Published December 15, 2010 - 6:40am
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Will Muschamp was introduced to Gator Nation on tuesday night. By and large, most fans are excited about the hire. The only concern seems to be over who Muschamp will hire to run the offense. While of course this is important, I think these concerns are getting blown out of proportion.
First off, Muschamp knows the game of football and he isn’t going to put someone in charge of the offense that is an idiot. He doesn’t need the next Gus Malzahn, he needs someone competent, someone who will work well with the other coaches, and someone who can get the most out of the talent recruited. Somewhere along the way, fans decided that an incoming offensive coordinator is only a good hire if he invest some entirely new way to move the football down the field.
Gator fans need to relax and trust Muschamp’s judgement. He knows what he is doing. Yes, he’s known for his defense versus his offense, but so what. It’s his first head coaching gig.
What Florida needs from Muschamp is leadership, energy, successful recruiting, and someone who will run the team well. I think he will bring all of this to the table. He’ll bring in competent coaches to fill out his staff and that includes the offense.
What Florida lacked in 2010 wasn’t an offensive coordinator – despite the grumblings over Steve Addazio – it was energy and leadership. Urban Meyer at some point in the last couple seasons lost his fire, and with new coaches on staff, he lost the cohesion and unity of a strong football team. The team was uncoached, confused, and out of sync. An energetic, new, young, coach will solve these issues and Florida will move forward.
Maybe he should hire the OC from UGA who owned his defense for two years while he was at Auburn. Maybe he should look at the OC from Baylor who embarrassed him with below average talent. What about the OC from Kansas State who was 2 points away from hanging 40 points on his great Texas defense. The Alabama OC who racked up 205 yards of rushing against him in the BCS championship game.
There are a lot of big name coaches in the SEC. Muskrat is not one of them. He is young, brash, aggressive to a fault. The best defensive units he has ever had were recruited by Chizik at Auburn and at Texas. This last year at Texas is the first year where he fielded most of his own recruits and it happens to be the worst defense he has ever put on the field.
interesting…
Paul. Interesting comments. Time will tell I guess.
The puppy is not too happy about one of his own coming to the dark side, Muschamp is certainly better than having helen hunt coach your team.
Not a UGA alum if that is what you are referring.
Time will tell on Muskrat. He spent several years under Saban, Tuberville, & Brown so he has had the opportunity to learn from some excellent coaches.
He had worn out his welcome at Texas and I don’t think anyone is Austin in sad to see him go. UF could have done a lot better. UF is a national program with some of the best facilities in the country. At least UF fans finally have a coach that does not cry when he loses.
I think the reason UF fans think Muskrat is a good hire is because his best two games as a DC were in ’06-’07 when his Auburn defense made Meyers/Mullens offense look silly.
What are the origins of the term “Muskrat” referring to Will Muschamp?
Paul go over to the Texas boards and see if he “wore out his welcome”, you will quickly see that most fans are indeed “sad to see him go.”
Here is a sampling: http://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/2010/funny-comments-from-texas-fans-on-news-of-sds-breaking-muschamp-to-florida/
I love that you isolate games as though you could gain any kind of idea about how good a coach he is based on isolated events.
Fact: Texas’ defense gave up fewer yards per game than all but 6 other teams this year. In terms of YPG, they rank just behind Alabama and just ahead of LSU. AND since LSU won 10 games almost ENTIRELY upon the strength of the defense, Texas ought to have been sitting pretty.
Fact: Texas’ offense just couldn’t score this year. They were 58th in total yards, but 85th in scoring. Texas’ QBs accounted for 10 TDs and 17 INTs. Their running backs ran for about the same yardage as Arkansas, a team which basically wasn’t a threat running the ball until the 6th game of the season—and Arkansas beat Texas significantly in YPC. (This is embarrassing for Texas, since Mack Brown wanted to re-establish the run this year.)
Conclusion: Texas was mostly hamstrung by an offense that struggled to move the ball and a QB who gave the ball away. Texas put up 440 yds of offense against Iowa State, for instance, and gave up 340. They should have easily won. The problem? Gilbert’s 3 picks.