Head Ball Coach by Steve Spurrier

Author:Steve Spurrier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-08-16T14:18:36+00:00

Kyle Morris, the starter from 1989

Lex Smith, a holdover who had been heavily recruited

Donald Douglas, a runner with blazing 4.4 speed

Brian Fox, a transfer from Purdue

Somewhere behind them was Shane Matthews, who was happy to hear that I had opened the position up and eager for a shot. Shane, born in Cleveland, Mississippi, transferred to Pascagoula High School in his junior year to play for his dad. Bill Matthews had played football at the University of Mississippi. Shane’s mom, Peggy, was an Ole Miss cheerleader and huge football fan. The family usually went to high school games on Friday and traveled to see the Rebels play on Saturday.

Shane was developing into a prospect while playing for Pascagoula and, despite his Ole Miss roots, had his eye on Alabama, but didn’t get an offer. His mom didn’t want him to go to Florida State for some reason. So he chose to go play for Galen Hall, where I found him after two seasons of inactivity at Florida.

Shane had remembered watching us on TV when I was coaching my last game at Duke in the All-American Bowl. After the game he told his dad, “I could run that offense.” We were going to find out in the spring game if he could do what he said.

In 1990, after our first week, we had a scrimmage on the practice field. There were five quarterbacks, and four got into the scrimmage. They all did sort of okay. Shane wasn’t one of the five. After the scrimmage, one for our administrative assistants came over with a gentleman and said, “Coach, this is Billy Matthews, Shane’s dad.” And I said, “My bad! Shane didn’t even get a snap.” He was fifth string and didn’t even get in. I started apologizing to Coach Matthews. He said, “Don’t worry about it, Coach. I’m a coach also. And I know sometimes you just can’t get everybody in the scrimmage. I just wanted you to know that Shane told me he really likes this offense because it’s not just one receiver, throw it to him or run—it features 3-4-5 receivers out in formation. And it allows the quarterback to make a decision. And he thinks he can make those decisions very well.”

“He’s definitely going to get his chance,” I assured Coach Matthews. “Don’t worry, he’ll get in next week and more and more as we go.”

As spring practice went on, two of the quarterbacks got hurt. Brian Fox sprained his ankle. One of the others got nicked up as well. Douglas transferred to Houston. Lex Smith, who had actually started a homecoming game before I got there, accepted a position change and contributed as a linebacker–defensive end–special teams player, which made me very proud of him. So all of a sudden Shane moved up a couple notches.

We held the spring game in the Gator Bowl over in Jacksonville because renovations were under way at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. We were ripping out the Astroturf, so it wasn’t playable. A pretty

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