Spurrier. That guy.
Why, Steve Spurrier nearly blew it for ambitious college coaches everywhere.
Until Spurrier tanked with the Washington Redskins, few college mentors seemed better prepared for a head coaching job with an NFL team. Spurrier not only was a huge winner (122-27-1) in a major program at the University of Florida, he flourished coaching the passing game, the area where college ball and the pros separate into different worlds.
Spurrier also had attained celebrity status at the college level, which figured to help him deal with the intense big-city media spotlight, and his 10 years as an NFL backup quarterback was proof of familiarity with the pro system.
Yet by Spurrier’s own admission, pro coaching wasn’t for him.
“Steve Spurrier was more of a laid-back coach, easygoing,” said Broncos cornerback Champ Bailey, who played two seasons for Spurrier with the Redskins. “We had a young team, and I don’t think that style worked for our team. If he had that style with this (Broncos) team, I think it would work because we have so many veterans, we know how to take care of each other.”
After going 12-20 in two seasons with the Redskins, Spurrier took a buyout and a year’s hiatus before returning this year to the college ranks. He now coaches South Carolina.
“What’s fun for me here is when we coach a particular way of doing something, nobody says, ‘You can’t do it that way in the NFL, it doesn’t work in the NFL.’ I haven’t heard that since I’ve been here,” he said. “These players are a lot of fun to coach, they’re very attentive and they try to do it the way you ask them. Not all NFL guys are like that, but a few are set in their ways: ‘This is the way we do it and we don’t do it that way.”‘
Maybe Nick Saban can get through to the pro player. Having most recently led teams at Michigan State and Louisiana State, Saban gives college coaches new hope by coaching the Miami Dolphins.
Saban makes his debut as an NFL head coach today against the Broncos. While at the college level, he applied what he learned as an assistant for Bill Belichick when they were with the Cleveland Browns.
“We draft in college like we drafted in the pros,” Saban said. “I don’t think many of these other (college) coaches that went to the NFL actually did that. The systems that we learned in the NFL, as far as size and speed and athletic attributes for each position and mental and psychological characteristics to be successful, are all things that we used in college. Most people don’t do that.”
