Steve Spurrier reflects on coaching career, sets record straight on leaving South Carolina

Steve Spurrier is the type of coach that wanted to be challenged. Why take over an established program when he could turn around one that hasn’t won before? Doesn’t that sound more fun?

Reflecting back on his career on Stephen Garcia and Patrick DiMarco’s new podcast, Tailgate Talks with DiMarco and Garcia, Spurrier was once asked why he wouldn’t go coach at Alabama if he had a chance? His reasoning was simple.

“They’ve already won all you can. So you’re just winning another one,” Spurrier said. “All those championships Nick Saban won was basically another one, because Bear Bryant had done just about the same thing. So anyway, I sort of did things that had never been done before. I got a real thrill.”

Instead, Spurrier coached at schools where winning wasn’t always a thing. He helped turn Duke around in the late 1980’s. Then he returned to his alma mater at Florida and led the Gators to six SEC Championship wins and one National Championship in 1996. His next challenge? South Carolina.

“When I first got there, people used to say, ‘Coach, just beat Clemson.’ And they said, ‘If you go 1-10 or 1-11 and we beat Clemson, we’ll be all right,'” Spurrier said. “I said, ‘No, we’re not. I’d rather beat these SEC guys and these good teams. We’re going to try to beat Clemson also, but that whole season is not about Clemson.'”

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Before Spurrier arrived in Columbia in 2005, the Gamecocks had only won 10 games once in 1984. By the time he left in 2015, South Carolina won 11 games in three straight seasons from 2011-13. He completely changed the dynamic of the program.

“So anyway, we were sort of able to turn it around, starting in 2009 is when we had that five-year win streak on (Clemson). But anyway, yeah, winning the (SEC) Eastern Division and beating Alabama, that was the highlight,” he said.

While Spurrier’s first 10 seasons at South Carolina were for the most part, special, the last year was entirely different. It’s well remembered that he resigned as head coach midway through the 2015 campaign with his team sitting at 2-4.

This move rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way after so many good years with the team. But there was much more to the story that led to his eventual resignation.

Every year, Spurrier held a chapel service the night before every game with his teams. He said almost “90 percent of all the guys” showed up, even though it was never mandatory. But in his last season, no one was coming anymore.

“I actually asked the team, I said, ‘I don’t think it’s too much to ask you guys to come in there for 40, 30 minutes, no more than that, the night before the game,'” Spurrier said. “We’ve done this for the 10 years I’ve been here. Never had any problem. … Well, they still did not want to come. They would not come. I said, ‘These guys don’t listen to me.’ And they didn’t. They didn’t listen to me.”

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Spurrier also noticed the team had an attitude problem. Before he had left, the Gamecocks had won two games, but were 0-4 in SEC play. So that may have played a part in that apparent issue. But regardless, when Spurrier realized this, he thought maybe it was the right time to move on.

“I was gone after I could just hang out on the sideline. I made up my mind. I’m not even going to try to call plays,” he said. “This bunch don’t listen to me. And that’s my fault. It’s not their fault. You’ve got to demand that they listen to you. So I just thought. I’ll get out now. If Elliott can come in and win some games, he’ll keep maybe four or five of these guys, bring in some new guys and go from there.

“So that was my plan and I don’t like the way it ended up, but at the time, I thought that was the best way. Simple as that. … I had lost their attention. Simple as that.”

Since then, Spurrier returned to Williams-Brice Stadium last season for the Jacksonville State game when the 2010-13 teams were honored. During the podcast, he did say he would like to get back out to another game this season.

For his career at South Carolina, Spurrier went 86-49 with one trip to the SEC Championship game in 2010. To this day, he’s the program’s wins leader from his 10 years in Columbia.

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