Steve Spurrier considered retiring after 2014 season
South Carolina Gamecocks head football coach Steve Spurrier considered retiring after the 2014 season, and had several conversations on the subject with athletic director Ray Tanner, according to Chris Low at ESPN.com.
The Gamecocks finished the regular season 6-6 before defeating the Miami Hurricanes 24-21 in the Independence Bowl. The six-win season was a departure from South Carolina's three straight 11-win seasons between 2011 and 2013, finishing in the top 10 in all three years.
The bowl game win gave South Carolina three wins in the team's final four games, and Spurrier says that his outlook has improved.
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"When you do it as long as I have, and you lose games the way we did this year, you have those thoughts that maybe it's time to let somebody else come in here and do this," Spurrier said.
"You wonder, 'What I am I doing?' That's only normal, but I think everybody knows now that I've still got four or five more years in me."
Despite losing six games throughout the year, South Carolina beat Florida and Georgia, improving Spurrier's record against the school's top rivals -- Florida, Clemson, Georgia and Tennessee -- to 15-5 in the last five years. Spurrier is also now 10-5 against schools finishing in the AP Top 25 over the last three seasons.
South Carolina struggled on defense, however. The team gave up 14-point leads in the final quarter of three of their six losses. The Gamecocks also finished 13th in total defense in the SEC.
In 25 years of coaching at major schools, Spurrier has a .725 winning percentage and has won 11 of the 21 major bowl games in which his teams have appeared.
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The 69-year-old has said that even the end of his coaching career will not take him away from the game.
"I've always said that I won't retire. I'll resign, sort of what like [77-year-old] Dick LeBeau said the other day when he resigned from the Steelers," said Spurrier. "He said that he wasn't retiring. I feel the same way. Retiring sounds too much like you're going to quit and do nothing."
In 10 seasons at South Carolina, Spurrier has an 84-45 record. Prior to joining the Gamecocks in 2005, he coached Florida to a 122-27-1 record between 1990 and 2001. From 1987 to 1989, he went 20-13 at Duke.
- Christopher Woody
