Andy Staples article on “why Florida has fallen behind”

No, he demoted Zook to Special Teams and hired the guy who ended up going to Marshall as head coach after two seasons. I think his name was Pruitt. Then Spurrier had actually promoted Zook back to DC but Zook took the Steelers job before spring. Then he hired Stoops away from K State where he was co-dc with Jim Leavitt who started the USF program and was the best coach they’ve had to date.

 

Thanks! I had that a little backward

 

What is not remembered is that SOS rehired Zook to be the DC, but by then, he turned it down to be the special teams coach for the Steelers. Amazing how many Gator fans forget this (not directed at you, Skink)...

 

I forgot that

 

Zooker was a goofball -- back in school, I interviewed him weekly -- but he would not have been fired had Machen not been hired. Machen knew what he had in Meyer and wanted him with him at UF. I don't think anything less than an SEC title would have saved Zooker. And, don't forget, Zooker was a panic hire by JF after Stoops and Shanahan turned him down.

Likewise, I don't think JF fires McElwain. He gives him cover after the credit cards (if he even lets it get as far as it did) and he gives him cover over the death threats. I don't know if it would have been the right decision, but JF would have given him a fourth year.

 

Agree. Particularly the point about the credit cards. That NEVER should have gotten as far as it did.

Winning programs and winning cultures don’t burn the house down to get rid of a few roaches.

 

No body was paying attention. Seemed to be the trend

 

Foley had 4 chances to replace Spurrier with a really good HBC. He failed 3 out of 4 times.

 

4?

 

I disagree with that. First, replacing Spurrier was going to be near impossible, and Steve's late departure created a panic, which led to Zooker. As I said above, I think look was a goofball and nowhere near the genius UF desired, but it was a panic move after he was turned down by the higher profile guys. Signing day wasn't far away at that point.

Now, I think JF's big failure was hiring Meyer instead of Spurrier in 2005. But I don't think that was his call, so I can't blame him. Maybe he shouldn't have let Meyer come back after he quit, but that's a difficult call to make.

I think he just made a mistake in evaluating Muschamp's personality. He brought in every assistant he could to help WM succeed, but Will was too insecure to let go of the offensive reigns -- he had a tough time just letting Weiss run the side of the team. And I don't think he respected Weiss very much. Probably because he was fat; some people, especially guys who become football coaches, are like that. But in his defense, WM inherited a team recruited to run the spread option and he wanted to run pro-sets. There was a disconnect in the kinds of talent the team had.

I still think that Foley stayed, and McElwain had gotten support, he'd still be UF's coach and we'd be duking it out with UGa every year for the east title. But I think Stricklin wanted his guy and, while McElwain made a silly misstatement which opened the door, Stricklin barreled through it to bring in the guy who he already had a relationship.

 

I think Zook was a decent coach and the players obviously liked him. I think his downfall at UF was his relationship with the players. He had his players friendship but not their respect. It always seemed very telling to me that his firing after the MSU game seemed to inspire the players. They played well in the loss against #7 UGA and won the next 3 including the win at FSU.

 

I agree with a lot of what you stated. But it was more than just the death threat statement itself. That statement was said out of complete desperation in an effort to gain sympathy and provide cover from all the pressure. He was crumbling. Even if SS didn’t move on when he did, it was coming.

I think Mac is a better coach than he gets credit for …but this ship was just to big for him to captain.

 

I'll bite.

Spurrier hurt us with his sudden departure. As stated we were left in a lurch trying to find a replacement given when he left us. As much as I love the guy to this day, I resented him for that although I still pulled for him in the NFL.

Zook could have benefited from support in the beginning instead of having to address the criticism from the beginning. With that said, he was too frantic a coach and I'm not sure that would ever change. I think Zook survives if he beat Miss State that year. I never felt worse for a coach than I did in his post game presser. He looked exasperated and genuinely hurt by the loss and hopeful he would eventually figure it out. Miss State was one of the worst teams in the country and our game plan was to play into their strength of their defense because Zook felt like that would catch them off guard or something to that effect regarding our run vs pass selection. 3 years in and we were what we were, a team that could beat a top 5 team or lose to a bottom 5 on any given day.

I wanted spurrier as much as anyone when we hired Meyer but there was a narrative that we peaked and would never be elite again without spurrier. It was better in the short term to catch lightning with Meyer but in hindsight I'd give up the titles we earned for the unknown under spurrier if it meant a steadier ship. That's just me.

Muschamp could have won titles if he just stayed with a spread offense. It's sickening to see how much defensive talent was wasted by anemic misfit offenses. Outside of Cam and Meyer fiascos I believe that decision was the next biggest reason for our subsequent struggle.

For all of mac's offensive prowess, our offense was terrible under him. Del Rio gets a bad rap here but we looked like a functional offense when he played. I wonder what we could have done if he stayed healthy because all we needed was a serviceable offense given the defenses we brought those years.

Still though, you can't run a modern day program without a proper strength and conditioning program and we didn't have one. Amazing that we could hire two of the biggest flakeouts in college football 2 out of 3 hires.

 

You bring some good points up. He did, at a high level, seem to not have the players respect. But if you look a level below the surface, his starting roster was almost all underclassmen in 03 and 04. Underclassmen can be/are immature. I’m quite sure that some of what an impatient fan base thought was a lack of respect for the staff was in reality a lack of maturity among the team. That team had little upper class leadership.

No matter who the coach is, rebuilding and starting large numbers of underclassmen always brings these issues. We saw it with Spurrier’s 92 team and with Meyer’s 07 team. Those two had the clout to weather the storm, continue to coach the young players to maturity, and the subsequent years were amazing successes. Meyer got the benefit of having an extremely talented and highly experienced group of juniors and seniors from the get and reaped the benefit of some of Zook’s struggles. When that amazing 06 roster had left, Meyer had a very bumpy 9-4 season in 07.

 

I agree but would like to add that my money would have been on Spurrier winning Nattys in 05 and 06 with that team. Spurrier would have lit the world on fire with that Line, C4 and Thornton, Leak, Caldwell, Jackson, and Casey. Defense would have been the same as it was under Meyer because Strong would have stayed with Spurrier as well.

 

I'm OK with going off topic a little more since the initial topic sort of ran its course but you may forget the role a key few people had in that 06 title. Jarvis moss was written off and Meyer's attention revitalized his path. Ryan Smith was an absolute must get at cornerback as a grad transfer from Utah as we relied on him as well as a converted WR in Reggie Lewis. For all of zooks recruiting he left some gaping holes in that defense. Also Mattison had a great deal to do with that defense along with strong.

Now Meyer blew a title chance in 05 switching to the spread with leak and company. Zone blocking left leak with no protection as they didn't know the system and that was the year we added a fullback to beat georgia.

 

Also, Percy Harvin most likely would not have been a Gator under Spurrier.

 

I love our 2006 team but it wasn't that good of a team; they just took advantage of a down year for CFB. But 2005 was loaded. We did not have the talent to hang with USC and Texas.

 

I sort of disagree. I'd have a hard time arguing numbers for that team up against those you mention but intangibles can mean a lot and that team gelled throughout the year. We didn't always exhibit the fire power offensively but Percy was already one cut away from a huge gain and our Offensive line held up against some of the toughest defenses in the country.

On defense we were a patchwork team but had juggernauts at each level. RFN shut down the backfield. Siler and company were solid if not excellent and our Line was absolutely stout with Ray Mac and Thomas endcapped with moss and Harvey. I mean our "weakness" was at corner and we would give anything most years to have the solid even play those guys gave us that year.

Certainly I'm biased but we have more data on that team as it progressed since we as fans watched them evolve each game. They weren't that good to start but they got better and better. We were fortunate to have the injury luck we had that year as we probably couldn't lose even one of several cogs and still won. We survived losing Thomas for behavior but otherwise we would have been lost without a nelson, Siler, Percy, Smith, etc etc

 

You're mixing up a lot of 2005 and 2006.

• No Harvin in 2005 but you had a better traditional RB in Wynn.
• You had Chad Jackson, who was a better WR1 than anyone on the 2006 team.
• You had all the same OL but a year less strength and experience.
• The DL would have had Thomas all season but Harvey was a fresh and not much of an impact player. I don't think Joe Cohen was nearly as good in 2005 as he was in 2006.
• LB was younger and less disciplined.
• In the secondary, Nelson was there and good but wasn't quite RFN all the way. I think Vernell Brown was CB2 and we all love VB but he really tops out at CB3 or CB4.