USC coach Steve Spurrier, who underwent knee replacement surgery on Jan. 5, says his knee looks better now than it has looked in the last 20 years.

“They were only in there about an hour and a half. It was amazing,” Spurrier said. “There’s hardly any swelling, not bad at all.

“They cut the bone apart and cleaned up all the fractured bone and stuff and they put this artificial knee in. It’s made out of titanium steel. It rotates all kinds of ways. It’s an amazing little device. He showed it to me before. Then they cement it to the lower bone and the upper bone and you’ve got you a knee joint. I guess they’ve perfected it pretty well.”

A Heisman-Trophy winning quarterback at Florida in 1966, Spurrier played 10 years of pro football with the San Francisco 49ers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He underwent four knee surgeries and two back operations in the past.

Spurrier, 66, said one of the rehab guys told him, “ ‘After the first five days, you are about two weeks ahead of most people.’ I don’t know why. And I never had all the pain. Everybody says, ‘That’s a painful thing, that’s a painful thing.’ I never had all that.

“It was a good time to do it. It was a dead (recruiting) period.”