Steve Spurrier in the XFL? We can only hope!

Steve Spurrier was asked an interesting question during an interview?

During that interview, a man is heard asking, “Is there any future for the ole “Ball Coach” in the XFL maybe?” To that Spurrier replied, “Not this year.” He then adds, “In the future, who knows what could happen.” (Listen to the clip below)

Spurriers Career As Head Coach

Spurrier is a coaching legend, he’s coached in the USFL, NCAA, NFL & AAF. His total record is 282 victories with 129 defeats and only 2 ties. He lead his college teams (Duke, Florida & South Carolina) to 21 bowl games and won 11 of them. He is known to have averaged 10 (or more) victories in a single season for most of his career. 15 seasons to be exact, out of 31 years of coaching.

Now that might not sound like a big deal, a little less than half his career but let’s look at the winningest coach in NCAA’s history, John Gagliardi with 489-138-11, he coached for 64 seasons and he only had 18 seasons with 10 or more wins. Spurrier coached for half that time and only has 3 less. I don’t think that’s too bad as Spurrier is at 48% vs. Gagliardi’s 28% for his years coached. Of course, those two are not the only coaches to have such records but the list is so big we don’t have time to go into every coaches record. I only use Gagliardi’s as an example since he is the winningest coach.

If you ask most football fans who Steve Spurrier is, perhaps some of them wouldn’t know the name, but you ask a Florida Gators’ fan and they’ll tell you he was a legend as he brought the Gators first conference title in 83 years.

All but three of his seasons were only 9 wins while the other nine seasons were 10 wins or more. During his stint at Florida, he lead his team to a bowl game every year for twelve straight seasons which started the 5th longest streak of 22 consecutive bowl-game appearances in NCAA’s history. The Gators won six of those and also won the national championship in 1996 when they blew out the Florida State Seminoles 52 to 20 in the “Nokia” Sugar Bowl. 

How Spurrier Started In Coaching

He’s career as head coach actually started with the United States Football League (USFL) in 1983 where he accepted the job for the Tampa Bay Bandits. He would coach the team for three seasons before the league folded in ‘86 ending with a 35-31 record and appearing in two playoff games.

One year after the USFL ended he then went to Duke to become their head coach. His first two seasons were not his best but in his third year leading the Blue Devils to the “All-American” Bowl. Duke would fall to Texas Tech in a 49 to 21 victory but marked the first conference championship for the Blue Devils in 27 years. Spurrier would leave Duke after the ‘89 season to return to his college where he played at quarterback, Florida.

After Florida, he would then be the head coach for the South Carolina Gamecocks from 2005 to 2015 after his failed NFL head coaching attempt where he coached the Washington Redskins for two straight seasons in 2002 and ‘03 that left him with a 12 and 20 record.

For South Carolina, he regained his stature as he lead the Gamecocks to the Independence Bowl in 2005. They would lose to Missouri 38 to 31 after blowing a fourteen point lead going into the second half.

The next year he would win the Liberty Bowl over the Houston Cougars in 2006. For South Carolina, he would win five bowl championship games for the school and become one of the best head coaches for South Carolina Gamecocks ending his career as their all-time winningest coach.

During the 2015 season, only 6 games in Spurrier resigned as head coach. Though he said he wasn’t officially retiring he did say that he would probably never coach again. 

Spurrier In The AAF

But in 2018 Spurrier accepted the head coaching job for the newly created professional football league the Alliance of American Football (AAF) for the Orlando team Apollos. Games started one week after Super Bowl LIII and would only make it for eight weeks before folding.

Before the fold, however, Spurrier and the Apollos were the favored team to win the AAF championship game as they finished with the best record with 7 and 1 and the most solid team in the league.

Spurrier stated after the league disbanded that he felt they should be named the AAF regular-season champions since they would never have a championship team but nothing was ever done or said as, like the league, faded into the history of failed professional startup leagues. 

Steve Spurrier In The XFL

I myself would love to see Steve Spurrier return to coaching in the XFL as he has a great well-rounded style of play. For the AAF (whether you liked it or not) the Apollos made the game fun with innovative and explosive plays and winning almost all the games by a landslide. And with a record like Spurrier has overall is a nice legacy. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame first as a player in 1986 and later as a coach in 2017. 

Could we see Steve Spurrier in the XFL? I believe it’s highly possible! Let’s not forget his son Scott Spurrier is on the Dallas staff under Bob Stoops who is a close friend to Steve.

Scott was with his father for the Apollos as his Tight Ends coach so perhaps he can reunite with his father as the coach on the same team in the near future….or coach against each other. Rumor has it Spurrier even convinced (or enticed) Stoops to come out of retirement to take the head coach job for the Dallas franchise so perhaps those two will reunite to coach again together as they did at Florida. Only time will tell if that will happen.

Would you like to see Spurrier in the XFL? Let us know in the comments if so and why!