Mike McNeely used to wear his number, the player Will Muschamp holds up as an example for silver spooned scholarship athletes scored the final touchdown of the Will Muschamp era in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
It wasn’t just senior day for the 22 members of Florida’s class — McNeely included — that will be moving on from the program, but also for Muschamp who is in his fourth season coaching the team.
The Gators (6-4, 4-4 Southeastern Conference) sent him out the right way, with a 52-3 victory over Eastern Kentucky (9-3, 6-2 Ohio Valley Conference) in his final game coaching in The Swamp.
“It was a good win. I’m happy for our seniors,” Muschamp said. “For them to come out and play well, I’m really proud of our players and the how they handled the week and working through all the stuff. So, we’re really excited for them moving forward.”
The worry was that Florida would go out and lay an egg, fall flat after all the emotion and negativity surrounding Muschamp’s firing and have an embarrassing repeat performance of the Georgia Southern game last year.
Thursday, in a weekly team meeting to talk about the week that was and the game ahead, Muschamp had to rally his troops after two practices that were merely “OK” and lacked “focus,” per Muschamp.
“I discussed my transition coming here. It was hard. It was a divided locker room. It had guys that didn’t want to buy in to anything but what they wanted and how it affected them,” Muschamp said. “And I told them, ‘They’re going to hire good football coaches. Jeremy (Foley)’s going to hire a good coach.
“So why don’t you give the guy a chance and buy in to what the guy’s trying to do instead of going through a total rocky road the first year where it’s miserable for everybody in the locker room?’ Hopefully, they’ll do that.”
The Gators got off to a fast start defensively, forcing three straight three and outs to start the game, and not allowing Eastern Kentucky more than 59 yards in any quarter.
Florida’s offense struggled until senior Quinton Dunbar caught one of his career-high two touchdown passes on the day, a 70-yard bomb from quarterback Treon Harris. Dunbar and Demarcus Robinson both had over 100 receiving yards, the first time in the Will Muschamp era a receiving duo has each gone for over 100 yards.
“Yeah I’ve waited four years for that. Well I mean when people are going to play single high, you got to be able to take some shots down the field,” Muschamp said. “We missed several last week, killed us in the game. And you just got to hit those opportunities with the deep balls. I think we only missed one in the game if I remember right so that’s good.”
From there, they turned it on. Including Dunbar’s play, which was the final UF offensive play of the first quarter, the Gators’ offense ran at an 8.3 yards per play clip, after only gaining 2 yards per play prior to that.
The 31 first-half points were the most points a Muschamp coached UF team has ever scored in a first half at home and tied for the most in a Muschamp era first half. UF’s 52 points total were the third most in the Muschamp era.
“We wanted to go out and dominate them and win pretty easily, impose our will on the other team. We did that today,” senior linebacker Michael Taylor said. “We sent out our coach the right way and us as seniors, we all left The Swamp with a big victory and our heads held high and a lot of smiles and a lot of people we made proud today, a lot of parents, a lot of fans who have been watching us all the way back from recruiting.”
Follow Richard Johnson on Twitter @RagjUF
Quinton Dunbar catches a pass during Florida's 52-3 win against Eastern Kentucky on Saturday at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
