Steve Spurrier calls for SEC to name 1990 Florida team co-SEC champions with Tennessee after Michigan ruling

The NCAA recently handed down its punishment to Michigan over an alleged sign-stealing scandal that occurred in 2023, but the organization didn’t force the Wolverines to vacate wins. It also didn’t implement any sort of postseason ban, something that caught the eye of former Florida coach Steve Spurrier.

When Spurrier took over at Florida he inherited a program that was quickly hit with NCAA sanctions over one major violation and several minor ones. The NCAA imposed a one-year postseason ban.

With that ban, Florida was ineligible to to compete for the Southeastern Conference championship. Despite Florida having a better record, Tennessee won the league.

“It was interesting this week they came out with the penalty for Michigan in the sign-stealing controversy of two years ago and so forth,” Steve Spurrier said on Another Dooley Noted Podcast. “Anyway, the NCAA said on purpose we did not have a postseason ban. Said the team and the staff there were not responsible for what happened two, three years ago.”

As a result, Michigan kept its national title. It can be formally recognized.

Florida, which finished atop the SEC with a 6-1 record in 1990, enjoyed no such luxury. Spurrier went on to take issue with the NCAA’s punishment of the Gators, in retrospect.

“The infraction committee, when they gave us no postseason, they didn’t know that that made us ineligible, because the SEC, they didn’t know that,” Steve Spurrier said. “They thought they were letting us off with nothing because they didn’t think we’d go to a bowl.”

Not only would Florida have gone to a bowl with a 9-2 record, but the Gators were just beginning a remarkable run of dominance with Steve Spurrier at the helm.

The program would run atop college football for the next decade, even winning its first national title. But Spurrier is still smarting over that lost SEC title. And he wants it back.

“So the SEC ought to go back and redo that,” he said. “I mean just make us co-champs with Tennessee. But penalize the group of guys that won it and nobody on the entire team or staff had anything to do with any infractions? It’s not right. Whether or not you want to right a wrong, it’s up to the SEC, then our university will follow whatever the SEC says to do.”