Spurrier blasts critics: ‘Don’t believe our enemies’

You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry – or when he’s won too much.

The 70-year-old Steve Spurrier, entering his 11^th season as the Gamecocks’ coach, fired back at recent critiques that his age may be catching up with him.

“Now last year at this time, I was 69, we were 11-2, but now that we’re 7-6, we got some enemies out there,” Spurrier said at a hastily called press conference on Wednesday. “That’s part of the game, we just need to understand that. Some of our enemies out there want to make you think Spurrier’s getting old, he can’t do it anymore.”

In a recent installment of a 50-part countdown series The State is doing on predictions for the Gamecocks this year, Mark Bradley of The (Atlanta) Journal-Constitution said: “I think they are a program on the descent, and I think it’s going to be interesting to see how long the coach stays.”

Spurrier said he went through similar criticism when he was at Florida.

“They used to talk nicely about the Florida coach because the Florida coach didn’t beat anybody much, or beat them enough. When I got down there, we beat Georgia two or three times, a guy in Atlanta wrote, ‘Spurrier will flame out, he won’t make it, he’s arrogant, he’s cocky, he can’t recruit because nobody likes him, he won’t last down there,’ ” Spurrier said. “Well, after beating them about 11 out of 12, he finally quit writing that.”

Spurrier’s point was that nobody took shots at him until he started winning big at Florida, and the same thing’s happened at USC.

“As most of you know, I’m a big believer in Attila the Hun’s book, he said it very simply – ‘It’s a simple truth that the greater your accomplishments, your victories, the greater opposition, torment and discouragement your enemies will throw in your path. Expect it and don’t become a victim of it. Expect it,’ ” Spurrier said. “So I’m telling our fans, expect those people that are our enemies to talk bad about us, we finally won enough games, although it wasn’t all that much last year. We finally won enough that they’re trying to convince us that my age has something to do with it and I can’t coach anymore.”

He followed by reading a list of accomplishments the Gamecocks have had during his tenure, that USC’s team doctor has told him he’s a 70-year-old with the body and mental facilities of a 55-year-old and that USC, while being picked to have a so-so season, might surprise some folks.

And he had a zinger for “that school from the Upstate.”

“Don’t listen to our enemies. We haven’t lost it,” Spurrier declared. “And we’ve got a dang good team coming, and we’re fired up, and we’re going to be fired up when that team from Clemson comes in, last game of the season. Their quarterback’s already challenged our guys, he says we can’t beat him ever. So we’re looking forward to that challenge also.”

Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson, who already has one win over the Gamecocks, spoke to USA Today in May. “My high school coach was a big Clemson fan and I told him, as long as I’m the starting quarterback here, I’m not going to lose to South Carolina,” Watson said.

Spurrier mentioned he spoke with Urban Meyer recently, and wondered how Meyer held up under criticism. Meyer shrugged and said that Spurrier went through the same thing when he started winning big at Florida.

“Some coaches never win enough to have anybody mad at them. So I guess we’ve won enough to have some enemies,” Spurrier said. “Those are just things that our enemies out there don’t like. Again, when I say that, the enemies out there are going to tell you they’re not our enemies, but they’re talking negatively about me and South Carolina, and I’m sick of it.”

NOTE: Spurrier also said one USC Board of Trustees member has advocated renaming the field at Williams-Brice Stadium after Spurrier. Spurrier thanked him, but advised him to wait five or six years.

This story was originally published July 22, 2015 at 4:58 PM with the headline "Spurrier blasts critics: ‘Don’t believe our enemies’."