MIAMI — Tim Tebow’s eyes widened and an impish smile crossed his face, presumably the way it does when he’s about to bulldoze some hapless defensive back in the open field.
This time, though, it was Florida’s sparkplug quarterback who was trapped with no escape.
“Is there a good way to answer this?” he asked.
Nope. But that’s half the fun.
If the Gators beat Oklahoma to capture their second national championship in three years, coach Urban Meyer will have doubled the number of titles claimed by UF’s favorite son, Steve Spurrier.
And in one-third the time.
How much closer would that bring Meyer to overtaking Spurrier in the hearts and minds of Gator Nation?
Who’d you rather have: The Ol’ Ball Coach, or the Now Ball Coach?
“It’s like your firstborn,” said Buddy Martin, proprietor of GatorCountry.com and author of two books on Florida football.
“Even though you don’t favor one over the other, you still realize that your firstborn is special. Steve Spurrier was Florida’s firstborn.”
That’s the consensus gleaned from a cross-section of Gator insiders, analysts and orange-and-blue faithful anticipating Thursday night’s showdown at Dolphin Stadium.
“It’s just the way the program (blossomed) at the time Spurrier took over,” said Enrique Escofet, a Miami dentist and member of the 1,500-strong Gator Club of Miami.
“He brought a lot of excitement, a lot of creativity, a lot of fun to Florida football that had been missing for a while.”
Spurrier first endeared himself to Gator faithful as a player, winning the 1966 Heisman Trophy. Twenty-four years later, he returned to Gainesville as coach to straighten out a program where desperation to win had landed the Gators in the NCAA doghouse.
When Spurrier arrived in 1990, the Gators had endured more stints under NCAA penalties (two) than Southeastern Conference titles (zero). Six of his 12 seasons ended with SEC crowns, including four in a row from 1993-96.
“He made it Camelot,” said Matt Hayes, a Sporting News college football writer who spent time on the Gator beat. “That’s what they’ll always remember him for.
“The championships are obvious: the national title, the SEC titles. But I think it’s more about how he made people feel in that program. They were losers for so long. He made them not only feel like winners, but feel like they should win.”
And he did it with such style. As much as anyone, Spurrier transformed the college football landscape in the 90s with his Fun ‘n’ Gun aerial show. His five-receiver sets and gun-slinging quarterbacks operated in an offense so far ahead of its time, programs from College Park to College Station and everywhere in between were left trying to catch up.
“Spurrier definitely put the Gators back on the map,” said Mike Nathanson, a Coral Springs real-estate broker and vice president of the Broward County Gator Club.
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