Expect the usual entertaining SEC fan drama whenever Muschamp gets fired
Editor’s Note: Stephen Garcia threw for 7,597 yards and 47 touchdowns at South Carolina (2007-11) and also had a brief career as a professional quarterback. He’ll be providing SEC insights throughout the season.
As the Will Muschamp saga in Gainesville, Fla., continues to unfold, the fan base known as Gator Nation is unraveling.
This is not a unique phenomenon to the Gators. This is typical, rabid SEC fandom.
A quick search of Gators message boards revealed a meltdown of epic proportions. There are numerous threads and comments on when Muschamp’s firing will occur. Equal in number are message board comments about who his replacement will be. Who will lead the Gators back to the promised land?
Some of these threads are funny and some are downright vicious. The one thing they all have in common is a deep-seeded love of their team. A “I bleed orange-and-blue” mentality is representative not only of the Florida Gators, but of every university and its fan base in the SEC.
We’ve seen this before. When Nick Saban left LSU after the 2003 season, Tigers fans went into a tailspin. The same thing happened in 2009 and 2010 when Urban Meyer retired, un-retired, then retired again. The fans of any SEC school are, if nothing else, tenacious.
They have been known to track the whereabouts of the university airplanes by following the flight plan for the tail numbers. They have been known to post spies and scouts in and around facilities. Everyone seems to have an uncle whose barber knows the cousin of the cousin of the third-string running back.
The information, or more appropriately titled, mis-information, flows freely when a coaching change is imminent. It’s difficult for one to know the difference between truth and fiction. There’s so much speculation and innuendo swirling around such a major change at any SEC school.
And that brings us back full circle to Muschamp and his tenure at Florida. Mired in a 3-3 season, the Gators’ only wins have come against lowly Kentucky, Tennessee and Eastern Michigan. Arch-rival Georgia looms on the horizon Saturday.
The landscape is bleak for Muschamp. Anything short of a miracle is not likely to save his job. Anything remotely resembling last week’s debacle against Missouri and it is doubtful Muschamp survives the ride back to Gainesville.
Cue the jet trackers. Call in the spies and scouts. Increase the bandwidth on the internet sites. The Gators are approaching a Chernobyl-esque meltdown.
For all of you Gamecocks, Dawgs, and others in the SEC, grab a beer, maybe some popcorn, sit back and enjoy the show.