USC fires football coach Sarkisian
Plenty of candidates for head job, college experts say.
South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier informed his coaching staff Monday night that he was retiring, effective immediately, a person with knowledge of the matter told USA TODAY Sports.
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision had not been announced publicly.
Spurrier, 70, will address the decision and an interim coach will be named Tuesday at a news conference.
The Head Ball Coach had a 228-89-2 record in college, including the 1996 national championship while at Florida.
“He will go down as one of the great coaches in the game,” said former Georgia coach and athletics director Vince Dooley, who won a national title himself in 1980. “He was a very good player. He was a winner. He was just a natural athlete and loved to com- pete. And he coached the same way.
“He had great confidence that spilled over to his coaching. He had great confidence in himself as a coach, and that reflected in the way he coached his quarterbacks. Nobody did a better job coaching quarterbacks than he did.”
Mississippi coach Hugh Freeze said on Twitter, “Coach Spurrier has impacted & influenced more of us in this business than he will ever know. He will be missed and will always be the ‘HBC.’ ”
Spurrier won the 1966 Heisman Trophy as a quarterback with the Gators.
He coached Duke University, the Washington Redskins (where he was 12-20 in two seasons) and the USFL’s Tampa Bay Bandits. His college coaching career includes seven conference championships in addition to the national title.
This season has been, to say the least, difficult. The Gamecocks are 2-4 as they prepare to host Vanderbilt on Saturday. The team is 0-4 in Southeastern Con- ference play, the first time Spurrier has opened a season with so many consecutive defeats. He has never had a losing season at South Carolina. He went 6-6 in 2007, his third campaign with the team.
Spurrier is the winningest coach in South Carolina history with an 86-49 record. He is 20876-1 in the SEC.
After three consecutive seasons of leading the Gamecocks to 11-2 records, the team fell to 7-6 last season.
With the games against ranked opponents Florida, Texas A&M and Clemson remaining, along with a road game against Tennessee, the odds of South Carolina keeping Spurrier’s streak of nonlosing seasons alive appears difficult at best.
Last season began with high expectations, but South Carolina had to salvage a winning season by topping Miami (Fla.) in the Independence Bowl.
Spurrier faced questions about his future in the offseason, but he shot them all down at SEC media days in July, when he said he was rejuvenated.
“He loved football,” Dooley said. “He loved golf and his family.”
As much as he was known for his offensive acumen, he was also known for his acerbic wit:
To Tennessee (the state from which he hailed), which Spurrier’s Gators beat time and again in the 1990s, keeping the Volunteers out of the SEC title game and out of the Sugar Bowl, he quipped: “You can’t spell Citrus without U-T.”
When a fire at Auburn destroyed 20 books: “The real tragedy was that 15 hadn’t been colored yet.”
Concerning a scandal at archrival Florida State: “You know what FSU stands for, don’t you? Free Shoes University.”
Several Gamecocks players reacted on Twitter, with senior defensive end Gerald Dixon writing: “Always will be a pleasure being (coached) by a legend.”