A 7-6 season is not acceptable at Florida.
Neither is a reputation as a ‘soft’ football team, one coach Will Muschamp tagged the group with after a 21-7 loss to Florida State in the Swamp on Nov. 26.
Those distinctions have left an indelible mark on the Gators who suffered through 2011.
“You always remember it,” Trey Burton said. “Even when I’m 40, I’ll still remember my sophomore year at the University of Florida. You’ve always got to keep it in the back of your mind, and strive not for it to happen again.”
“I don’t think it’ll ever get put out of our mind, until maybe about January, at the end of the season,” Frankie Hammond Jr. said. “To me, that’s a motivation for our whole team.”
Muschamp wants that sting to linger. He wants his players to use it to get stronger and faster, to spark a turnaround in his second year at the helm.
Offensive tackle Chaz Green said the Gators took being called ‘soft’ personally. The pejorative label hung in the players’ minds throughout the offseason.
Just the way Muschamp wanted it to.
“You never put last season behind you,” Muschamp said. “You’ve got to learn from it and move forward and let it motivate you. That’s what we’ve done as a staff, and as a team.”
Step 1 of that transformation started just one day after the 2011 season ended, when new director of strength and conditioning Jeff Dillman came aboard.
Under a new weightlifting program filled with Olympic-style workouts, players added pounds of muscle in an effort to shake the ‘soft’ designation.
“It’s been very obvious the confidence level of our players has gained a lot from the standpoint of we’re stronger, and we’re a more fit football team than we were a year ago,” Muschamp said. “We were a young team last year and a lot of these guys really bought in to what we were doing in the weight room, and we have gotten stronger. We’ve made tremendous strides.”
Step 2 was a more physical fall training camp.
The Gators were forced to minimize full-contact practices and cut back on reps in fall 2011 because of a lack of depth.
After an influx of freshman talent in the offseason, taking it easy was hardly a concern in 2012.
Florida ran more than 130 plays in its final fall scrimmage. Last season, the Gators were hesitant to run more than 80.
“This year was a physical camp, it was hard,” linebacker Jon Bostic said. “We knew we were going to have to go through it, to prove we were going to be a physical team this year.”
“We’re going to practice hard,” Muschamp said. “When you have good depth on your football team, you’re able to do that. We’re going to go good-on-good every day. That’s how you get better. That’s how you improve.”
Step 3 is to translate it to the field. Florida’s first opportunity to do so comes Saturday at 3:30 p.m., when Bowling Green travels to The Swamp to kick off the new season.
The Gators are eager to wash the taste of 2011 from their mouths.
Their last game on Florida Field was the loss to Florida State that earned Muschamp’s ire. A week earlier, Florida overcome an early 15-point deficit to avoid embarrassment against FCS opponent Furman.
“The last time we played in our stadium, we didn’t coach or play very well,” Muschamp said. “[We’re] looking forward to getting back in front of our stands.”
Muschamp will also see the unveiling of new offensive coordinator Brent Pease’s fresh, motion-based attack. He’ll have a chance to see the ongoing quarterback battle between Jeff Driskel and Jacoby Brissett spill over into real games.
Defensive coordinator Dan Quinn said he’s looking for physicality, communication, tackling and a defense hungry to set the tone after the way 2011 ended, despite their No. 8 ranking in total defense.
The players are only looking for another chance.
“We’re just trying to get back to where we were,” Green said. “We know we can be playing Florida football. … We didn’t have the best showings offensively the last few times we were here, so we should think of this as a new year, where we redeem ourselves.”
“We want to get back on top, and we came here to win,” Hammond said. “That’s the bottom line. … That’s the standard here at the university, so we definitely have a chip on our shoulders.”
Contact Greg Luca at gluca@alligator.org.
Will Muschamp
