Former Duke Coach Steve Spurrier Wants To Schedule Duke-South Carolina Series

Before Steve Spurrier came to prominence as a football coach in the SEC, his first head coaching job came at Duke University. Spurrier has since gone to win an NCAA Championship at the University of Florida, coach the Washington Redskins in the NFL, and currently works with the University of South Carolina. Recently, the former Heisman trophy winner mentioned that he wants to play against the Blue Devils at some point before he retires.

Duke Blue Devils

Steve Spurrier started out at Duke as an offensive coordinator for the Blue Devils from 1980-1982, and returned to become the head coach of the football team in 1987 until he left to pursue the head coaching position at his alma mater Florida for the 1990 season. He led Duke to the 1989 ACC Championship game and the 1989 All-American bowl, won back-to-back ACC Coach of the Year awards in 1988 and 1989, and is the last coach to have a winning career record with the Blue Devils at 20-13 (until David Cutcliffe catches him, but he’s currently 40-48 at Duke). Cutcliffe and Spurrier have faced off numerous times in the SEC, when Cutcliffe was coaching at Tennessee and Ole Miss.

In typical Spurrier-fashion, “The Ol’ Ball Coach” was asked in an interview about a series with North Carolina, this year to be played in Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium in the season opener for both teams, and if he liked playing against the Tar Heels regularly and wanted to schedule more games against them, however he changed the subject to talk about his respect for Duke and wanting to play his former team in the future, saying:

"“I heard there was some interest in maybe playing Duke. Duke is a top-notch program now as we know. I love Duke University. I owe a lot to Duke, and I heard there were some conversations we might play them. If that would happen and it would be good for Duke also, I would like to do that.”"

Spurrier has been a supporter of Duke Football since he left the program, and even caused some controversy a while back by voting for the Blue Devils every year in the USA Today Preseason Coaches poll, even when the teams were losing badly, and his reasoning behind it was, “They hired me twice when I had no job”. Spurrier has now accumulated a 226-85-2 career coaching record, 7 conference Coach of the Year awards (2-ACC, 5-SEC), won the 1996 National Championship, and an 11-10 bowl game record including 4 straight postseason victories and 7 consecutive bowl game appearances.

Nothing is officially set for a game between Duke and South Carolina, but representatives from both schools have discussed a possible game at a neutral site at an NFL stadium in Charlotte or Atlanta for 2017 or 2018. A game with the Gamecocks would definitely be a huge step for the Duke Football program to compete against an SEC school and help provide the tougher strength of schedule that Coach Cutcliffe is looking for in the future.