Sports: Spurrierisms

Spurrierisms

By GREG AUMAN and KEITH NIEBUHR

"I'm not saying anybody broke any rules; I'm just saying there was a feeling of, well, those kids are driving awfully nice cars. How's it happen?"

-- Steve Spurrier, in a 1995 Sports Illustrated article, one year after telling boosters that FSU stood for "Free Shoes University."

"(Wuerffel) is a New Testament guy. You slap him upside the helmet, and he'll turn the other cheek and say, "Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do.' I'm a little more Old Testament. If you spear our guy in the earhole, I think we're supposed to be able to spear your guy in the earhole."

-- Spurrier, in alleging FSU was hitting quarterback Danny Wuerffel, days before defeating the Seminoles in the Sugar Bowl to win a national championship

"Their pass defense was No. 1 in the nation coming in, but it won't be going out."

-- Spurrier, after handing Mississippi State a 52-0 loss in September

"I wonder if (Bowden) instructs this type of action. I've had enough, and sometimes someone has to speak out. Everyone in college football knows this kind of crap should not happen. And it happens over and over when we play these guys ... We've got all the video on it. I'm not making this stuff up. So we'll let the proper people, hopefully, make the call on this. But we've sort of had enough down here."

-- Spurrier, alleging that FSU's Darnell Dockett purposefully twisted the knee of tailback Earnest Graham in UF's 37-13 victory against Florida State and Bobby Bowden in November

"You know, you can't spell Citrus without U-T."

-- Spurrier, at Gator booster clubs in the summer of 1997, having relegated Tennessee to SEC runner-up status and a second straight trip to the Citrus Bowl

"If we had lost to Florida State, we probably go to the Peach Bowl or maybe even Shreveport. This is not a nightmare. A nightmare is going 4-7 and having your players in the Blue-Gray Game."

-- Spurrier, before being in the 1998 Citrus Bowl, responding to an Orlando Sentinel "NIGHTMARE" headline and getting in a dig at Alabama in the process

"This is our annual team picture."

-- Spurrier, talking to a photographer as his team posed in the Georgia Dome in December 1995 after winning the third of four consecutive SEC championships

"Only a mission finished to its end yields true glory. All of us Gators are now in our glory days."

-- Spurrier, quoting Sir Walter Raleigh (well, the first part, anyway) at a pep rally attended by 65,000 fans in January 1997 to celebrate the Gators' national title.