Who is Better: Steve Spurrier of Kirby Smart?
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ATHENS - It has become common to compare Georgia Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart to Alabama Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban.
That will always occur because of the ties between the two, and the already-epic battles between their teams. But Saban arrived at Alabama with years of coaching experience, and an already-won national title at LSU. The more direct comparison is former Gator coach Steve Spurrier, who ripped through the SEC in the 1990s - changing the league for good.
No one will make the case that Kirby has changed the SEC because he hasn’t. He’s taken what appears to be the only formula that works long term in the SEC, and applied it to Georgia. Kirby did what Spurrier did at Florida in a different way in a slightly shorter amount of time. Six years into his tenure in Athens, Kirby won a national title. It took Spurrier seven years, and like Kirby, he lost his first shot at the national title.
What we couldn’t know at the time, and would have been hard to believe, is that the Gators’ triumphant win over the Noles at the end of the 1996 season would the last time Florida would play for a national title under its most-loved head coach. Spurrier would leave Gainesville five years later - winning only one more SEC championship in his long coaching tenure after the national title.
If you told folks today that Kirby would win only one more SEC title, and would last in Athens only five more seasons they would not believe you. I would not believe that. I don’t believe that.
The main obstacle in Georgia’s way has been Saban and Alabama. For Spurrier it was Bobby Bowden’s Florida State program, which won two national titles while he was coaching the Gators. Spurrier limped to a 5-8-1 record against the Noles - winning the most important matchup between the two schools.
It’s hard to picture now, but Florida State was as good a football program as there was in the 1990s. The Noles, Nebraska and Miami dominated the landscape of college football for the decade. That trip combined to win six national titles in the decade. They played in eight games that determined the national title in the 1990s.
Florida, as good as Spurrier was, was the meat in the sandwich that was the Noles and Canes bookending the decade with powerhouses. But none of these programs were what Alabama has become under Saban. The Tide, alone, have won six national titles in 11 years, and have played for it nine times. Only one team, Florida State’s in 2013, was able to win the national title without first beating the Saban’s Tide.
That’s what Kirby Smart is fighting.
So who is better - Kirby or Spurrier?
