Steve Spurrier is one of college football's greatest archenemies

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One fanbase's savior is another's nemesis: there are two sides to every story, after all. In sports — which are literally zero-sum games — in order to have a winner, there must also be a loser.

Those facts ring especially true in college football, a game that thrives on the emotions of players, coaches and fans alike every fall. Predictably, over the course of the collegiate gridiron's 156 years, there have been no shortage of archenemies that have helped stoke the ire of their opponents.

But few have fueled the fire quite as well as former Florida Gators (and South Carolina Gamecocks) head coach Steve Spurrier, who was renowned for his sharp tongue and results-driven rhetoric across both the Southeastern Conference and the nation as a whole.

ESPN's writing staff recently compiled a list of the archenemies of every school in the Power Four and the stories that make them public enemy No. 1 on campus, with Spurrier earning five mentions. Three of those were for fellow SEC schools — Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee — plus one for Florida State during his UF tenure, while the fifth was for Clemson while he was on the sidelines at South Carolina.

Here is what the authors offered for each of those entries.

Georgia Bulldogs

"Nobody loved beating the Bulldogs — and then bragging about it — more than Spurrier, the former Florida and South Carolina coach. From 1990 to 2001, Spurrier flipped the script at the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, leading the Gators to an 11-1 record against their rivals. In 1995, when the game was played in Athens, Georgia, because of construction at the stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, the Gators became the first team to hang "half a hundred" on the Bulldogs at Sanford Stadium in a 52-17 victory," Mark Schlabach writes.

"The next season, Spurrier handed Georgia the most lopsided loss in the series with a 47-7 rout. Then, as South Carolina's coach from 2005 to 2015, Spurrier knocked off four ranked Georgia teams. He famously told reporters, "I sort of always liked playing them that second game because you could always count on them having two or three key players suspended."

Kentucky Wildcats

"Few, if any, SEC foes have tormented Kentucky quite like Florida over the past 40 years. That reality is underscored by the Wildcats' 31-game losing streak to the Gators from 1987 to 2017, the fourth longest in an uninterrupted series in NCAA history, highlighted by Danny Wuerffel and Chris Doering's late rally in the 1993 matchup. No one, seemingly, savored Florida's dominance more than former Gators coach Spurrier, who routinely jabbed the Wildcats in the media and ran up the score when he ran into Kentucky on the field from 1990 to 2001," says Eli Lederman.

"That disdain never faded. In 2006, Clemson lost to Spurrier's South Carolina team, then fell to Kentucky in the Music City Bowl a month later. The following summer, Spurrier quipped, "We thought we had done something good beating Clemson. And then Kentucky beat 'em.'"

Tennessee Volunteers

"Spurrier, who grew up in Johnson City, Tennessee, delighted in tormenting the Vols. He went 8-4 against Tennessee while he was coaching Florida, including five straight wins from 1993 to 1997, one of the best stretches in Tennessee football history. Peyton Manning was 32-5 as the Vols' starter, but three of those losses came to Spurrier and the Gators, including a 62-37 rout in 1995, the Vols' only defeat of the season," Dave Wilson notes.

"And it wasn't just that Spurrier beat them, it was the way he did it and the pride he took in it. After Tennessee played in the Citrus Bowl — the consolation prize for the SEC's second-place team — following the 1993, 1995 and 1996 seasons, Spurrier famously told a Gator Club booster group in the summer of '97, 'You can't spell 'Citrus' without 'U-T.''"

Florida State Seminoles

"The 2023 selection committee, and specifically chair Boo Corrigan, have earned a place near the top of the villain list for Seminoles faithful. But it is hard to unseat Spurrier, who trolled the Seminoles and coach Bobby Bowden at every turn during his 12-year tenure at Florida. Calling FSU "Free Shoes University" after a scandal involving players getting free merchandise from Foot Locker in the 1990s was only the tip of the iceberg," said Andrea Adelson.

"While it is true Spurrier did not have a winning record against the rival Noles, he helped keep Florida State from winning two more national titles with wins in the 1997 Sugar Bowl, then later with a two-quarterback approach to close the 1997 regular season in a game that handed the Seminoles their only loss of the season."

Clemson Tigers

"You've got to hand it to the Head Ball Coach, who is high up on the nemesis board for a lot of schools. Eventually, Dabo Swinney and Clemson overcame the Spurrier bugaboo, but from 2009 through 2013, the Tigers made it an annual tradition: arrive at the Palmetto Bowl with a high ranking and big expectations, only for Spurrier and South Carolina to deliver a devastating blow," David Hale offers.

"That Spurrier and Swinney were friendly off the field never mattered. Swinney's biggest gift in those early years was his ability to turn the perfect quote to thrill fans, but Spurrier managed to undercut even that, turning those brutal Clemson losses into an offseason of cutting — and hilarious — jokes that only added salt to the Tigers' wounds," he continues.

"How big was beating Spurrier for the Tigers? In 2014, freshman phenom DeShaun Watson played on a torn ACL — just so Clemson could end its losing streak. So what if Spurrier had lost his fastball by then? It was the only way to exorcise the demons."

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This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Steve Spurrier is one of college football's greatest archenemies

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