Steve Spurrier's first UF team went 9-2, the best record in the Southeastern Conference, and began a run of offense domination that would transform the league, as well as the landscape of college football.
Harry Fodder: 'First-Year' Coach Award Named for Spurrier
Thursday, July 29, 2021 | Football
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Not long after being hired as Florida football coach in 1990, Steve Spurrier went to lunch with one of the university's mega-donors. Alfred McKethan sat across from Spurrier and told the favorite Gators son and former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback that the boosters and fan base weren't expecting much from his team that first year of his glorious homecoming, but added they did expect Florida to be good in football eventually. Steve Spurrier
Spurrier's response was a beauty. And vintage "Head Ball Coach."
"Let me tell you something, Mr. McKethan," he said. "We're going to be pretty good this year."
Away they went.
A more deserving or appropriate namesake for the First-Year Coach Award would not have been possible. The numbers tell the story — scream it, actually — as to why the award, set to enter its 20th season and now presented annually by the Football Writers Association of America, will henceforth be called the "Steve Spurrier First-Year Coach Award."
To understand why, rewind about three decades.
The 1989 Florida football season was one of turmoil, to be sure, as the Gators dealt with an NCAA investigation as well as a midseason coaching change. It was not, however, a season (i.e., a team) without talent. Quite the contrary, actually as the next coaching change proved out.
Those '89 Gators, led by future Pro Football Hall of Fame Emmitt Smith at tailback and a roster loaded with talented players went 7-5 and was basically as one-dimensional and unimaginative of offense as a college team could be. UF finished that season ranked third in the Southeastern Conference in total offense (392.82 yards per game), as well as second in rushing (244.82), thanks to Smith, and fifth in scoring (23.73 points per). The Gators, however, were next to last in passing (148.0 per game) — behind Ole Miss, Vanderbilt and Kentucky — and attempted the fewest passes in the league (218).
A year later, under Spurrier, the Gators not only went 9-2 — and would have won the first SEC title in program history, were it not for the violations of the previous tenure — but led the conference in total offense (452.55 ypg), still were able to run the ball (153.91 rushing yards per), averaged scored 35.36 points (second), and passed for a league-high 290.64 yards per game (almost 70 yards better than the runner-up).
They did it without Smith (who was in the NFL) and a quarterback, Shane Matthews, who went from '89 fifth-stringer to 1990 SEC Player of the Year.
The numbers, of course, got better from there (sometimes downright gaudy) and the SEC hasn't been the same since. "From Stone Age to Space Age" was how often how the league's evolution was billed.
And Spurrier did it.
"The 1990s in SEC football were synonymous with the Florida Gators," former FWAA president Mike Griffith said during a Zoom news conference Wednesday night that made the First-Year Coach name-change official.
The 2021 season will mark the 20th for the First-Year Coach Award, an honor that has gone to the likes of Chris Peterson (Boise State), Jimbo Fisher (Florida State), Chip Kelly (Oregon), Urban Meyer (Ohio State) and Josh Heupel (UCF). Only twice has it gone to a SEC coach. The last was Auburn's Gus Malzahn in 2013. The first was Spurrier at South Carolina in '05.
Had the award existed in '90, Spurrier no doubt would have won it at Florida, also. Probably at Duke in '87, as well.
"We always tried to emphasize setting goals very high," Spurrier said. "We didn't hit 'em all the time, but hit a lot of 'em."
Spurrier transformed Florida into a juggernaut of the 1990s, reeling off four straight SEC titles and a national championship from 1993-96 and eventually claiming six titles over his 12 seasons while turning Florida Field into one of the most intimidating venues in the nation— an astounding 68-5 record at home— during that reign.
Steve Spurrier is a rare double-inductee in the College Football Hall of Fame, having entered as both a player (in 1986) and coach (in 2017).
"This award is perfectly fit for him," said Chris Doering, the former Gator and hometown-kid-makes-good walk-on wide receiver whose Gainesville company, Chris Doering Mortgage, will be a sponsor of the award. "A guy who's had success everywhere he's been his first year in an era when a lot of coaches say they got to have two or three recruiting cycles before they can win. And he did it with guys he largely didn't recruit. The reason he did it was by making his players believe. That's one of most powerful forces in the universe; the ability to believe in yourself and believe in others."
It all dates to that 1990 season, which will now be commemorated and recalled in perpetuity, as the HBC's golden-touch legacy grows yet another branch.
"Hopefully, I can do my best to do it justice," Spurrier said.
