A captain of the 1996 national championship team under Steve Spurrier, former Florida linebacker James Bates is now an announcer for The MountainWest Sports Network. Lost Lettermen recently caught up with him to talk about the ‘09 Gators, the ‘96 championship squad, comparing Steve Spurrier to Urban Meyer and and Bates’ broadcasting career.
Lost Lettermen: What are your thoughts on this year’s Florida’s team?
James Bates: I think that what is so exciting about this year’s team is the fact that they’ve got a chance to really become one of the best group of guys to ever play college football. It’s not just exciting for them, it’s exciting for me and everyone else who wears the orange and blue. And it can happen. When you have 22 players back on defense and with the players back on offense it’s really an exciting time to be a Gator.
LL: How does last season, when that team won, compare to your ’96 National Championship?
JB: Well, it was similar in the sense that we lost a game and we had to have a few things happen to go our way. Ours unfortunately was against Florida State in Tallahassee for the #1 vs. #2 game. We really had to have a lot of things happen in a hurry. As coach Spurrier said, “God smiled down on the Gators.” And it worked out for them after a game they felt they should’ve won against Ole Miss in The Swamp last year. Other than that, I think the leadership and competitiveness of Tim Tebow and Danny Wuerffel is very similar. Those are two wonderful football players and great people at that. But other than that I think they’re totally different teams. Urban Meyer is a lot different from Steve Spurrier. It’s a total different style, and that’s what makes it fun, showing that there’s more than one way to win a championship.
LL: It seems like Wuerffel and Tebow are very similar, have you noticed anymore comparisons between them?
JB: Danny wanted to play in the NFL, it was a goal of his and it’s a goal of Timmy Tebow’s, but that’s not the end-all-be-all. Both of them have beliefs and a wonderful perspective that they know they’re here for bigger things than to just play football. But at the same time, what a great vehicle, being a great football player with a great program, for them to spread their word whether it’s Christianity or in just being better people. I really look up to them and anyone as a college kid who can get it like that. It’s tough enough to function just out of high school, let alone function at the top of your game like they have during their college careers.
LL: How much of a difference does it make to have a quarterback with a grip on life like Wuerffel did and Tebow does?
JB: You factor in that they’re both good athletes, they’re both great leaders and everyone around them is looking up to them, I think that all of those things that build up to make Tim Tebow who he is and to make Danny Wuerffel what he was, come to the fact that they’re both as competitive of people that I’ve ever been around. They both refuse to lose and they both scrap to compete unlike anyone I’ve ever seen. That’s the difference when they’re out on the field. The thing that makes them great is that they really really know how to compete.
LL: How do you respond to the opposition against Tim Tebow who seemed to be purposefully rooting against him? Did you ever see that with Danny Wuerffel?
JB: It’s just you know, if you’re not a Gator, you’re Gator bait. If you don’t love Tim Tebow, you’ve probably felt his wrath one time or another whether you’re on the team against him or another team out there who wishes he was their quarterback. There’s no arguing he’s a great person and a great football player, but I can see how it would be tough to be on the opposing team because it’s really hard not to appreciate who he is. If I were a Tennessee Vol fan or an LSU Tiger, gosh, I don’t want to root for Timmy Tebow to succeed, but you look kind of like an idiot swearing out loud that you hate him. So it must be a tough deal not having him.
LL: How do you feel you fit in with that ’96 National Championship squad?
JB: I think sometimes people can take football too seriously, and at the end of the day it’s just a game. So if you’re on the field having a good time and at the same time can know when to turn it off and on, that makes for a fun locker room. And I think the fact that we had so much fun, and we got along so well mattered. We were all like brothers, and we had each other’s backs. We wanted to go out and fight for each other and win for each other because we cared so much. I’m proud of the role I played.
LL: Did Steve Spurrier ever get on your case about being too much of a comedian in the locker room?
JB: Oh yeah. I’d always get caught doing the wrong thing. We had a guy named Ernie Badeaux from New Orleans who got in some trouble. He was about two years younger than me, so Spurrier came up to me and said, “Batesy, you hang around with Badeaux a little bit, don’t you?” And I said, “Yeah”, and he goes “Well, he looks up to you, and he thinks you’re doing all this crazy stuff. He thinks that’s fun. We got to settle him down a little bit. So why don’t you take it easy around Badeaux a little bit.” So sure enough, the next day, I was in the training room, screwing around. And he goes “Batesy, I thought we talked about you calming down a little bit.” And I said, “Yes sir, but that was just around Badeaux though”. Then he said, “Oh you’re right, go ahead, go ahead.” So you see, it was all I think just because he thought he had to. You don’t want your football players running around like goofballs all the time.
LL: Why do you think Spurrier isn’t seeing the same success at South Carolina that he did in Florida?
JB: It’s obviously no secret that it’s tougher to recruit in Columbia, SC than it is in Gainesville, FL. I personally think Gainesville, FL is the best place in the United States. It obviously wasn’t hard for me to go to Florida. And you know, you have all the home-grown talent, and it feels kind of weird for recruits to leave when you have Florida, Florida State or Miami. I think it starts with the recruiting, and I think it shows a little bit in the end of his run at the University of Florida. The NCAA kind of caught up with him a little bit. He will always be an offensive genius in my mind, but the fact was that the separation wasn’t quite as grand as it was in the early in mid-90’s for us. We were really always a step or two ahead of those teams.
LL: You used the “offensive genius” when you talked about coach Spurrier. Do you see the same sort of “offensive genius” in Urban Meyer that you saw with Steve Spurrier?
JB: Well, I think the fact that he’s been so successful everywhere he’s gone and in such a hurry, I think that his system is definitely working. I think he continues to adapt a little bit to what’s working and what fits his guys so well. It’s different because it seems like, you saw Spurrier doing his thing and no one else was doing it, but you know the spread and forms of it are so prevalent in football. You could call Mike Leach (of Texas Tech) the same, you could say the same thing about a lot of these guys. It’s different because, although he’s had a lot of success, it was different with Spurrier because it seemed like that offense was truly doing a bunch of stuff that people were having a tough time catching up with. And even though they’re doing that now, a lot of it has to do with the athletes and the playcaller.
LL: Back when you were playing, did you guys ever see the spread?
JB: We really never saw it. We’d see the wishbone or triple option every now and again, and that would be the biggest wrinkle that coaches would put in. We’d see some teams try to mimic what we were doing offensively with five-wide type of deal, but it was never the true spread offense that you’re seeing now. But that may be good for a lot of linebackers like me because the thing the spread does is put everyone out there on an island. Everybody has to win that battle. Not saying that I wasn’t a good linebacker, but covering these SEC backs one-on-one, a lot of guys have trouble with it. Even Brandon Spikes is a guy that has the look of the past. He’s more of a plugger, and these days you have to be able to move and cover, like a big safety almost.
LL: Is Brandon Spikes the next James Bates?
JB: You know what, people kind of look at me as a leader, a guy who led a little bit of the ra-ra charge. And in that case, absolutely. I’ve been in the locker room a couple times, and he gets them going. It’s a little bit different style. His braids are a lot better looking than my bowl cut when I was a senior. With him in the middle leading the charge, I really appreciate what he’s doing for the guys. It’s funny, people ask me if I miss playing, but you know, I miss doing more what he’s doing out there. Not making tackles in front of 90,000 people, I miss just being around the guys, keeping it loose, and having a good time.
LL: How much do you think the spread will affect Tim Tebow’s draft stock? Would you worry, and do you think he’s capable of being a pro-style quarterback?
JB: I don’t know where he fits on a pro team, but all I know is that he fits. He fits on a pro team as much as anybody does. Everything he brings to the game of football. Even if he didn’t have this senior year, he’d go down as one if not the best player to ever play college football. If there isn’t a place for Tim Tebow in the NFL then everybody has got it wrong. That guy is going to make some plays someway, somewhere in professional football, and I look forward to watching him on Sundays.
LL: Everybody knows about Tebow’s speech after their loss at Ole’ Miss last year. Was there any moment in your national championship in which someone stepped up, riled up the team and maybe initiated your championship run?
JB: I think our moment came the year before in the Fiesta Bowl. It was the national championship game my junior year, and we got beat up really in a big way by Nebraska, a really good Nebraska team. We knew how tough it was to get there, and the fact that we got so close, got there and came up empty, we knew as a senior class we wouldn’t let that happen again. So we worked extremely hard as seniors to get there again. I really think that was our Tebow moment.
LL: Were you guys still expecting a championship berth after losing to Florida State your senior year? Or had you given up hope of that?
JB: It was terrible in the locker room. You go back and look at that game, and not to take anything away from those teams, but we just felt we were the better team that year. We had some bad plays, some things that didn’t go our way, and we lost the game. I think it shows how much we beat them by in the Sugar Bowl, 52-20, that we were the better team that year. We’re just really lucky we got a second chance at them. We needed a couple of huge things to happen. One, that was so improbable, Texas upsetting Nebraska in their (Big 12) Championship game, and just to be able to call ourselves the National Champions, we needed Ohio State to beat Arizona State in the Rose Bowl just the night before our game. There were a couple things that really had to roll our way, so we were pretty darn lucky.
LL: Why do you think the other two big Florida schools (Miami and Florida State) have kind of fallen from grace in recent years, especially compared to Florida’s program today?
JB: I honestly think that Urban Meyer has a little to do with not only the Gator’s success right now, but as far as the recruiting in Florida. These other teams have taken a little bit of a hit and the Gators are able to go out and, what seems like at times, get whomever they want. You know, he’s such a hard worker, he just impresses me so much with his CEO-like approach whether it’s drawing up plays or coaching up players, or bringing guys in or making highlights, the guy is always working and always churning.
LL: With your comedic personality, does that make you fit for a TV career, like you have?
JB: I think it’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and I’ve kind of just tried to be who I am and who I was as a football player. I’m going to try to do just that as a broadcaster. I got a really good job, in my fourth year for the Mountain West Conference, and I’m really proud of the job that I’ve done and the network that I work for, and I know that they’re happy with who I am. I actually just won a regional Emmy for one of the football promos I just did, and a lot of it has to do with that fun, light-hearted attitude that I always have been fortunate to have success with.
LL: Is anything in the mix for you to broadcast at your alma mater?
JB: I’d be crazy to say I didn’t want to be around the University of Florida. At the same time, I’d be crazy to say I wanted to do anything other than what I’m doing right now. To have the opportunity when I did, there were some people at CSTV (Editor’s Note: Now CBS College Sports) who really took a chance on me. I hadn’t done a lot of play-by-play, and they came in and asked me to do just that for their major broadcast. I’ve really taken it on and had a good time with it.
