Retired head coach Steve Spurrier may not be on the sidelines anymore, but that doesn’t mean he’s done throwing jabs at former rivals. On Wednesday, the Head Ball Coach was a guest speaker at the Independence Bowl Kickoff Luncheon in Shreveport, La.
Right on cue, at one point during his speech, he delivered a jab towards LSU, which was fitting, given the state he was speaking in.
“You can have a bunch of good ballplayers and not win, also. All you LSU fans know about that, I’m sure,” Spurrier told a laughing crowd.
“Just kidding.”
ICYMI: Here's Steve Spurrier's playful jab at LSU and LSU fans at today's Independence Bowl luncheon. pic.twitter.com/SWXbryxw82
— Casey Viera (@Casey_Viera) August 9, 2017
LSU did, of course, just fire Les Miles after winning roughly 10 games per season, due to blue-chip recruiting classes that often fell short of Alabama’s on the field.
Another portion of it was also about talent, but was a little bit more sentimental.
He’s had similar comments about LSU’s talent level before. In a profile by ESPN’s Chris Low from last fall, he mentioned it with the Tigers’ low-scoring 16-14 loss to Wisconsin during Week 1.
“Why can LSU not get it right on offense? Every year, they have as much talent as anybody in the SEC, and that’s including Alabama,” Spurrier said via ESPN.
Spurrier went 11-1 against LSU during his career at Florida, and he lost three times to the Tigers when he was the head coach at South Carolina. Throwing shade at rivals is obviously nothing new for the HBC. In the past, he had some fun with both Clemson and LSU sharing the same stadium nickname.
On the Death Valley nickname: "Most of our guys have never been to Death Valley. (LSU's stadium) is the Death Valley, isn't it? Or is there another one? There's two of them. That's right. There's two Death Valleys."
And when recalling the 2007 season, he touched on Alabama and LSU landing in the BCS Championship.
Hey, 2007. Was that the year Alabama went 6-6 also?
Yessir.
That’s right. Alabama was 6-6. We were 6-6. They got to go to a bowl game, and we didn’t. That’s when I started saying, "Hey, this thing isn’t always fair." Saban’s first year, 6-6, lose to Louisiana-Monroe; two years later, win a national championship. How’s that. Anyway, that was the only year we didn’t have a winning season until the last one I was there.
I didn’t have any thought whatsoever about LSU [winning the national title with two losses]. We were trying to win more than we lost and go to a bowl game.
Never change, HBC.