Todd Golden and Florida Gators would be smart to heed Steve Spurrier's advice

True competitors get down and disappointed when they lose. It doesn't matter if it's a March Madness basketball game or a card game at the table on a Friday night; winning feels good and losing does not.

Perspective in competition is also important, though, especially if you're a head coach tasked with the development of a handful of elite student athletes.

As such, Todd Golden and the Florida Gators would be wise to take some advice from a legendary Gator, Steve Spurrier.

Florida wasn't able to repeat as back-to-back national champions this season because the Gators ultimately lost in the second round to the Iowa Hawkeyes.

First, Spurrier thinks Golden and his staff need to use this as an opportunity to get better.

“The season’s over. You look back, you look at the tape, what could we have done better in this situation, that situation?” Spurrier recently said on the "Another Dooley Noted Podcast" (h/t On3). “I look back, could have called a better play here, there, the other. So that’s all you can do is look back and try to make yourself a better coach by seeing maybe this call or this play would have been better than we did.”

Steve Spurrier points out the hard truth of March Madness for Florida Gators

The next thing the Gators need to do is realize that, especailly in a tournament like March Madness, the odds of coming up on top are slim to none -- especailly for a defending champ.

That's not to say you don't shoot for that goal, and that was clearly the goal in Gainesville this past season.

Again, perspective is important, and you get the sense that Spurrier is essentially counseling Golden to take it easy on himself after the loss to Iowa.

“There’s only one national champ,” Spurrier explained. “And there’s what, 370 schools that maybe have a shot at it? So don’t tell me that that should be the goal of 370 schools. Most schools, hey, let’s have a winning record, let’s compete for our conference championship. If we’re a great team, we’ll try to compete for the national. But I think most all teams need levels, not just one national championship, because that’s virtually impossible, as we know.”

Golden's Gators won the SEC regular season, and he was named the 2025-26 SEC Coach of the Year, so it's not like everything that happened in this past season was for naught.

A second-round loss in the tourney stings. Absolutely, it does.

If you could dilute Spurrier's message to the Gators, perhaps it would be this simple:

Lick your wounds, get better and move on.