Do you remember the 1992 USA Olympic Dream Team? Maybe the best collection of basketball talent ever.

Well, in comparing the Spurrier era at Florida to his South Carolina version, the former is that Dream Team and the latter is Angola, which the Americans beat 116-48 in their Olympic opener in Barcelona. It’s not close.

But which one has been more impressive?

SPURRIER AT FLORIDA

Florida hired Spurrier, the 1966 Heisman Trophy winner for the Gators, in 1990 after he helped turn around a moribund Duke program. His time with the Blue Devils culminated in an 8-4 record and a bowl appearance in 1989. That was a very big deal at the time.

The Gators finished 7-5 that same year under Galen Hall and Gary Darnell. It was the program’s fourth straight season with at least five losses. Florida was not a top destination school for recruits at the time and was way behind Miami and Florida State in the Sunshine State pecking order.

Things turned immediately for Florida under Spurrier as his Fun ‘n’ Gun offense started to revolutionize college football. Shane Matthews had the best season for a Gators quarterback to date in 1990 by throwing for 2,952 yards and 23 touchdowns. That doesn’t sound like much these days, but it was a big deal 25 years ago. Florida finished 9-2 but was ineligible for a bowl game because of NCAA probation.

That year laid the foundation for everything that followed.

The Gators jumped to 10-2 in 1991 and won the program’s first official SEC title (UF’s 1984 title was vacated) before losing to Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl.

The SEC split into two divisions for 1992 and Florida claimed the tiebreaker in the East Division over Georgia. The Gators lost 28-21 to Alabama at Legion Field in the first-ever SEC Championship Game. But Florida owned that game the next four seasons, winning each time. The best season in  school history, at the time, was in 1996. Danny Wuerffel won the Heisman Trophy and Florida routed top-ranked Florida State in the Sugar Bowl for the national championship and a 12-1 finish.

That was the final season that Spurrier lost just one game, although the Gators would add another SEC title in 2000. Spurrier left after the 2001 season for the NFL’s Washington Redskins. He finished his Florida career with a 122-27-1 record (.817) and six SEC titles. Spurrier became the only major college coach in the 20th century to win 100 games in his first 10 years at a school. Oh, and Spurrier was 10-0 against South Carolina.

SPURRIER AT SOUTH CAROLINA

Spurrier’s NFL career was a bust. South Carolina hired him Nov. 23, 2004, after former coach Lou Holtz retired. Then-USC president Dr. Andrew Sorensen was familiar with Spurrier. Florida hired Sorensen as provost and vice president for academic affairs in 1990, the same year the Gators hired Spurrier.

The Gamecocks were 6-5 in Holtz’s final season. Then-USC athletic director Mike McGee said he contacted Spurrier following South Carolina’s 43-29 home loss to Tennessee on Oct. 30, 2004.

USC was a middling-to-decent program in Spurrier’s first five seasons, losing at least five games in each. But it was progress. In 2009, the Gamecocks were just 7-6 but it was their sixth consecutive non-losing season, the longest stretch in school history since 1928-34.

In 2010, South Carolina turned a corner by winning the SEC East and appearing in the conference title game for the first time, although No. 2 Auburn blew out Spurrier’s team 56-17. That season also included the school’s first win over a No. 1 team as South Carolina upset Alabama, 35-21, in Columbia. Spurrier was named SEC Coach of the Year for a seventh time.

The next season, USC won a school-record 11 games, capped by a 30-13 win over Nebraska in the Capital One Bowl, the Gamecocks’ first bowl win since 2006. South Carolina finished in the Associated Press Top 10 for the first time. South Carolina followed with 11-win seasons and bowl victories the next two years and beat rival Clemson both years to extend the school’s winning streak in the series to five. South Carolina’s No. 4 poll finish in 2013 was the best in school history.

Last year was a huge disappointment at 7-6, but the Gamecocks did win a fourth straight bowl game for the first time. At South Carolina, Spurrier is 84-45-0 (.651).

THE VERDICT

In a way, it’s not a fair fight. Florida was a better program than South Carolina years before Spurrier got to Gainesville, although UF was in a bit of an NCAA mess when he arrived. Florida has a huge recruiting advantage with all that talent in the state.

But clearly Spurrier’s run at Florida is far superior to what he has accomplished at South Carolina. In fact, Spurrier’s UF run might be the third-best in conference history behind what Nick Saban is doing at Alabama now and what Bear Bryant did there from 1958-82.