New Coach for the Gators

Greetings,

Welcome to the second installment of Tales from the beard.

Just wanted to touch on a few things that have been rambling around in my head these last two weeks.

The University of Florida has made former UGA defensive back, Will Muschamp their new head coach. Muschamp has a lot of experience as a defensive coordinator at Texas, LSU, Auburn, and even the Miami Dolphins for one year. He has worked his way up through the ranks, he has paid his dues to get to this position. There are not many places that are considered upgrades over being the defensive coordinator and coach-in-waiting at Texas, but being the head coach at Florida does. Florida is one of the top 5 places to be a head coach in college football. Right up there with Texas, LSU, USC, Oklahoma, Ohio State, etc. It is a high intensity, stressful type of job. If you watched Florida this year, you could just see the energy being zapped from Urban Meyer. His health scare from last year was pretty reflective on the performance this season. His energy was not there and by all accounts he was less involved than in previous seasons. I think losing his top 2 assistants over the last 2 years, Dan Mullen to Mississippi State and Charlie Strong to Louisville hurt his team this year.

The Florida Gators do not lack for talent, that is not the problem. They just need an energy boost and someone to give them direction. Can Muschamp do that? That remains to be seen. I think this is a fairly risky hire for a program of this stature. Florida AD Jeremy Foley hit a home run with the Urban Meyer hire, but struck out on his previous hire of Ron Zook. Where will he stand with Muschamp? It remains to be seen. My best guess is that it is somewhere in between. A few SEC East titles, maybe an overall SEC title, but no national championships. Look, Muschamp was the hot name, but I think his coaching acumen was a little overvalued. While he his a great recruiter and has a fierce sideline demeanor, his defenses could hit hard but also missed a lot of tackles.

How much of it was his defense at LSU (Nick Saban) or at Auburn (Tommy Tuberville)?

A side note to this, as a lifelong Georgia fan, there is no better opportunity to try and take the SEC East division (well other than this previous season). New coach at Florida, South Carolina is South Carolina and until they can consistently show that they are a 9-10 win type of program, I have my doubts. Tennessee is in year two with Derek Dooley, who I think will get them back to where they are used to being and that is the top of the Eastern Division. Kentucky and Vanderbilt are what they are, average and below average SEC programs. South Carolina should be the favorites going into next season and we will see how they handle that pressure.

Georgia will have the best QB in the division in Aaron Murray and although they will lose some guys to the NFL draft, most notably A.J. Green, they still have enough talent to have double digit wins and play in New Year's Day bowl games. I have my doubts on this happening. The UGA program has stalled under Mark Richt and it does not seem to be on the uptick. The defense has not been the same since Brian Van Gorder left after the 2004 season. The line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball has been lacking the last couple of years. Especially on the offensive line, where the past two years they have been regarded as one of the top lines in the preseason only to be slightly above average and struggling to find the "right combination." To me this is Richt's last year at UGA if he cannot win the East. That is what the administration should be telling themselves as well. You only get by so much as being a nice guy. Eventually you need to win some games. Being a nice guy sure does not scare the players that much. Go look at their off-season track record the last few seasons.

That is all I have for today. I hope you will continue to read. Enjoy.

Hugs and handpounds.

MB