The way Steve Spurrier sees it, he isn’t so much kicking a man while’s down as he is being a straight shooter. Apparently the former Florida football coach was never impressed with the offense under Jim McElwain, and following his ouster, he let his opinion be known.
“The offense has been so bad, everybody knows it,” Spurrier told The State. “Did you see us play Georgia? Yeah, it was a sad, sad day, but anyway…”
Florida managed to get only one score on the board against the Georgia Bulldogs this weekend, losing the game by a final score of 42-7. That proved to be the straw that broke the sharks back, and McElwain and the university parted ways on Sunday.
Since then, rumors have crept into the mill that Spurrier might be interested in making a triumphant return to the Florida Gators sideline as their newest head coach.
It might not slow the rumors down, but Spurrier says he has no interest in coaching college level football again.
“No, no, no. I am finished as a head coach,” he said. “I said I may come back and coach high school ball, quarterbacks or something like that. In fact, Marcus Lattimore saw that in the paper and called me up last week. He said, ‘Coach, I need a quarterback coach here at Heathwood Hall.’ I told him I live in Gainesville, Fla. That’s the only problem.”
Spurrier was known as an offensive genius in his day, and apparently reached out to McElwain on a number of occasions about helping on offense. He was always politely turned away, and instead offered plays to offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier in his consultant’s role.
If McElwain would have taken one or two more of the suggestions, he might still be the coach in Gainesville.
There were plenty of other things that contributed to McElwain’s departure from the program, but the poor play on the field this season was certainly a major contributing factor. Reports say that the coaching search is in full-effect, and considering how desirable the Florida Gators job is, they’ll have no problem getting a top tier coach to try and turn the program around.
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