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Editor's Note: Geoffrey Norman is working on a book about college football in the state of Florida. Each week during the 2001 season, he will send a letter to Page 2, in which he will try to make sense of the personalities, events and peculiar culture that make up Sunshine State football.
Dear Page 2:
 Steve Spurrier still appeared stunned when he did the Sunday television show
where he looks at the films of the previous day's game and provides the
predictable commentary. In a bleak monotone, Spurrier told his audience what
they already knew, what they certainly didn't have to be told, since they had
seen it with their own eyes, either in the Swamp or on the tube: Against Tennessee, the Gators "just couldn't get it done."
While multitudes of Spurrier's detractors no doubt watched in delight, for
the disinterested observer, it was impossible not to feel some compassion for the man. The coach gets paid to do these shows, and he'll even star in some of the
commercials, but it can still be a tough deal. Usually, he sits with a
co-host whose job is roughly to serve as Regis, while the coach plays Kathy
Lee. After a big win, the coach can answer those lobbed softballs and preen.
But even after a good win on Saturday, your coach with normal DNA would
rather be in the office watching film or, this time of year, working on
recruiting. After a loss, he would, no doubt, sooner be answering inquiries from the NCAA.
A loss is, of course, always the coach's fault. Football -- especially
college football -- is a coach's game. Coaches are like generals -- they are
given great power and wide discretion, and treated with much deference. And
unlike generals, they are paid well. (Spurrier, who is the most highly paid
of all college coaches, makes more than $2 million a year.) What is expected of
them, in return, is simply that they win.
|  | | Florida wide receiver Jabar Gaffney and the Gators "just couldn't get it done." |
Coaches, like generals, can explain a victory with great fluency. Defeat, on
the other hand, leaves them mute. Even if you have a good alibi -- injuries,
bad calls, even inferior personnel -- people don't want to hear it. Better,
always, to simply say you "just couldn't get it done." Stoicism is one of the
prime coaching virtues, especially in defeat, and some coaches can actually
bring it off with grace. Joe Paterno, especially, comes to mind.
This isn't in Steve Spurrier's makeup, though. And he has exposed himself to
his enemies, so humility isn't going to work for him, even if he could bring
it off. Even so, he managed a kind of subdued graciousness as he narrated the
Gators' loss to Tennessee by two points. No SEC championship game. No Rose
Bowl. No national championship. The stakes had been very high and the Gators "just couldn't get it done."
More than any other college football program, Florida experiences exquisitely
lofty highs and thuddingly depressing lows. The first time the Gators played
for the national championship, Nebraska scored more than 60 points on them.
It was a game that left people wondering if the Gators, and their coach were tough enough.
The next year, with a new defensive coordinator, Florida played much more
physical football and was cruising until they went to Tallahassee, Fla., and lost
24-21. Florida seemed out of the national championship picture, then after a
weekend like the recent one where Nebraska and Oklahoma lost, the Gators
were given a chance at redemption. In a rematch with FSU, they won
convincingly and seemed to have slain their old demons.
Not, however, for long. Season before last, Florida lost a fluky early season
game to Alabama. Things got back on course, however, and by the time FSU came
to the Swamp, the Gators were talking national championship. They lost to the
Seminoles in a close game they could have won, which seemed to take something
vital out of the team. Alabama blew them out in the SEC Championship. Then
Florida lost badly to Michigan State in the Citrus Bowl, a game Spurrier had
disdained as an inferior venue, suitable for also-rans. In the course of
that three-game losing streak, Spurrier said some disparaging things about his players, a few of whom seemed to quit on him. There were questions about whether he and the team could reconnect and bounce back. Could the Spurrier era, easily the greatest in Gators football, be over?
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Win out and go to Pasadena. But the Gators "just couldn't get it done." As with some of those other dramatic losses, the defeat by Tennessee is seen as a statement of some sort about the team's character. Which is another way of saying ... the coaching. |
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Last year, Mississippi State ran all over Florida in an early game. Again,
the team came back after a humiliating loss, but then lost badly in
Tallahassee. Then won the SEC. Lost to Miami in the Sugar Bowl.
This season, there were the preseason No. 1 rankings. The early, easy wins.
Then, the inexplicable loss to Auburn. Another climb back to the top, which,
combined with those losses by Oklahoma and Nebraska, set the Gators up. Win out and go to Pasadena. But the Gators "just couldn't get it done." As with some of those other dramatic losses, the defeat by Tennessee is seen as a statement of some sort about the team's character. Which is another way of saying ... the coaching.
When Steve Spurrier brought his wide-open passing offense to the SEC,
old-time coaches and fans sneered and all but called him a sissy. He might
have won at Duke, but you didn't beat Alabama and Georgia, LSU and Auburn
that way. You had to physically dominate them. The final score was a measure
of which team had imposed its will on the other.
Spurrier changed all of that. He and the Gators won, and the not-so-buried
implication was that they did it not by being tougher but by being smarter.
Spurrier could outscheme any defense. In his system, there was always an open man.
Last Saturday, Florida could not rush the ball. Tennessee, meanwhile, ran it
down the Gators' throats. There was pretty much always an open man, but
Florida quarterback Rex Grossman was also pretty much always under pressure.
Tennessee's paunchy, plodding coach didn't have to outscheme the lean and
wily Spurrier. His plan was simple -- go out there and outmuscle them. Which
the Vols did. Mercilessly.
Comebacks are hard and each one gets harder. Florida finished 9-2 in the
regular season, but of the major team goals, the only one the Gators
accomplished is the one Spurrier likes to pretend isn't really that important
-- beating FSU. The season is, to say the least, a disappointment. (FSU fans
are vastly more satisfied with their 7-4 than the Gators are with 9-2.) Gators
fans are howling for a new defensive coordinator, strength coach, offensive
line coach ... whatever. Some are simply howling ... no doubt, because it
helps them forget the pain.
|  | | Tennessee's John Henderson nails Florida QB Rex Grossman, left. |
The wheels have already begun turning in the rumor mill. Spurrier to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
as soon as Tony Dungy is out. Spurrier to the Jacksonville Jaguars once Tom Coughlin is hired at Notre
Dame. R.C. Slocum of Texas A&M to the Gators. Who knows where that one came
from? Some fans who read tea leaves or study chicken guts for omens see the
loss as the event that will finally send Spurrier to the NFL. Others say
that it guarantees he will be back in Gainesville.
This most interesting immediate question, however, is how Florida plays in
its next game, a bowl to be determined later. According to the teachings of
the orthodox football church, this will be a statement game. After just
missing a chance to play in the biggest of the postseason games, can the
Gators make themselves play hard in, for instance, the Enron-Polaroid Losers
Bowl? Which is another way of asking, "Can Spurrier get them up for the game
and make them play for pride?"
Gators fans who have looked beyond the problems with the defense (Spurrier has never had difficulty changing coordinators) are wondering if the team will:
a) Come out hungry
b) Show some kind of running game, especially if it gets a lead
c) Avoid the dumb penalties that most teams consider drive killers, but that Florida seems to think don't matter since they can always get five yards for delay back on one of those intricate crossing routes
d) Tackle.
The answers to those questions will probably reveal more about Spurrier's
state of mind to anxious Gators fans than anything he says between now and
then. This was to have been the year. Next year, with Tennessee and FSU on
the road, not to mention Miami at home, 9-2 might not be so easy, and there
could be more Sundays when coming into the studio to do that television show is a real ordeal.
Sincerely,
Geoffrey Norman
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