Good read and nice to see a positive pulse coming from within.
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http://espn.go.com/espn/print?id=12180740&type=story
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Well said, but I disagree...sometimes in life it is helpful to get a "kick in the butt"- it can rejuvenate you and remind you of things maybe you had forgotten or taken for granted. I think Spurrier has had that kick in the butt, and he and the team will be better off for it. The assistants as well. Hey, these same guys were heros a couple of years ago- last season was the classic wake up call. A rejuvenated HBC- just what the Dr ordered. Let's go get after it. go cocks- SteveOriginally posted by coq-au-vandy:
After reading the article and listening to the Chris Low interview on the radio, I can't help but think that this isn't going to end well.
This feels like the situation when you have almost talked your grandfather into giving up or scaling back his driving after a couple of recent close calls. He knows that you are right, but it's really hard for him to admit, because driving was his life and love and he's always been good at it. He gets really close to pulling the trigger on giving up wheel-time, because he's not clueless. But then he recoils, decides that he doesn't want to give it up, and tries even harder to convince you that he can still drive like when he was 30, despite what everyone thinks. "I just need to pay more attention. Age is just a number". So the family members then just give up and hope for the best. It's simply stubborn playing out with someone who has earned and who gets your respect. Chris Low gets these interviews because he's like a family member for Spurrier, so take his story angle and his thoughts with a grain of salt.
Tell me anyone who has as much energy and focus and motivation after 70 to do things as well as they used to. This isn't saying that they can't work at an acceptable level, persuade well, manage, or show periods of "see, I can do this" re-invigoration. But in this case, we are talking a football world (particularly on the offensive side) that changes and speeds up every day and that requires increasingly and excessively high energy, quick information processing, mind-power, and stamina and the ability to give this consistently with little to no down time. It also requires leading 20 year olds and playing a physical game, not negotiating with foreign governments. It's probably the best example of a younger man's world. Spurrier's whole get up for the 6 a.m. Friday run just sort of smacks of symbolic desperation.
What Spurrier needs to be doing is simply to recognize this (which I think he does), but instead of trying to set the alarm clock earlier, forget his age, and pretend that it's the good old days, he needs to find an OC who can handle the workload and the increasing speed of the game. He can still be the CEO for as long as he wants, but he has to give up driving the truck. How many times this year did it seem that the HBC was just not processing information and decision-making quickly enough and that the game seemed one step ahead of where he was - eg. 3rd down play calling that he wanted back, two-point conversion opportunities missed, bad time management, delay of game penalties during sideline audibles? And he admits that all of this was indeed on him.
Georgia and Auburn were pretty good days. The play calling made you remember the glory years. Tennessee and Missouri and Kentucky not so much. The problem is that you can't afford more than one bad day in today's playoff environment. And Spurrier seems to now be saying that the solution is that he can take even more control, and just turn on his energy switch, and just get the team to like each other more.
I remember an article at the beginning of the year that was celebrating the fact that Spurrier felt that he could achieve success with much less time and effort from himself and his staff than other programs and coaches put in, like he always had. Where did that go?
So as the HBC often says about planning and preparing for the future and the ultimate results of the effort..."I guess we'll find out".
If he's not running out of gas, then he should have kept his mouth shut. Recruits care about what he said...it's not a tough concept to grasp.Originally posted by searooster:
Sounds like some of our posters are transposing their own declining ambition, as they age, onto Steve Spurrier's attitude. It's silly to assume that SOS is running out of gas just because he's 70 years old. That's really not an advanced age today, unless you've sustained severe head trauma or some other serious illness, which is not the case with Spurrier.