Nick Saban’s reign of terror with Alabama has come to an end and most would agree that the legendary Crimson Tide head coach belongs on the college football coaches Mount Rushmore, but which other coaches make that four-man list?
Any good Florida Gators should immediately think of Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer when reading that question. Both men led the Orange and Blue to championships, Meyer with a 2-to-1 edge, but it’s Spurrier who received mention when The Athletic’s Ari Wasserman and David Ubben attempted to come up with the four greatest college football coaches of all time.
With Saban as the commonality, Wasserman went with Pete Carroll (USC), Woody Hayes (Ohio State) and Dabo Swinney (Clemson), while Ubben named Bill Snyder (Kansas State), Knute Rockne (Notre Dame) and Eddie Robinson (Grambling State).
But where is Steve Spurrier?
The Head Ball Coach was the first name up on the honorable mention list in this exercise, earning the superlative of “most entertaining.”
“He’s the troll king of college football,” Wasserman and Ubben said of Spurrier. “Poking and prodding anyone and everyone, enraging people in the sport who might take themselves a little too seriously. And he was a man after our own heart with a willingness to always take a breather for a good tee time.
“He saved the best arrows for his rivals. From telling Tennessee that you can’t spell Citrus without UT to noting he loved to play Georgia early in the season because he could count on a few players being suspended for offseason shenanigans, even the fans who hated Spurrier most had to be smiling in their heart of hearts. Funny is funny.”
Spurrier, of course, did his fair share of winning with Florida, bringing the first national championship in program history back to Gainesville and establishing the Orange and Blue as one of the nation’s elite programs.
He did good work at South Carolina too after his NFL stint. Although he didn’t make the mountain range for either write at The Athletic, Spurrier is truly among the college football coaching elite.
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