For about an hour and a half on Wednesday afternoon, the eye of the college football world was on Columbia, South Carolina. The Gamecocks' p.r. staff sent out at email at 3:12 p.m. saying Steve Spurrier wanted to host an impromptu press gathering at 4:30 p.m. That was it.
Turns out Spurrier just wanted to spent a few moments addressing his haters.
What enemies is he addressing specifically? That would be the University of Georgia, and more specifically Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Mark Bradley. South Carolina's newspaper of record, The State, recently ran a Bradley piece criticizing Spurrier, which was the impetus for today's event.
Ah, yes. Recruits. That was the point of Wednesday's meeting. Apparently Spurrier was bothered by the fact that rival coaching staffs would point out that a 70-year-old coach may not be around for the next four-to-five years.
The odd thing about Wednesday's get together? Spurrier just spend an entire day both last week and this week doing nothing but speaking to the media, calmly denying any retirement rumors (which he himself brought into the ether in January) to every media entity that stuck a mic in his face. But he was so bothered by Bradley's piece (or recruits' reactions to it) that he had to call a special gathering just to shoot it down.
And all it really does is give everyone a reason to put "Spurrier" and "retirement" in the same sentence again. Go figure.