At first glance, Florida coach Will Muschamp doesn’t have much in common with his predecessor.
Unlike Urban Meyer — a spread-offense-worshipping, terse-talking Ohioan — Muschamp is long-winded, touts blue-collar defense and has the southern accent and demeanor to fit the Southeastern Conference to a (sweet)-T.
His introductory press conference Tuesday lasted 40 minutes, including a 20-minute opening statement that featured sentences in the third person and a story about his mother wanting to “get her picture made” with then-UF receiver Cris Collinsworth when the Muschamps lived in Gainesville.
“I’m from the south,” Muschamp said. “I’m not going much west of Texas and I’m not going much north of Tennessee with my family.”
Athletics director Jeremy Foley watched Muschamp speak with a look of amusement and pride. Beneath the surface, he sees the same passion and character he liked in Meyer, Florida basketball coach Billy Donovan and UF baseball coach Kevin O’Sullivan.
That’s what made him hire Muschamp — a defensive coordinator at Texas with no head-coaching experience — less than a week after Meyer’s resignation and without interviewing other candidates.
“Everybody was expecting him to be the next head coach at Texas, so I don’t think it’s a gamble,” said Foley, who added he didn’t have Muschamp’s name down on his initial list of candidates. “I think he’ll fit here. He reminds me a lot of Billy, he reminds me a lot of Sully, and he reminds me a lot of Urban. Time will tell, and at the end of the day, he has to win some football games.”
For now, winning takes a back seat to observing and recruiting.
Muschamp said he’s “strictly a spectator” while Meyer guides the Gators through the Outback Bowl on Jan. 1, and he expects to wait until after the bowl to fill out his coaching staff.
After that, he still wants Meyer around.
He called Meyer before accepting the job. The two had never met, but Muschamp said that call convinced him they shared the same philosophy.
“The more I’ve talked to him, the more I like him,” Muschamp said. “I can tell you this right now, as long as Will Muschamp is the head coach at the University of Florida, Urban Meyer is going to be involved in this program.
“He’ll be a great sounding board for me, and he needs to be involved in this program for our players because he’s the one who recruited them all.”
Muschamp met his players for the first time Tuesday, urging them to finish strong with final exams and send Meyer and the seniors out with a win.
Beyond that, he asked them to “let the chips fall where they may” before next season, when he’ll have to turn around a mediocre squad that struggled to a 7-5 record this season.
The message took hold, but the transition won’t be easy for the Gators.
“I had to look at the screen a couple of times, like, ‘Am I seeing things?’” defensive tackle Jaye Howard said of observing the press conference.
“I kind of had a gut feeling this whole year that it was possible (for Meyer to retire)” Howard added. “He wasn’t the same coach. He used to be yelling at everybody and all that. I took it hard because I love coach Meyer to death, but I know he had to make the best decision for his family.”
Now, the Gators will go through bowl practices with Muschamp looking on, knowing their performances could dictate their future with the program.
Perhaps the least-certain position belongs to quarterback John Brantley. Rumors have pegged him as a transfer candidate, but the prospect of running what Muschamp called “a pro-style attack” could sway the redshirt junior to stay.
Brantley didn’t do much to clarify either way, saying he’d meet with his family and discuss his options.
“We’ll definitely see what happens,” he said.
Florida fans are in much the same position as Brantley — waiting to see how the 39-year-old Muschamp handles his first head-coaching gig on such a big stage.
But he knows what he’s getting into. A childhood in Gainesville, playing career at Georgia, and coaching stints at Auburn and LSU have made him very familiar with the ups-and-downs of coaching in the SEC.
“I know the Gator Nation is going to have high expectations, and I am too,” Muschamp said. “I expect to win. We’re not on a five-year plan.”
In his first five years at UF, Meyer snagged two national titles. For all their differences in personality, that’s one area Muschamp will strive to emulate.
