Steve Spurrier may not win like he used to, but, boy, he still can deliver a story from time to time.
It’s just one of those unique things that makes Spurrier, well, Spurrier. The South Carolina coach can set up a room with his classic Dixieland Drawl like no one else
. . . and then proceed to knock them all down quicker than he used to throw his visor.
He was at it again this week, when the topic of Brian Schottenheimer came up. Schottenheimer — the NFL’s new “it” assistant coach — evoked many memories within Spurrier, who took a break from the Gamecocks’ recruiting trail to talk about the Jets offensive coordinator.
You see what many Jets fans don’t know, is that Schottenheimer was a backup quarterback at Florida under Spurrier during the glorious “Fun N’ Gun” days of the 1990s. In fact, Schottenheimer was on the 1996 national-championship team, and it was that season that Spurrier chose to elaborate on:
“You want to talk about Young Schotty? Yeah, we called him Young Schotty at Florida. He came in as a walk-on, and earned himself a scholarship.
“What I always remember, and always tell people, was that in 1996, Danny Wuerffel won the Heisman Trophy for us. But who threw our first touchdown pass of the season? Young Schotty did.
“Anyhow, we had a lot of guys who came in with a lot of hype that season, and we opened the year in Gainesville against Southwestern Louisiana [now called the University of Louisiana at Lafayette].
“Turns out, we were playing like [garbage] right off the bat. So I sat Danny, and a bunch of other guys. I told Brian to get in there, and get us going. Fortunately, I left [former Giants receiver] Ike Hilliard in the game, and — wouldn’t you know it — Brian hit Ike on a hitch for 35 yards and a touchdown. A few series later, I put the starters back in, and Danny back in, and away we went. But I always tell people, Young Schotty started us off.
“A Heisman Trophy season for Danny. A championship season for us. And it was Young Schotty who threw the first touchdown of the season for us. I’ll never forget that.”
There are a lot of things Schottenheimer will not forget about his days in Gainesville, either, including that 55-21 victory on Aug. 31, 1996. But all classic stories aside, it is clear that just being around the offensive mind that is Spurrier helped mold Schottenheimer into what he is today.
“I learned a lot from Steve,” said Schottenheimer, who puts his offense up against the Chargers today in the AFC divisional round. “The thing from Steve was the flexibility an offense has to have. I thought he was just a great play-caller on game day.”
The feeling is mutual.
“What a game plan he had last week against Cincinnati,” Spurrier said. “What was [quarterback Mark] Sanchez, 12-of-15 in that game? Man, you can’t ask for much more than that. And the receivers hung on to the ball, too, in cold weather. I wish our receivers could learn how to do that.”
Spurrier’s Gamecocks had a ho-hum 7-6 season, and the offense — as he alluded to — was inconsistent at times. South Carolina had quality wins over Ole Miss and Clemson, but closed with an unexpected 20-7 loss to UConn in the Papa John’s Bowl in surprisingly cold Mobile, Ala., earlier this month. In that game, South Carolina receivers dropped three consecutive passes, which Spurrier called a first in his career.
“Young Schottty doesn’t look like he has that problem up there in New York,” Spurrier said. “When you get guys catching passes like that, and it’s clear that Brian has developed a good relationship there with Sanchez, too, you’ll see the results.”
Which is one of the reasons why Schottenheimer has elected to stick with Gang Green. On Wednesday, he turned down an interview with the Bills.
Of course, Spurrier had a take on that situation as well.
“In the coaching profession, there are good moves and bad moves,” he said. “And he’s really in the ideal situation up there. Aren’t the Jets the No. 1 defensive team in the NFL? Well, there you go. As an offensive coordinator, that is a dream come true. I think he’ll stay with the Jets for a while.”
And who knows, maybe this young and growing offense — with Sanchez, Shonn Greene and Dustin Keller in the fold for years to come — will be something like the old Spurrier version in Gainesville.
They have some work to do. In that 1996 season, the Gators went 12-1, 9-0 in the SEC, finished No. 1 in both polls and scored more than 40 points 10 times.
“We’d always go in with plans and people would change against us because we were so powerful, we obviously had so many great players,” said Schottenheimer, who was a Gator from 1994-96. “The flexibility and the way Steve adjusted on game day is something I took from him. The system was very simple and we were very good at executing back then. The way he kept people off balance was really, really good.”
Off balance, huh? Sounds a lot like the condition the Bengals were in the past two weeks.
tsullivan@nypost.com