During the course of the SEC spring meetings in Destin, Florida, many things are said, a few things get done, and a hundred or so middle-aged men, mostly white ones, hang out in the lobby of the Sandestin Hilton for hours at a time. It is as compelling and rich as one can imagine. I say that with a lovingly mocking tone because any college football talk is better than no college football talk.
Luckily, we...oh, hold on, I've just been handed an urgent message...I see...it appears I'm required by law that whenever college football is mentioned, I must become indignant and shout about oversigning. As I see it, laws are laws, and the wrong side of the law is a place I don't want to be, so:
OVERSIGNING DESTROYS THE VERY FABRIC OF AMERICA. A NATION OVERSIGNING ITSELF CANNOT STAND. HOW DARE COACHES BE GIVEN FLEXIBILITY IN THE FACE OF HORRENDOUS PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEMS, MORONIC AND FICKLE TEENAGERS, AND AUBURN'S SUITCASES FULL OF CASH MONEY. IT'S NOT FAIR TO THE KID WHO HAS JERKED AROUND RECRUITERS AND COACHES FOR THE PAST YEAR.
With my citizenship duties complete, let's turn this thing over to the Ball Coach, the eleventy-time MVP of these meetings in Destin:
On
oversigning:
“Hopefully, they will leave it there, but if they don’t, we’ll keep playing anyway. They’re not going to cancel football.”
Things are always up in the air in the Sun Belt, but that only represents a small, insignificant section of college football (minus the free wins for those teams playing against them!). Small aside: I don't remember where everyone got the idea that every school in the country has a right to participate in Division I college football. It's not a right, it's a privilege, like driving. Not everyone gets to do it and there are reasons for that.
On paying players $300 a game out of his own pocket, which could only be
conceived in the mind of Steve Spurrier:
"I doubt it will get passed, but us coaches in the SEC, we make all the money -- as do universities and television [networks] -- and we need to give more to our players.”
"We’d like to make that happen. It probably won’t, but we’d love to do it.”
On the six coaches who voted with him on his pay-for-play proposal:
"Now, the other guys didn’t want to talk about it, but those guys, they thought it was a good idea.”
Gene Chizik voted against the proposal, which marks the first time an Auburn coach has ever decided NOT to give money to players. HEYOOOOOOHHH!!!
On the conditions of
Stephen Garcia's return to the team:
“One more (mistake), and he’ll be finished.”
Seriously, Stephen, this is it. After your next mistake, and the one after that, you've only got three more chances left.
On whether he's sweating Garcia's performance this season after a spring of turmoil:
"Of the eight conference championships I’ve been fortunate enough to win, four of them we’ve played two quarterbacks, so you can play two. It’s no big deal.”
And this is why I could not love a human baby more than Steve Spurrer. He's perfectly willing, out of spite and disgust, to throw Connor Shaw into a game when Connor Show is firmly entrenched in the overmatched category.
Even Spurrier has a hard time keeping up with the Garcia suspensions:
One of Garcia’s biggest supporters through his series of off-the-field missteps has been Spurrier’s wife, Jerri.
“She’s been his baby-sitter,” Spurrier said. “I think she drove him to about 75 to 100 of his community hours he had to do after his first or second suspension.”
The other 25 hours? He borrowed his professor's keyed car.
