Published May 30, 2012 - 7:28am
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We all love to hear Steve Spurrier talk. Whether you love him or hate him, he’s always quotable, and it usually ends up making headlines and ruffling feathers of someone on the other end of the pun.
It just so happens, back in April, three-time national champion Nick Saban was on the butt end of one of Spurrier’s comments.
Spurrier said this of Saban to ESPN.com back in April:
“If he wants to be the greatest coach or one of the greatest coaches in college football, to me, he has to go somewhere besides Alabama and win, because they’ve always won there at Alabama.”
When asked about that assessment of Saban at yesterday’s SEC Spring Meetings, the ever-quotable Spurrier primarily backtracked on the comments:
“No, he’s a great coach. I don’t know what I was talking about,” Spurrier said. “I was just saying, they won their 14th national championship, right? I was just trying to say one reason I love being at South Carolina is that we have so many opportunities to achieve things for the first time ever.
“Now, don’t get me wrong, some people would rather be at a place where you can win it all every year. Certainly Alabama, LSU, Florida … there’s a lot of schools that have that opportunity. But once something has already been accomplished, it’s neat to do it again but it’s not the first time ever. I look forward to still trying to do some first-time-ever things at South Carolina.”
I assume that as soon as the April comments made headlines, Spurrier picked up the phone and called his counterpart in Tuscaloosa to apologize.
But then again, Spurrier probably doesn’t even care what his rival thinks about him.
