Superior to What?

Two failed seasons with the Washington Redskins and one year off to recover have landed Steve Spurrier here at the intersection of Bluff Road and National Guard Road -- also known as the boulevards of broken dreams.

In coaching tours at Florida and in the NFL, Spurrier did not need an amplification device to shout instructions to practicing players over the roar of 18-wheelers.

But this is South Carolina, where for 111 years they’ve needed a bullhorn to get the message out.

He is seemingly the same ol’ Spurrier, tanned and trim at 60 and back in coaching for the long run, he thinks, with his “pretty good heredity genes” and an endless supply of ball plays.

He is tooting a whistle and sporting a wide-brimmed fishing-type hat with a hole cut in the top -- a visor Spurrier designed himself and is marketing to raise money for the athletic department.

So go ahead, say it: Spurrier needs this like he needs a hole in his head.

However things look, he is not the same ol’ Spurrier -- not by a fourth-and-long shot.

He jilted the college game in 2001, after a 12-year run at Florida that produced one national championship, six outright Southeastern Conference titles and no NCAA violations -- maybe his most impressive feat in a scandal-singed conference.

He returns to the collegiate level a richer man but tempered after his two-and-out venture in the professional ranks.

Lessons learned?

“Oh, the only thing I guess I got was a little humility,” Spurrier says of his NFL experience, “to the fact you have a great appreciation for all coaches. Sometimes you can coach your heart out, hard as you can, and the other guy just may have the better team.”

Yes, Steve Spurrier said that, from his office perch in Williams-Brice Stadium, sitting beneath a stuffed bird that risked his life (and lost) in a cockfight -- this gift of taxidermy offering various analogical insights into a school that has won one conference title since the Spanish-American War.

Given his position now as potential SEC road kill, Spurrier just can’t blurt out the things he used to.

When he owned Gainesville in the 1990s, he said of archrival Tennessee that you couldn’t spell Citrus Bowl without “UT.”

Last spring, while attending a high school banquet in Chattanooga, Spurrier was reminded you couldn’t spell Citrus Bowl (now the Capital One) without “USC.”

To which he replied, “You know what? If we get to the old Citrus Bowl, we’ll be dancing in the streets.”

It would have been inconceivable, four years ago, that Spurrier could end up rallying the Gamecock cause in Chattanooga, proving anything can happen if you live long enough.

Spurrier says now he was burned out at Florida and needed to get the NFL itch out of his system.

When that itch became a Redskin rash -- he went 12-20 before abruptly resigning -- he took a year off but ultimately decided he couldn’t play golf every day because he wasn’t that good at it.

So when Florida fired Ron Zook last October, it seemed a good bet Spurrier would return to his alma mater, where, as Gator quarterback, he had won the Heisman Trophy in 1966.

But somehow, signals got crossed. Jeremy Foley, Florida’s athletic director, says, “The first call I made after Ron was gone was to Steve.”

Foley says Spurrier did not immediately return the call. Word later spread that Spurrier was hurt when Florida decided to conduct a formal coaching search -- wasn’t he the answer to all their problems?

Spurrier then removed himself as a candidate, with conspiracy theorists suggesting Florida planned it that way in an effort to land the guy they really wanted -- Utah Coach Urban Meyer.

Foley says no, absolutely not, but it wasn’t long before Spurrier took the South Carolina job, replacing the retiring Lou Holtz, and Meyer ended up in Gainesville.

Steve Spurrier Jr., South Carolina’s receiver coach, says, “I always thought Florida was a place, if you didn’t accomplish what you had already done, people would have told my father, ‘You probably shouldn’t come back here.’ ”

Spurrier Sr. equated a return to Florida to “Johnny Robinson at Southern Cal.”

So Spurrier got to thinking, “Wouldn’t it be more challenging to try and do it somewhere else?”

He picked a humdinger of challenges.

“South Carolina never won the East [Division title], never won the SEC, never finished in the top 10, never been in a major bowl,” Spurrier reminds all. “All kind of first things are available here. And 14-0 is about the only thing available there [at Florida].... That’s the only thing that hasn’t been done.”

South Carolina boasts one conference title -- the 1969 Atlantic Coast Conference crown -- but didn’t really boast about it.

Spurrier was shocked that the school had so long ignored the accomplishment and recently ran a 1969 banner up the stadium steps.

The trophy case at South Carolina resembled a freshman’s apartment.

“When I got there, they didn’t have anything on the walls,” Spurrier says. “I said, ‘You got one conference championship in the history of the school and you didn’t even have it up?’ ”

Despite years of mediocrity, though, Gamecock fans continue to pack the stadium.

“They’ve got hope,” Spurrier says. “In life, you’ve always got to have hope that something good is going to happen.”

The wet-blanket retort is, Spurrier will be the third coach who has come to South Carolina after coaching another school to a national title.

Paul Dietzel (Louisiana State) and Holtz (Notre Dame) left here with losing records.

Spurrier has his own spin.

“I’ve got a seven-year contract,” he says. “I made a statement -- I really wasn’t trying to brag -- that my goal is to be the winningest coach in the history of the school. That’s because the record’s not too high. Sixty-four wins, that’s the all-time record here.”

Spurrier said he had an idea what he was walking into, but did he really?

Holtz arrived in 1998 with similar “I’m-here-now” turnaround hopes and provided an initial infusion, the highlight a 2001 Outback Bowl win over Ohio State.

But things did not end well for Holtz, who passed on to Spurrier a 4-7 team and 10 NCAA violations. Sanctions were announced last week and included a loss of scholarships but no ban on television or bowl appearances.

That wasn’t all Holtz left in the Gamecock coop.

Spurrier said one recruiting analyst told him that South Carolina, at one point, had seven players on scholarship who’d had no other Division I-A offers.

“And then, academically, they sort of let about anybody in they could get in,” Spurrier says. “So we had some guys here that should have never been here academically. It was too tough on them.

“South Carolina is not like Harvard or anything like that, but you’ve got to be able to read on a high school level, things of that nature.”

Spurrier then angered the state’s high school coaches’ association when he mulled taking away scholarships -- awarded yearly -- from a few in-state players.

“I tell people now that maybe it’s a compliment that they’re trying to criticize me for trying to build a winning program here, when I should be nice to all these guys that were here that can’t play, and continue mediocrity at South Carolina,” Spurrier bluntly says. “That’s what they’d like ... they’re mad we’re trying to do things right.”

On the encouraging side, Spurrier’s reputation as a collegiate winner has already helped raised prospects. He signed 27 players, and all but one have qualified academically.

The Gamecocks signed five talented freshman receivers, one of them Carlos Thomas, who said he would have signed with the University of Mars if Spurrier were the coach there.

“The name of the school didn’t matter,” Thomas says.

Thomas, “going out on the edge,” predicts that in two years, South Carolina’s receiving corps will rank with the best Florida ever had.

Quarterback?

As usual, under Captain Hook Spurrier, that’s going to be a complicated process. He will start redshirt sophomore Blake Mitchell in Thursday’s home opener against Central Florida -- then see how it goes.

“He’s going to have the guy with the hot hand in there and you just hope it’s you,” Mitchell says.

No one is pretending South Carolina will contend this year in the rugged SEC East, a meat-grinder division that includes national title contenders Tennessee, Georgia and Florida.

Spurrier says it will take three years of tip-top recruiting to catch up to that crowd.

As for the situation looking bleak, Spurrier says that’s what people said in 1990, when he took over a downtrodden Florida program saddled with NCAA sanctions.

“Amazing similarities,” Spurrier says. “I just hope the results down the road will be pretty close.”

Spurrier says, “We’ve got to eliminate excuses.” He asks, “Why not?”

What did they say about Florida?

“At Florida, you can’t play Georgia and Auburn back to back, they’re too good ... you can’t beat both of them,” Spurrier says. “You can’t beat Georgia in Jacksonville.”

Florida is “a party school, guys like to go to the beach; Florida’s got too many enemies: Florida State, Miami plus Georgia and Auburn. They had all those little type of excuse things. I don’t know what they’ve used here; I can’t really be concerned about it.”

Most expect that Spurrier will eventually get it done here, although it may be a while before he hangs “half a hundred” points on anybody’s scoreboard.

It’s going to be interesting, too, when Florida visits Columbia on Nov. 12.

“It’ll be a one-week deal ... just like all the other games,” he insists.

Spurrier is in no position yet to contemplate big wins over Florida.

He says: “We’re trying to put a whuppin’ on Central Florida.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Back to school

Steve Spurrier compiled a 142-40-2 record in 15 seasons as a college football coach, including a 122-27-1 record and one national championship at Florida. Spurrier didn’t fare as well in two seasons as the coach of the Washington Redskins:

NFL

WASHINGTON REDSKINS

Year: 2003

Rec.: 5-11

Notes: Finished third in four-team NFC East

*

Year: 2002

Rec.: 7-9

Notes: Finished third in NFC East

**

COLLEGE

FLORIDA

Year, Rec, Rank: 2001,10-2, 3

Conference: Lost SEC title game

Bowl: won Orange Bowl, 56-23

*

Year, Rec., Rank: 2000, 10-3, 11

Conference: Won SEC (8-1)

Bowl: lost Sugar Bowl, 37-20

*

Year, Rec., Rank: 1999, 9-4, 14

Conference: Lost SEC title game

Bowl: Lost Citrus Bowl, 37-34

*

Year, Rec., Rank: 1998, 10-2, 5

Conference: 2nd in SEC East (7-1)

Bowl: won Orange Bowl, 31-10

*

Year, Rec., Rank: 1997, 10-2, 4

Conference: Tied for 2nd in SEC East (6-2)

Bowl: won Citrus Bowl, 21-6

*

Year, Rec., Rank: 1996, 12-1, 1

Conference: Won SEC (9-0)

Bowl: won Sugar Bowl, 52-20*

*

Year, Rec., Rank: 1995, 12-1, 2

Conference: Won SEC (9-0)

Bowl: lost Fiesta Bowl, 62-24*

*

Year, Rec., Rank: 1994, 10-2-1, 7

Conference: Won SEC (8-1)

Bowl: lost Sugar Bowl, 23-17

*

Year, Rec., Rank: 1993, 11-2, 5

Conference: Won SEC (8-1)

Bowl: won Sugar Bowl, 41-7

*

Year, Rec., Rank: 1992, 9-4, 10

Conference: 2nd in SEC (6-3)

Bowl: won Gator Bowl, 27-10

*

Year, Rec., Rank: 1991, 10-2, 7

Conference: Won SEC (7-0)

Bowl: lost Sugar Bowl, 39-28

*

Year, Rec., Rank: 1990, 9-2, 13

Conference: Won SEC (6-1)

Bowl: not eligible

*

DUKE

Year, Rec., Rank: 1989, 8-4, NR

Conference: Won ACC (6-1)

Bowl: lost All-American Bowl

*

Year, Rec., Rank: 1988, 7-3-1, NR

Conference: Went 3-3-1 in ACC (6th place)

*

Year, Rec., Rank: 1987, 5-6, NR

Conference: Went 2-5 in ACC (7th place)

**

*Bowl game was for national title

Sources: uscsports.com; football-reference.com