What will it take for the Florida football fanbase to be satiated? What will it take for it to stop calling for Will Muschamp’s head on a silver platter? Some will never be satisfied with his defense-first philosophy and I get that. But can the moderates be swayed into believing that Muschamp is making noticeable improvements? To find the answer, I’ll run through win-loss scenarios.
Double-digit wins are a dream come true for this team. Ten wins in the regular season is the logical ceiling for what I think this team can do given the talent and the schedule.
Of course they could luck their way to 11 or 12 and the College Football Playoff if things break the right way like they did in 2012, but that’s unlikely. Ten wins probably means the Gators are sitting pretty in Atlanta if you assume the losses are to Florida State and Alabama. That would mean the Gators would have swept its Eastern Division slate and earned a spot in the Southeastern Conference championship game. That would easily placate the fanbase and give Muschamp another year.
Nine regular season wins would also do the trick. Again, I’m assuming losses to FSU and Alabama, which are the two most loaded rosters in the nation. Then the next most logical “L” would be South Carolina, the media’s pick to win the SEC’s Eastern Eivision.
If Florida finishes with a 6-2 conference record, that still means wins over Georgia, LSU and Missouri. That finish would likely place Florida in a New Year’s Day bowl game in either the Capital One or Outback Bowl. It’s also a five-win improvement over 2013’s 4-8 season.
Eight regular season wins is the gray area. That’s losses to the “Big Two,” the Ol’ Ball Coach’s Gamecocks and most likely a fourth straight loss to the hated Georgia Bulldogs. This is where the vanity of Florida’s season comes to the forefront.
With the talent at the skill positions as well as how new offensive coordinator Kurt Roper plans to maximize it, this team shouldn’t rank in the bottom half of offensive categories, much less its abysmal 115th in yards per game, 110th in yards per play and 116th in total yards. If Florida can show an overly competent offense on its way to an 8-4 year, it might just be good enough.
There may need to be a fluky quality about one of its four losses, something easily explained away by the fans. A bad call on the road in Alabama or a 50-yard heart breaking field goal as the clock ticks down against South Carolina may be enough to rationalize 8-4.
Seven wins is where things get dicey. Without 2013’s cosmic over-regression to the mean, seven wins is likely where last season should have ended up. And the Gators were close with four losses last season coming by six points or less.
But seven wins in 2014 likely means a loss to the four given above and then a stubbed toe against Missouri on homecoming or a Tennessee team that could enter the Oct. 4 meeting with a 1-3 record or a second straight loss to Vanderbilt.
That’s now one 6-6 regular season, one 4-8 regular season, one 7-5 regular season and an 11-2 outlier that will look even more fluky than it already was.
Seven wins in my estimation won’t be good enough for a majority of folks that want Will Muschamp gone to stop their pleas to athletics director Jeremy Foley.
A 4-8 record in Gainesville is something Muschamp may never recover from in the minds of Gator fans. If he’s going to have a chance, he’s going to have to win.
Follow Richard Johnson on Twitter @RagjUF
UF coach Will Muschamp speaks during the Southeastern Conference Media Days in Hoover, Ala., on July 14.
