Topping the list of my recent series on college football is one of the most disappointing teams in 2013, the ailing University of Florida Gators.
They hold claim to most disappointing team in terms of the talent they have access to in their backyard, and their sustained run of success toward the back end of the last decade.
It’s not a stretch to say that once-heralded head coach Will Muschamp is on one of the hottest seats in college football entering 2014, and nor is it a stretch to remark on how far the University of Florida has fallen in such a short space of time.
I mean, it’s not all that long ago that Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow (along with a very talented supporting cast on both sides of the football) were ruling the college football roost.
Since Tebow and Meyer departed, the Gators haven’t looked the same team. Last year, they were nothing short of woeful. Expected by their rabid fan-base to be perennial contenders in the cutthroat South Eastern Conference, last year’s season was definitely an in-recent-memory low-point for the Gators.
They finished 4-8, including a 30-point loss to in-state rivals, and eventual BCS National Champions, Florida State and a narrow defeat at the hands of Miami-FL. As if losing to their two major in-state rivals wasn’t bad enough, 2013 was also the first time the Gators missed out on a Bowl game since 1990.
In some ways, it’s a wonder that Muschamp, formerly the head-coach-in-waiting at the University of Texas, is still in charge in Gainesville. He should feel very lucky that he’s been given a chance to right the Gator ship. Many other schools would’ve shipped their coaches out the door quickly, and brought in a new guy to fix the damage.
Perhaps it’s because quarterback Jeff Driskel went down in the fourth game of the season, suffering a broken right fibula. It’s not easy to win in the SEC at the best of times, and almost impossible when you’re without your offensive lightning rod.
Driskel is back this year, but it remains to be seen if he’s the elite quarterback Florida need to compete with the big guns of the conference.
One thing’s for certain, the Gators don’t have an easy schedule. Sure, they open up with three straight at home – Idaho, Eastern Michigan and Kentucky – and they all look like victories, but it’s road trips after that to Alabama and Tennessee before a home tilt against Louisiana State where things are likely to fall apart.
They get Missouri and South Carolina at home, Georgia at the usual neutral site in Jacksonville, and finish the season on the road at Florida State.
Where do the wins come from? Well, I can see them maybe clawing their way to perhaps six victories. The first three games, then perhaps Vanderbilt, Eastern Kentucky and, if they’re lucky, Tennessee in Knoxville, too.
You can pretty much pencil in Alabama, LSU and Florida State as definite losses. Maybe they get a seventh against Missouri or South Carolina, because, sometimes, the SEC gets tipped upside down, but there aren’t any guarantees.
Ultimately, though, Florida finishing 6-6 isn’t going to help Muschamp his job. Not even close.
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