Spurrier, like in ’90s, wants FSU in SEC

ORLANDO, Fla. — Here we are more than three decades later, and the age-old debate is now raging more fervently than ever.

Should Florida State have joined the SEC when it had the opportunity in the summer of 1990 when the Seminoles instead opted for an easier path to the national championship via the ACC?

None other than FSU’s most hated historic rival — Florida Gators legendary former coach Steve Spurrier — says he wanted FSU to join the SEC then and, yes, he’d like to see FSU join the SEC now.

“I think they had a chance [to join the SEC] back right before they joined the ACC,” Spurrier told me on my radio show Friday. “And I remember Bobby Bowden said, ‘I don’t wanna play that schedule — Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Georgia.’ Of course their schedule was already tough enough since they played us and Miami.”

Even though Spurrier is 78 years old now, his famously impeccable memory is as sharp as ever. With FSU now trying mightily to get out of the ACC and find its way to a more lucrative TV deal in the SEC, there are many FSU fans who wish their leaders had made a different decision 33 years ago.

In 1990, with the SEC and ACC considering expanding, FSU reportedly turned down one of the two expansion invitations to join the SEC (Arkansas and South Carolina took those spots) and instead became the ACC’s ninth member. Bowden used a boxing analogy at the time and compared the competition in the ACC to the tomato cans that the aging and overweight George Foreman was beating up at the time in his quest to regain the heavyweight championship.

“I’m like George Foreman,” Bowden said. “I like to pick those unranked guys out and fight ‘em. Ol’ George is out there knocking out these no-names, but he’ll be fighting for the heavyweight championship directly. Everybody just assumed ol’ Bobby was raised in the heart of the SEC, so naturally he’s going to want to jump right in. Maybe I know too much about the SEC to want to join up.”

Did FSU make the wrong decision back then? I have gone back and forth on this over the years.

On one hand, the Seminoles built their national brand by dominating the ACC during those early years in the league. Beginning in 1992 when FSU officially started playing games as a member of the ACC (then derisively referred to as the “All Cupcake Conference” by SEC fans), the Seminoles were undefeated in their first 29 league games and won conference championships nine straight times from 1992-2000. In its first 10 years in the ACC, FSU played for an amazing five national championships and won two of them.

On the other hand, FSU always has been a better fit in the football-fanatical SEC than in the basketball-bonkers ACC. Philosophically and geographically, FSU is an SEC school camouflaged in ACC clothing.

Unquestionably, Seminole fans would have been much more excited, bought more tickets and filled up their stadium over the years if they were playing conference games against Auburn, Alabama, LSU and Georgia rather than Wake Forest, North Carolina State, Virginia and Georgia Tech. It used to annoy Bowden that there would be so many empty seats at Doak Campbell Stadium even when the Seminoles were in their dominant, dynastic heyday. And when Jimbo Fisher became the coach in 2010, he too was bothered by the attendance for ACC home games.

“It’s a shame,” Fisher said then. “I mean, it really is. Because you wish you could come out and have a soldout stadium every week. That’s what you want. And if you have recruits coming to the games and you want good players, you like for them to see a full stadium.”

Undoubtedly, FSU has always been a better cultural fit in the SEC, but the important question still remains: Could the Seminoles have built a national football brand had they joined a more challenging league?

Of course, we’ll never know, but the Seminoles were, in fact, more than holding their own against the SEC back then. In the three seasons leading up to FSU’s decision to join the ACC, Bowden’s Seminoles had a seven-game winning streak against SEC teams, including three victories over SEC champion Auburn.

And let’s not forget, Spurrier’s Gators were pretty much dominating the SEC (finishing first in the league seven times in his 12 years) in the 1990s. However, Bowden’s Seminoles were 7-4-1 against Spurrier’s Gators.

“I used to sit back and say, ‘How come Alabama and Tennessee are not playing FSU like we have to every year?’ ” Spurrier says now. “Because in the ’90s, Nebraska was actually the winningest program in the country and FSU was second. [Actually, FSU was first, Nebraska was second and Florida was third.]

“I mean [FSU] had ballplayers all over the place.”

When asked about FSU bolting the ACC and perhaps joining the SEC today, Spurrier is in favor of it.

“Yeah, if they come into the SEC, heck, I think that would be good,” the Head Ball Coach says. “And maybe bring Miami or Clemson with them.”

For the first time in the history of the Florida-Florida State rivalry, FSU fans and administrators now actually agree with Steve Spurrier on something.