Steve Spurrier wants you to know something important about all this retirement talk.

As he approached the podium at his news conference on Tuesday morning, the first thing he did was make something very clear.

“I’m resigning,” he said. “I’m not retiring.”

Spurrier, who renovated two SEC programs in Florida and South Carolina, won 228 games (the second-most in conference history), a national championship and changed the style of college football, is simply ready for what’s next. After going 7-6 last year and beginning this season at 2-4 (0-4 SEC), he believes it’s time to “get out of the way.”

South Carolina president Harris Pastides said he asked Spurrier to stay through the end of the year, but there was no way of convincing.

“If something is inevitable, let’s do it right now,” Spurrier said, noting that he made up his mind on Sunday, but started feeling like the time was coming after the UCF game in Week 4. South Carolina won 31-14, but Spurrier said it was a “struggle.”

Before this season, the 70-year-old Spurrier dismissed retirement talk. He felt good physically, thought he had a solid group of players and said he had “several more years” left. But Tuesday, he admitted things simply didn’t work out as he anticipated, and the feeling of leaving the program happened gradually.

“For whatever reason, our team wasn’t as good as I thought they were gonna be,” he said. “That’s just the way it happened. Hopefully our new leadership can help them become a better team.”

Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

Spurrier didn’t want to go out this way. He said he planned being hoisted up on his players’ shoulder pads at the Georgia Dome after winning an SEC Championship.

“But that didn’t happen,” he said.

Spurrier said he wont be involved in choosing his replacement, but for now offensive line coach and co-offensive coordinator Shawn Elliott has been named the interim head coach. Spurrier said one of the reasons he wanted to leave now rather than during the bye week or at the end of the season is so that Elliott could give the team a chance for success and rebuild.

Spurrier called himself a “recruiting liability” and when asked if he’d ever coach college football again, he said the word “no” five times.

“I don’t know if coaching is completely over or not,” he said. “It is fun being on the team. I might be a consultant. I doubt I’d be a head coach. Who knows? I doubt it. I’d miss being on the team.”

He’ll still be around Columbia, he said, figuring out the next phase of his life with his wife Jerri.

“I’ll just be the Former Head Ball Coach now,” he said. “This is the best thing for South Carolina football to start another building process.”

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