Muschamp has to live on $50,000 salary!

Well when I think about it, it’s been a long time since we had a head coach I “love”. We can agree to disagree on Will Muschamp. He had his heart in it for sure, but I think he was an awful head coach.

 

I've been a Gator for many decades, and have repeatedly seen the patterns. For many here, Spurrier and Meyer are the standard. Everything else less than this is substandard.

Our offense from 2009-2012:

2009: 6th
2010: 82d
2011: 105th
2012: 103d

Now, I hold Muschamp responsible for our having poor offenses, but in 2010, Meyer's offense was nearly as poor. And before you go there with Gator rationalization #42, blame Steve "The Dazzler" Addazio, or Gator Rationalization #47, Urban Meyer's head wasn't in it, Addazio was the OC in both 2009 and 2010. Our offense was making a nosedive in 2010 before Muschamp arrived.

He PERSONALLY did?!? Or was it he, Charley Weis and a severely depleted, injury-laden team? Wins and losses are team efforts.

With a team so depleted by injuries, we were nearly pulling students from the stands. I suppose you can't factor that in.

Hands down?!? You mean Muschamp (28-21, .571) is worse than:

Doug Dickey (58-43-2 (.573)
Bob Woodruff (53-42-6, (.554)
Dutch Stanley (14-13-2, (.517)
CJ McCoy (9-10, (.474)
Billy Napier (11-14 (.440)
Tom Leib (20-2-1, (.436)
Josh Cody (17-24-2, (.419)
Ray Wolf (13-24-2 (.359)

Hell, I remember when SOS-era Gators considered Ron Zook the worst football coach in history.

Frankly, yes, seriously. Not you per se, but for those who share this mindset you have. Since the early 1990s, for many, if not most Gators, the Spurrier years was "the new normal." You may not be old enough to remember this, but when Zook was announced, some clown made a website entitled "fireronzook.com" BEFORE he set foot in Gainesville, and there were several members of this board who thought even that was too kind for him.

But I'll give you an opportunity. What is the minimum standard for Florida football, at least regarding wins and losses. Is it SOS or Meyer? Is it Mullen (34-15, (.694)? Is it McElwain (22-12, (.647)? Is it even Zook (23-14, (.622)? Proffer your standard, then follow it with traditional variable such as injuries, expulsion, failure to qualify, etc., and and add in modern ones like The Portal. Ya might want to also include Strength of Schedule, which contrary to popular belief, is NOT brutal every year (next year's schedule promises to be brutal).

Have a pleasant day...

 

Oh, I agree; he wasn't. But he was not as horrible as many make him out to be, that being an impossibility.

 

Instead of schadenfreuding Muschamp we should envy Georgia for having high-profiled and highly accomplished staff, like Muschamp, who are willing to work peanuts so that Georgia can ‘budget in’ hot new faces like T Rob.

 

yup, paying the taxes will hurt, but should be better off in the long run

anyone here contributing to an IRA or 401k should be looking at a Roth if it's availabe for their 401k, I sure wish that I had started earlier

 

Dude, you really need to stop pushing your SOS/Meyer opinion. With me anyway. I agree there are many out there who were spoiled by the SOS years and grew up expecting more. 4 years after Spurrier left UF, Meyer came along and poured more fuel on the fire of expectations and entitlement. I understand it way more than you realize.

Doug Dickey was our coach when I enrolled at UF. He was still there when I graduated 5 years later. 16 years later I was standing on the corner of University & North-South Drive waving a big Gator flag in an all-night street party celebrating a nail-biting victory over Kentucky (Kentucky?)…..oh yeah, and our 1st official SEC Championship.I get it, and don’t need the lecture or your assumptions about me, which couldn’t be more incorrect.

Until Muschamp arrived, Doug Dickey was, in my opinion, the worst head coach at UF - ever. Who in their right mind runs Nat Moore off-tackle as a fullback? Zook was bad, but he also had the toughest-ever act to follow. Fireronzook.com was up and running before poor Zook even unlocked his new office in Yon Hall. And he proved to be not good — horrendous in comparison to the wiseguy who preceded him. Of course.

Will Muschamp proved over time to be worse. You can’t make excuses for his benchmark failures. If people here are going to blame Billy Napier for our team losing to Arkansas and Missouri, then it’s a slam dunk to blame Muschamp for ending our nation’s longest bowl streak. And my friend, there are simply no excuses for losing at home to Ga Southern in your 4th year at the wheel. Injuries sure — was that 100% bad luck, or might it also be due in-part to inadequate S&C coupled with lack of depth at key positions?

I could go on. You can remember things however you want regarding Will Muschamp, and I will do the same. We both experienced it, me with a bit more history to look back on than you. Doesn’t make you a dumbass — and it damn sure doesn’t make me one either. You have a pleasant day too.

Go Gators

 

Agree with almost all of this however I will disagree on what florida "is" based on historical norms. Times change. Florida got a late start due to population demographics in earlier times but Pell, Spurrier and Meyer showed the potential that a modern day university of Florida could achieve. Of course people shouldn't expect that success year in and year out but Florida's potential is absolutely in the top echelon of college on a yearly basis.

 

I'm glad you do, which is help in understand why every coach we had that didn't win natties averaged three years on the job.

I stand corrected. You ARE an old-time Gator.

Actually, his third year. And the injuries were mind-boggling. But Florida history goes back to 1904. We had many coaches worse than Muschamp.

I agree that Muschamp was a mediocre head coach - but we've had worse.

 

Any coach before Ray Graves was before my time. I have no basis for comparison on Woodruff and the guys who preceded him. We were largely irrelevant before the 70s, so damage done in those decades prior wasn’t as severe as in the post-90s era. Zook allowed the program to decline after our run of the 90s, so his failure rates as more damaging to the program because we lost something huge. The same can be said for Muschamp. I don’t think Muschamp was any worse of a head coach than Mac — but Muschamp was at the wheel when our program collapsed after Meyer. That was most damaging because of what we lost. Mac just continued the suck.

And to one of your points, that collapse started under Meyer in 2010

 

I agree about the population demographic shift, and in fact, I would take it back to Ray Graves, when Carrier developed affordable air conditioning in the 50s. We WERE a solid to strong team since 1960. From 1960 through 2009, we only had four losing seasons, with one of them being Charley Pell's "burn down the barn to get rid of the rats" rebuild in 1979. No one ever held Bear Bryant's 1-9-0 record in 1954 against him following his famous Junction Boys experiment with torture. But Bryant went 24-5-2 the following three years after completely dismantling the team while Pell went 23-13-0 his next three years (and his teams went 27-4-1 three years after that). Heck, Zook went 9-4 (on the field) with a true freshman QB, 13 new starters after having 12 new starters the year before, facing a schedule beating MNC LSU (13-1), Georgia (11-3), and playing a total of seven teams with ten-plus wins plus 9-win Arkansas.

This is what makes my argument about Billy getting cut slack for next year's brutal schedule in 2024. Most expect him to have another losing season because of the many factors he faces, but generally, fans are not forgiving of such obstacles and realize immediate improvement HAS been done many times, every by coaches that aren't considered great coaches.

Daamn, I want Billy to excel, but the odds are lining up against him...

 

I hear ya, but history doesn't begin with our conscious recollection. "In history" means all time.

We did well under Graves, so I would begin relevancy in the 60s myself.

His "decline" was the failure to match Spurrier's extraordinary success, and frankly, Zook did not inherit a loaded roster. Spurrier admitted leaving the cupboard bare when he left. Yet Zook's recruiting build the foundation of Meyers early great teams (in 2006, 22 of 24 starters were Zook recruits). So I see very little damage, especially in retrospect.

IOW, Muschamp couldn't win 13 games three out of four years. Was that the standard? Meyer's last year was 8-5; Muschamp's first year was 7-6. Not a great dropoff. Besides, Mac's seasons were 10-4 and 9-4. Hardly sucking, IMO...

Didn't I say that? That was when our total offense dropped from 6th in 2009 to 82d in 2010.

 

I think generally speaking, fans will be "content" if we see less mistakes on the field and the sideline somewhat regardless of record as long as current and prospective players keep signing up to play here. With that said, the naysayers and supporters can't have it both ways. We can't say we could have had a winning record if we had shown even minimal improvement defensively and cut down the terrible special teams mistakes and trick play gaffs and then resign ourselves to a losing record next year regardless of schedule.

To me this is where the leap of faith is for many supporters and non supporters. Do we believe a veteran Defensive coaching addition along with an upgrade at DB and DL coach are truly enough to improve the team along with a pretty significant infusion of athleticism and talent across the board will show results? If they are then fsu, lsu, and many other penciled in losses don't frighten me. Could have won those games last year against better teams than they should field this year with what we had last year with just a mediocre defense.

 

For real! "If's and buts..." Yet Bill Parcells' words still ring in my ears. "You are as good as your record says." I fear most of the Gator Nation will skips through the storms to see how the Good Ship Gator successfully arrived in port.

Agree, but we also could have lost more games the last couple games as well. Personally, I don't think our 2024 opponents will be as strong as they were in 2023.

Miami: Somewhat better
Texas A&M: Somewhat worse
Miss State: The same (but it is in Cowbell Hell)
Tennessee: Somewhat better (and at Rocky Top)
UCF: Probably better
Kentucky: Probably a little worse
Georgia: The same (tragically). They are in reload stage.
Texas: Somewhat worse, but it is at Austin.
LSU: Probably a little worse.
Ole Miss: Probably worse.
FSU: Probably much worse

Just IMO

 

Most likely much more than that. Just since he was a DC at Texas in 2009, Muschamp has pocketed over 55 million dollars in salary & buyouts. If his take home was half of that after taxes and agents, he only lived off about 5 million in that time, he'd still have 20m+ in a portfolio with 10% interest every year. Dude could probably take out capital gains taxes and still have $1.5+ Mil to blow every year for perpetuity.