Spurrier Jr.: Evolving recruiting pressures were big turnoff for HBC

Steve Spurrier Jr. looks back on his time at South Carolina with fondness, but he admits the ever-changing recruiting process didn’t sit well with his father, head coach Steve Spurrier.

It wasn’t that long ago that colleges only had to recruit seniors, Spurrier Jr. said. That evolved to include juniors, then sophomores. Now schools are recruiting ninth-graders regularly and sometimes looking at middle-schoolers.

“One of the things that partially kind of ran him out was the people who liked to recruit ninth-graders all the time,” Spurrier Jr. said. “He said, ‘Yeah, I’m not recruiting ninth-graders all day long. I’m not going to be here in five, six years.’ ”

Spurrier Jr. made the remarks this week to media who cover Western Kentucky, where the former USC receivers coach is now the quarterbacks coach and assistant head coach.

Spurrier Jr. became USC’s recruiting coordinator in 2011 when Shane Beamer left to coach with his father at Virginia Tech. The Gamecocks were 11-2 in 2011, 2012 and 2013 before a 7-6 season in 2014 and 3-9 in 2015.

His father left as coach midseason in 2015, and most of the remainder of the staff was let go when Will Muschamp was hired in December 2015.

Spurrier was the winningest head coach in Gamecocks history with an 86-49 mark (.637) in 10 1/2 seasons.

“He’s a great person to work for,” Spurrier Jr. said. “The 11 years at South Carolina were really a fun ride and a neat opportunity with some of the things we did there. It was hard to leave. We had a lot going on. It was a great place.”

Spurrier Jr. will coach quarterback Mike White in his senior season. White transferred from Houston and was fifth in the country in 2016 with 4,363 passing yards for WKU.

Spurrier told WBKO sportswriter Chad Bishop that he’d like to be a head coach one day and thinks the opportunity at Western Kentucky as an assistant head coach will help with that goal.

This story was originally published January 13, 2017 at 2:23 PM with the headline "Spurrier Jr.: Evolving recruiting pressures were big turnoff for HBC."