Steve Spurrier jokes that Florida's offense has made him want to coach again
Could Florida’s disastrous offense over the past few seasons have given Steve Spurrier motivation to coach again?
The former Florida and South Carolina coach has been mentioned as a possible coach for the upstart Alliance of American Football. And Spurrier admitted he’s been in conversations about joining up with the new league.
“Yeah I miss the challenge,” he told ESPN’s Paul Finebaum Thursday. “I think maybe watching the Gator offense the last couple years has given me an itch to try to do that again.”
The Alliance of American Football was announced earlier this spring and has a launch date of February 2019. The proposed schedule will be 10 weeks long and feature players who are trying to make it to the NFL. One of the selling points of the league is shorter games that won’t feature television timeouts.
“They’ve got a TV deal with CBS. They want to have football games that last 2 and a half hours instead of four, four and a half, emphasis on safety,” Spurrier said. “There will be no kickoffs. No extra points, go for two every time. Some new rules in place. And trying not to stop the game with so many replays and commercials and all that sort of stuff. Keep the game moving.”
The league has signed former NFL players like Troy Polamalu, Hines Ward and Jared Allen to serve as executives.
If Spurrier, 72, wants to jump back into coaching, he’ll be paid pretty well too. According to a Sporting News report in February, coaches could make $500,000.
A 10-week season in a league that doesn’t have a year-round grind like college football or the NFL seems like a good fit for Spurrier, who loves to play golf and enjoy non-football things. He retired from his job at South Carolina after his team started the 2015 season at 2-4. Between stints at Florida and South Carolina, he coached the Washington Redskins.
Spurrier also made sure to get in a crack at longtime SEC rival Tennessee during his interview with Finebaum. When he was asked what he’d say to Tennessee fans, he said “I would tell the Vols you can’t be any worse.”
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter
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