Certainly they have started to give athletes what they call a cost of attendance. Averages about $4,000 a year. It gives the players some expense money to live life while they’re in college. You can feed the players all you want to now — there’s food everywhere. So it is more liberal. I think it’s pretty good now — a lot better than it used to be. They can give parents expense money to come to the games. That was a big reason I wanted the players to get a little bit of extra money. I don’t know how much they’re giving their parents back, because it’s going straight to them.

The book has lots of the brutal details about your short tenure as coach of the Washington Redskins. (The Redskins went 12-20 in Spurrier’s two seasons, 2002 and 2003.) But it’s many years later, the Redskins are coming off a division title, and I’m wondering: From afar, how do you think the owner Daniel Snyder is doing?

I think he’s doing it the right way now. When I was coaching, he was the general manager and the personnel director. I thought he was going to hire someone else as general manager.

Bobby Beathard.

I thought he was going to be my general manager. That didn’t work out. After two years, I learned the N.F.L. was not for me. I’m more a college style of coach. It maybe helped me learn that.

Tell me about your new job at Florida.

I’m a consultant, a — what else they call me? — an ambassador. Right now, Urban Meyer’s teams and the teams I coached are really the only ones that won SEC and national championships, so we’re trying to honor those teams a little more than we have in the past. I’ll be involved with Gator Boosters quite a bit. Every college has got to have big donors; that’s a big part of it. Watch practice occasionally. It’s a nice job to have.

I was surprised and delighted to see you tackled Deflategate in the book. I would guess it went to press before we learned for sure that Tom Brady is indeed going to serve a four-game suspension. Do you think that’s fair?

I thought it was a little harsh a penalty. Actually, he threw the ball better in the second half of that game.

This interview has been edited and condensed.