Florida football royalty appeared on SEC Nation Saturday morning in Gainesville ahead of the season opener against Miami.
The two “greatest quarterbacks in the history of Gator football” appeared alongside the man who brought the winning culture to The Swamp — the Head Ball Coach, [autotag]Steve Spurrier[/autotag] — in a segment hosted by UF Journalism School alumna [autotag]Laura Rutledge[/autotag].
Spurrier deflected much of the praise that came from [autotag]Tim Tebow[/autotag] and [autotag]Danny Wuerffel[/autotag], but he offered some commentary on the mentality shift he’d like to see from the Gators after three-straight losing seasons.
“That’s what we need to get back to right there,” Spurrier said after being reminded of a time when Florida consistently competed for the SEC crown.
“Our expectations have got to be up there and go after them. Somebody asked me one time, ‘How did you guys win so many SECs?’ Danny and his guys won four in a row, ’93 through ’96.
“Somebody once said, that what you accomplish in life is proportionate to what you attempt to do. And we tried to win it every year. Y’all did too,” Spurrier said pointing to Tebow. “You can’t win it every year. It just doesn’t work out. But if you try to every year, sometimes you might just do it.”
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Wuerffel added to Spurrier’s comments, noting that it takes more than desire to accomplish what his teams did.
“When you have great players, you also have people who care about one another,” Wuerffel said remembering a Tebow comment from earlier.
“There’s some magic that happens when it’s not just about you. You kind of sprinkle that in with some swagger, with maybe the greatest offensive head coach ever (Spurrier) and you make a run.
“I think we were a little ahead of our time. We were cutting edge. Several of those pieces are together now, but this team needs to find their swagger, find what they can do to put a run together.”
Spurrier closed the segment out by remembering a quote from tennis great Arthur Ashe.
“Preparation will build confidence, and confidence leads to success.”
Wuerffel and Tebow concluded that the culture is changing in Gainesville under Billy Napier.
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