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Posted on Sun, May. 08, 2005

Spurrier sets nickname for Gamecock offense

By RON MORRIS

Columnist


It is official. Steve Spurrier wants his South Carolina offense to forever be called Cock ’n’ Fire. He recently revealed the offense’s nickname during a gathering of his assistant coaches and football personnel.

“It’s got the Gamecock in it,” Spurrier said. “Cock ’n’ Fire. Yes, I like that.”

Spurrier has an affinity for nicknames for his high-powered offenses. There was Bandit Ball with the Tampa Bay Bandits of the USFL, Air Ball at Duke and Fun ’n’ Gun at Florida.

Spurrier says he considered using the East Coast offense for the Washington Redskins, but “it never flew very well” during his two-year NFL run that left him with a 12-20 record and temporarily unemployed.

He obviously feels a little more comfortable about the prospects of his USC offense, and its ability to generate excitement and touchdowns. You do not brandish a nickname without having the confidence that the offense will back it up.

It is all part of Spurrier playing the promotion game, one that he seems to enjoy as much as drawing up a ball play. Already at USC, he has dropped the admission price for the annual spring game, ordered placards honoring the program’s past to be hung around Williams-Brice Stadium and reinstated a fall Fan Day.

In a twisted way, Spurrier probably can point to the staid, old National Football League for his interest in making the game interesting, both as an offensive tactician and as a P.T. Barnum of sorts. He played 10 seasons in the NFL as a quarterback with the San Francisco 49ers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, all the while learning far too much about the dive play and the power sweep.

The timing and situation could not have been more perfect when he finally received his first head coaching position with the USFL’s Tampa Bay Bandits. The fledgling league, which was formed for the 1983 season, needed excitement in its competition for fans with the NFL. In Tampa, there was a head-to-head matchup with the Buccaneers that suited Spurrier fine.

The Bandits brass turned Spurrier loose, and he was up to the challenge. He immediately began referring to his no-holds-bar offense as Bandit Ball. Instead of promising wins to newcomer fans, Spurrier assured excitement.

Early in that first season, Spurrier’s Bandits led the Boston Breakers 21-17 with 1:36 remaining in the game and Tampa Bay facing a fourth-and-inches at its 29-yard line. Conventional wisdom called for Tampa Bay to punt the ball away. Spurrier went for it.

“I guess that’s what you call Bandit Ball,” Spurrier said after Boston jumped offside, giving Tampa Bay the first down and allowing the Bandits to run out the clock to secure the win.

More importantly, each of Spurrier’s Tampa Bay offenses passed for more than 4,000 yards in 18-game regular seasons. That those teams compiled a 35-19 record was a byproduct of his never-before-seen aerial circus.

At Duke, Spurrier again promised excitement instead of victories. The school’s promotion department was coming off a couple of advertising campaigns for its football program, including “Red Means Go” for coach Red Wilson’s Blue Devils.

“We were just looking for anything that would catch on,” says Johnny Moore, who worked in Duke’s sports information office. “One of the things we were trying to show is that he was going to throw the ball.”

Thus was born Air Ball. Unfortunately, that was about the time the chant “air ball! air ball!” was beginning to resonate around basketball arenas when a visiting player’s shot attempt failed to intercept with the basket. Those who believed the slogan carried negative connotations were quickly won over by Spurrier’s innovative offense and winning ways.

He took a Duke offense that ranked 127th nationally the previous season to No. 4 in the country, and the Blue Devils won an ACC championship and went to a bowl game in his three seasons there.

Spurrier is not certain how Fun ’n’ Gun caught on at Florida, but it could have been that when he arrived prior to the 1990 season “we talked about having fun, about how you’ve got to have fun playing a sport.”

Spurrier said he talked about having fun more than the previous coaches, and his teams did just that by winning a national championship and ranking among the nation’s leaders in passing nearly every one of his 12 seasons there.

Now he is promising much the same at USC. His Gamecocks will have fun, and they are certain to be exciting. All he needed was a nickname for his offense, and Cock ’n’ Fire seems to fit.

“It might be firing on the ground,” Spurrier said, “but at least we’ll be firing forward.”

hatsOFF2gibbs wrote:Cock and Fire? That sounds kind of sexual to me........

Spurrier says he considered using the East Coast offense for the Washington Redskins, but “it never flew very well” during his two-year NFL run that left him with a 12-20 record and temporarily unemployed.

Redskin in Canada wrote:Joke all you want. He will win again in -COLLEGE-. He is a perfect example, together with others such as former Brown's headcoach Couch, that a great college coach does not a great NFL coach make.

Do not put him down as a college coach. Everybody deserves a right to make up for past mistakes and defeats. They will love him in his University and he will be hated by his rivals. And that is the way he loves it.

Spurrier Creates New Offensive Nickname

Clinton Portis wrote:Not Couch, that was the first round servicable QB.

Butch Davis was the failed collegiate coach you speak of.

Countertrey wrote:

Spurrier Creates New Offensive Nickname

I concur, Jake... it's an offensive nickname.