Steve Spurrier thinks that the current Florida Gators coaching staff could benefit from taking a look at his old “Fun ‘n’ Gun” offense at Florida.
Spurrier was a legend at Florida and coached his alma mater from 1990-2001. His teams never finished worse than 9-4 in a season, while he achieved double-digit win seasons in all but three of his years as the team’s coach. Under his watch, the Gators were known for their high-scoring ways.
The program has been on shakier ground since Urban Meyer left, with Jim McElwain recently being fired after going 3-4 this season. The current Gators are 3-5 and averaging just 20.6 points per game (114th of 130), a far cry for what the team used to do under the Ol’ Ball Coach.
During an extensive interview with Buddy Martin Thursday about the state of the program, Spurrier suggested Randy Shannon’s crew fire up some video tape of his old offense.
“The offense we ran in the 90s, that’s not what they do here now,” Spurrier said, as transcribed by OnlyGators.com. “People always say, ‘Well, coach Spurrier, why don’t you give them some ball plays?’ I say, ‘Listen, every play that we ran in the ’90s is there on video at the University of Florida. If they want to go back and watch Danny Wuerffel and Shane Matthews throw all those touchdown passes — we led the nation in touchdown passes through the 90s, more than any other school — it’s all on tape there. Go back and watch it. They don’t do that.”
Spurrier, who eventually returned to the SEC and helped build up South Carolina’s program, thinks Florida can get back to where they want to be. He suggests that they add some coaches to the staff who have Florida ties. He even mentioned a few of his former quarterbacks as potential assistants who could work with quarterbacks and beef up the offense. The 72-year-old coach even reportedly offered to help McElwain’s staff prior to the coach’s firing.
