During a nearly 30-year head coaching career, Steve Spurrier became college football’s roast czar. The most hatin’-ass coach in the country was legendary for his willingness to zing virtually any other team with lighthearted but cutting commentary.
Steve Spurrier’s retirement from college football has not deterred his roasts of rivals
Georgia and Tennessee remain squarely in his sights.
Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
Georgia, Tennessee, and Clemson — rivals of his across his two longest-tenured coaching stops — were frequent targets. Then Spurrier retired in 2015, and it would’ve stood to reason that the Old Ball Coach was due to dial things back moving forward.
That has not happened. I present to you a collection of Spurrier insults lobbed at rivals exclusively in the three-plus years since he left college coaching.
In 2017, Spurrier basically wrote a whole article for us about an entire lifetime spent beating Georgia, whom he was 16-7 against.
Technically, he dictated that post to SB Nation’s Steven Godfrey, but you get it. An excerpt:
I don’t ever hear much from Georgia fans now. Most football fans, if coaches have success where they’re at, generally if you’re not coaching against their team, they’re OK with you. It’s sort of interesting, looking back.
Spurrier was 11-1 against UGA while at Florida, ruining a bunch of promising Dawgs seasons.
In 2018, Spurrier was somewhat icy (though not really wrong) in comments about Nick Saban and Alabama.
What does he think of Saban’s dominance of college football?
Ol’ Spurdog howled and barked.
“They didn’t win the SEC last year,” he shot back.
Why does Saban recruit so well?
“It’s got a little bit to do with Alabama, and little bit to do with the way they do it as well or better than anybody,” Spurrier said.
Yep, he’s still got it.
Bama’s dominance is, in fact, a mixture of Saban and the school, though Saban’s the simplest reason the Tide continue to be better than everyone but Clemson all the time.
Spurrier and Saban had a bit of a rivalry, though they never coached on the same side of the SEC East. He went 3-1 against Saban’s teams, which I believe is the best winning percentage any head coach with that many games against Saban has ever put up. (Penn State’s Joe Paterno and Michigan’s Lloyd Carr were both 3-2 against Saban’s Michigan State in the ‘90s. Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville was 4-3 against his LSU and Bama teams.)
Also in 2018, Spurrier hit Georgia with this little number:
And in 2019, after leading his Orlando Apollos to a victory in the second week of the AAF, a new developmental league, he got a shot in on Tennessee.
That tweet doesn’t quite get his quote right, but it’s still a good one.
“I think it was just as loud as Rocky Top, to tell you the truth. And I know The Swamp is maybe a little bit louder than here,” Spurrier said.
He was referring to an Alamodome crowd with paid attendance of 29,176.
We’ll update this post as Spurrier continues to launch at old foes.
And if I’ve missed one that should be on here, please do let me know.
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