COLLEGE FOOTBALL : Spurrier’s Failure? : Dean Ends Career on Sidelines, Debating What Went Wrong as Wuerffel Stars for Gators

Steve Spurrier has been accused of being driven, paranoid, charming, manipulative, successful, impulsive, compulsive and sometimes even repulsive.

But never sentimental.

A sentimentalist would have moved heaven and earth to make sure his first recruit at Florida was successful, returning loyalty for loyalty, rewarding effort with praise.

Or maybe Spurrier did.

Or maybe, as Terry Dean says, Spurrier didn’t.

This much is known: On Jan. 2, 1990, three days after he was hired to coach his alma mater, Spurrier and Frank and Nancy Dean lifted their glasses in Naples, Fla., to toast the newest Gator marriage. Steve Spurrier, coach, had gotten the Deans’ son, quarterback Terry, to say “I do” to an offer to play in Gainesville.

Al and Peg Bundy have gotten along better since.

Terry Dean has been the equivalent of a yo-yo at Florida, and the string has played out. On Monday, against Florida State in the Sugar Bowl, he will trot out with the rest of the co-captains for the coin toss, then return to the sideline, his work done for the day.

And for his career. In August, he began writing a journal that he hoped would spawn a book about a quarterback and a national championship season. The ending has changed. Happiness is Gainesville in his rear-view mirror.

“Danny Wuerffel is our quarterback,” Spurrier said this week. “This is his game. This is not a rotation system. We have two fine players there. . . . We don’t have a depth chart at quarterback.”

The one listed by the sports information department has Terry Dean as the third-stringer, behind Wuerffel and sophomore Eric Kresser.

As late as Oct. 15, Dean was the starter, and stories about him used the modifier “Heisman Trophy candidate” liberally. Why not? He was the second-rated quarterback in the country, top-rated in the Southeastern Conference, and had thrown 18 touchdown passes in five games for the No. 1 team.

The lack of a Heisman front-runner had grown to the point that the campaign for Steve McNair, a Division I-AA player at Alcorn State, was given serious attention.

Dean, Florida’s potential second Heisman Trophy winner, playing quarterback for the first, Spurrier, offered an attractive option. There was symmetry, somehow, a publicist’s dream.

Dean’s dream.

Then, a wake-up call. Reality is almost as tough as Auburn, which intercepted four Dean passes and recovered one Dean fumble while beating the Gators, 36-33, to ruin their national championship bid.

Dean spent 40 minutes afterward telling reporters he knew he was no longer Florida’s quarterback. On Monday he wasn’t.

It wasn’t simply intuition.

“It had built,” Dean said. “The (Louisiana State) game, I had a mediocre performance. I threw one touchdown, one interception (in a 42-18 victory). The next week, I went in to watch the films, and (Spurrier) just got on me like he never had. It kind of baffled me at the time.

“He had told me Monday before the Auburn game that if I had a bad game, he would bench me. He told me again the Friday before the game that if I wasn’t playing well, he would pull me.”

After those pep talks, Dean threw a 42-yard touchdown pass to Jack Jackson. Two interceptions came on good plays by Auburn defensive backs, he said. The other two came on bad plays by Dean.

“I wasn’t myself,” he said. “I was looking over my shoulder.”

Enter Wuerffel, who twice brought Florida back to a lead ultimately lost by the defense.

Exit Dean, for good. He played in a mop-up role in the next three games and not at all in the last three, finishing second in the nation in quarterback efficiency. Wuerffel was third.

To anyone who asked, Dean has explained about the mind-games he had gone through that week. It hasn’t helped.

“I think that’s why I have been written off,” Dean said.

The coach/offensive coordinator/quarterback coach--Spurrier wears all three visors in Gainesville--hasn’t talked with Dean since Oct. 15. Dean said there have been coach-quarterbacks meetings that he hasn’t been invited to attend.

It’s plain that Spurrier is more comfortable with Wuerffel, who has led the Gators to five victories and a tie since. Wuerffel is more coachable, perhaps less physically talented but more cerebral.

“Danny never puts us in a bad play,” center David Swain said.

He is a coach’s dream--compliant, understanding and team-oriented.

Dean had been the starter as a junior after playing behind Shane Mathews for three seasons, but lost the job to redshirt freshman Wuerffel, who threw 22 touchdown passes. But when Wuerffel struggled in the rain against Georgia, Dean re-established himself.

Wuerffel responded by taking footballs and a pail of water to the practice field, throwing a wet ball until his arm ached.

In contrast, When Dean was benched after this season’s Auburn game, he took two NFL balls to practice and threw them during warm-ups, getting ready for the next step in his career, presuming that he had taken all the steps at Florida he could take.

While Dean worked as the starter last season, winning the SEC championship game and the Sugar Bowl, then throwing seven touchdown passes in the first half of this season’s opener against New Mexico State, Wuerffel worked after practice on his throwing, the weakest part of his game.

“We’re just in a kind of a weird situation as far as personnel,” Wuerffel said.

“It’s so easy to get caught up in your own frustration, but you just have to realize that the person in charge has the same goals that we have, and that’s to win football games. So you just have to live with it.”

Maybe, but not for Terry Dean, to whom team and individual goals are in lock-step. He finds himself on the sideline, watching with conflicting emotions while Wuerffel is winning with the Gators.

“That’s definitely an awkward situation to be in,” Dean said. “I definitely want the team to win, but I want to be the one leading them and the only way that’s going to happen is if he screws up. I really like Danny a lot. He’s one of my best friends on the team. But it’s a tough situation to be in.”

It’s one he won’t be in much longer. Dean graduated two weeks ago with a degree in marketing, a 3.91 grade-point average and Academic All-American status, and he and his wife, Robin, have moved back to Naples. The Hula Bowl lies ahead, and then the NFL combine workouts. There is talk of a quarterback coach to prepare him, as Dan Henning did Tennessee’s Heath Shuler last year.

“I’m ready to be gone,” Dean said. “It’s been a frustrating five years, and I definitely think I’m capable of bigger and better things. I still think I’m the best quarterback here. There are a lot of reasons why I want to make it in the pros, and one of them is I want to be able to go back (to Gainesville) and say I got a little redemption. Nobody else believed me, but I never lost the idea that I could make it.”

Take that, Steve Spurrier, who is sixth on Florida’s all-time touchdown pass list with 36. Dean is fifth, with 39, Wuerffel fourth, with 40.

“Look, I’m not going to win any battles with Terry Dean and I don’t want to,” said Spurrier, who has coached Florida to all three of the SEC titles it has won. “I’ll be the bad guy. I’ve tried to coach Terry the best I can, and I’ve failed. If he goes on to have a proven NFL career, then obviously it was my fault he didn’t do better here.”

Said Dean of Spurrier: “He’s demanding. He’s a perfectionist. He wants you to be as perfect as you can be and he’s going to drive you toward that.

“He just does some things I really don’t understand, but he wins and, sad to say, that’s pretty much all people care about. As long as he’s winning, he’s one of the most successful guys in the world. He’s one of the great coaches coaching today. He’s got a great mind for the game. So far, that’s all that counts.”