What if?
That has to be what some Florida Gators football fans are thinking these days — and perhaps athletic director Jeremy Foley is, too — now that Mack Brown is out as head coach at Texas.
Don’t follow?
Just refresh your memory by recalling that Will Muschamp, now on the proverbial hot seat three years into his head coaching gig at UF, was the Longhorns’ successor-in-waiting to Brown before Foley swooped in and hired him away.
That worked out well for a while (see: an 11-2 record with a Sugar Bowl berth when Muschamp was Coach of the Year in the Southeastern Conference in his second season), but the whole thing dissolved into a 4-8 mess this season.
It was so bad that Foley, before what turned out to be a season-ending rout of a home loss to Florida State, stood in the press box at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and said: “I have total confidence in (Muschamp) and have made that clear. We’ve got to fix some things. When you have a season like this, that’s what you do. You evaluate, you analyze and you fix things. You don’t panic. You don’t put orange-and-blue glasses on. It’s not acceptable.”
Imagine a different scenario.
What if?
What if Foley, instead of pursuing Muschamp so quickly and as all-in vigorously as he once had pursued Urban Meyer, had left him to the Orangebloods? What if, instead of rushing to sign Muschamp as Meyer’s successor, the Gators had pursued other options?
Might they have been able to convince Charlie Strong, once a defensive coordinator with the Gators, to leave Louisville after one season as boss there? Strong, whose team beat Florida in that recent Sugar Bowl, has pushed the Cardinals into national prominence.
Might they have enticed Dan Mullen, once an offensive coordinator with the Gators, to leave Mississippi State after two seasons there as head coach of the Bulldogs?
Might they have talked to Al Golden, whose first season at Miami as head coach of the Hurricanes after leaving the same position at Temple coincided with Muschamp’s first season with the Gators? Golden is 22-14 and has weathered an NCAA storm at UM; Muschamp is 22-16 at UF and striving to remain SEC relevant.
Might they have boldly chased Boise State hotshot head coach Chris Petersen, who was five years into employment with the Broncos at the time complete with a 61-5 record? He just took the same job at Washington.
Might they have plucked Kliff Kingsbury off the Houston staff? He went to Texas A&M as offensive coordinator the year the Gators hired Muschamp, had a hand in the development of Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Johnny Manziel and now, as a rookie head coach, has Texas Tech going to the Holiday Bowl.
Might they have talked to another head-coach-in-waiting — James Franklin at Maryland — before Vanderbilt snatched him up? In three seasons with the Commodores, he’s 23-15 overall and 11-13 in the SEC; Muschamp is 13-11 in the conference and lost at home to Vandy this season. The Commodores are in a bowl for a third consecutive time on Franklin’s watch.
What if?
The review, of course, is done with the clarity of hindsight.
But it’s revealing that Muschamp in three years has gone from head coach-in-waiting on Texas’ staff to being a long shot to attract even a mention as Brown’s possible successor now.
That sound you hear is Longhorn Nation breathing a collective sigh of relief that Muschamp is Florida’s disappointment, not theirs.
Foley said on that late-November day that his confidence in Muschamp “isn’t my ego speaking.” But he must wonder/worry that Muschamp might be another hiring error on his resume in the manner Ron Zook was.
“My name’s not on the front door down there,” Foley said those few weeks ago. “I don’t own this franchise. It’s my job to make sure it’s going in the right direction. We’ve made tough decisions before. I don’t waver on that. We have to win some football games.”
That’s where the Gators are.
What if? That won’t be the hypothetical question should Florida’s fortunes not soon change.
The new instead would be very real: What next?
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