who’s the quarterback. Hey, we had a quarterback who was the fourth pick in the first round of the NFL. So, we had a top notch quarterback last year and still had a losing record. So, there’s more to a football team than the quarterback, and hopefully this year our new defensive coordinator, Austin Armstrong, will get these guys playing with more accountability. Know your assignment and play full speed.”