As great a coach Steve Spurrier has been as a, well, coach, he's something like undefeated as an attendee of SEC Media Days.
Whoever thinks sportswriters are supposed to be objective probably has not witnessed a Spurrier media days session and then the media's reaction to it. Most of these folks are ready to eat the free food out of his hands after he fires off his zingers and one-liners.
Paul Finebaum, for one, was not amused with Spurrier's ability to work the room yesterday. He said he was "perplexed" about Spurrier taking digs at Arkansas and Tennessee, mystified by his willingness to be so optimistic after a dispiriting 7-6 season in 2014.
Wait, wasn't it Finebaum who was excessively hyping South Carolina as a national title contender a year ago?
You just can't make this stuff up...
A few Wednesday links before heading out to Dabo Swinney's golf outing:
-- Kevin Scarbinsky is one of the many who swooned over Spurrier's address.
The more college football become a year-round business, the more it needs a legendary coach who'll take time to work out during the season, play golf in the off-season and poke fun at himself and his rivals 12 months a year.
Only Spurrier would stand up at SEC Media Days and suggest that Danny Sheridanplace odds on which of the league's 14 head coaches will still be on the job four years from now.
Don't bet against the Ball Coach. He still can coach 'em up, and he has more perspective than ever on how important college football is and how important it isn't.
If he can find a reason to feel good and keep going after a season that included one-score losses to Auburn, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, he just might outlast them all.
-- Orlando's Mike Bianchi, who's covered Spurrier for a long time, says he's starting to sound like Bobby Bowden.
Bobby Bowden once said, "When you retire, there's only one big event left, and I ain't ready for that."
Likewise, Spurrier said on Tuesday: "The retirement thing, I don't think I'd be very good at it."
See what I mean?
The older he gets, the more he sounds like Bowden, who would have coached until the day he died if Florida State had let him.
At South Carolina, where expectations are much lower, Spurrier might just have that opportunity.
It's sounding more and more like the Head Ball Coach might just stick around until he's the dead ball coach.
Let's hope so.
Long live Steve Spurrier.
College football needs him.
-- Butch Jones takes exception to Spurrier's observation that the Vols were just thrilled to win seven games.
Butch Jones promises nobody at Tennessee was doing cartwheels over a winning season, whatever Steve Spurrier says.
The Volunteers coach opened Southeastern Conference media days Tuesday responding to Spurrier's earlier remark to reporters regarding how Tennessee and Arkansas were celebrating 7-6 seasons that exceeded most expectations.
Spurrier's South Carolina team had the same record after opening ranked in the top 10.
"Contrary to reports, there were no backflips and there were no somersaults," Jones said. "But I think in the world of college football, you're judged by wins and losses but also you're judged by does your team overachieve or underachieve.
"And I think last year's football team overachieved."
-- This Mississippi columnist takes Dan Mullen to task for not taking a stronger stance on the Confederate symbol in their state flag.
He knew it was coming, because The Clarion-Ledger has made it clear to both MSU and Ole Miss that it is interested in their coaches’ thoughts on the Confederate symbol still being a part of the state flag and would use this week to ask Mullen and Hugh Freeze. It’s important not only because they’re leaders in the state but also because the NCAA will not allow postseason events to be played in Mississippi because of the flag.
So when the question came from The Clarion-Ledger’s Michael Bonner, it was an opportunity to really slam home the kind of response that makes it clear Mullen’s take on the issue. And this is what we got: “That's a lot for people in Jackson and for the people in Mississippi. I know -- I don't see it very often. We don't have it on our campus up. I do know we're the most diverse campus in the Southeastern Conference. I know the university embraces that diversity as a whole. I certainly embrace that diversity. We're so diverse, they have a Yankee as the head football coach in the Southeastern Conference.
“I think it's something that on a national level is getting an awful lot of attention right now, that people are really looking into how we can make things better in the state of Mississippi. And I hope as a university we're out on the forefront trying to help make things better with the type of school that we have and the diversity we have in our school.”
-- And we close with a timely offering from Harry Nilsson:
LW
