travisduncan
Gator Fan
ICON SPORTS MEDIA
The SEC media days are the mecca of sports press conferences, perhaps no other press conference it more anticipated by the college football media than the SEC media days complete with the carnival like atmosphere and commissioner Mike Slive's Churchill like declarations. (We'll get to that later)
Muschamp has given dozens of speeches and will give quite a few more for the Gators, but this is where he sets the tone with the Southern and National media about the Gator agenda.
Besides the obvious, introductions, WM spent a lot of time in praise of Urban Meyer, (a solid move for many reasons, though interestingly Deonte Thompson said later in the afternoon Muschamp was "more energetic." adding "He’ll get out on the field, run with us, work out with us sometimes.”), then WM got into his agenda.
Strength and Conditioning
-Again giving props to the Urb era, Muschamp said, "I don't like to use the word 'retained. "I hired Mickey Marotti to be our strength coach. He's outstanding. I think that's the most important hire on your staff. He's going to convey the toughness, all you want done. He does it at a high level."
But even with the retention of Mariotti Muschamp added, "With Mickey in our weight room, I added some things in the off-season that I think are important. " You can best that has more to do with emphasizing size than speed, based on the coaches previous comments about winning the line of scrimmage and the like.
Marriotti joined the Gators in 2005 and is one 71 people in the world to hold the Master of Strength and Conditioning (MSCC) certi cation.
Muschamp added, "I told our players on April 9th, after the spring game, we will be defined over the next four months on how we work.
"Because of NCAA rules, as coaches we can't be involved. Our strength staff can. All the reports I hear from our players, we've done an outstanding job of working, of creating some confrontation, creating some chaos to developing leadership and toughness in our unit. We're really coming together well. I'm excited about August 5, when that comes up."
Emphasis on the line of scrimmage-(even with an obvious lack of depth)
As was the case during his spring speaking tour, Muschamp can't stop talking about the line of scrimmage and being a "blue-collar unit".
He says the biggest difference between the SEC and the rest of college football is the defensive line.
"Top to bottom in our league, you watch every week when you turn on an SEC film, there's going to be some dominating players up front, not just in one or two teams, but from top to bottom in our league. That's the biggest difference in our league and other leagues."
"Other leagues, there's two or three teams that consistently year in, year out are going to have dominating fronts. We're a line of scrimmage league. That's why I think you see a little bit more unconventional offensive sets in our league, to protect the quarterback because of the defensive linemen and the one-on-one matchups that are created. That's just my opinion.
"You have to prepare for the toughness of our league, especially on both lines of scrimmage. You have to get in that physical toughness, that hitting condition what I call. You have to get your guys ready for the physicality of our league."
"With that being said, we can't afford any injuries up front. I have to do a good job of balancing that throughout fall camp. That's something that's going to be practice by practice, although we're prepared through practice 22 at this point."
Confidence in his Staff
Muschamp, having been coach in waiting at Texas, learned from Mac Brown, Nick Saban among others the value of having the top talent in the coaching ranks and giving them enough leash to make decision and subsequently have an impact.
Muschamp says, "I'm pleased about our staff. I think the worst thing you can do in a leadership position is be something you're not. I'm a defensive coach. I coached special teams. I hired Charlie Weis to run our offense. I'm very pleased with where we are right now with Charlie."
As for what he learned from Nick Saban at LSU "More than anything total program management, philosophically, what you believe offensively, defensively, and special teams, being tied together on both sides of the ball for what you want to be. Not having two separate units for what they are, which some teams do that."
Selling the Gator Brand and the NFL
Muschamp's recruiting philosophy isn't hard to figure out, Florida is a great place to play football and if you are good enough you will get your shot at the NFL.
"When a young man comes to the University of Florida, he's going to get a great education."
"He needs to win a championship. The fun is in winning. Football is a tough, hard game. The last thing is to hopefully have that opportunity to play in the NFL. I didn't want any projections coming out of our scheme. I wanted guys to see themselves playing in that scheme and certainly transferring to Sunday if that were made available."
There was something to the Jeff Demps rumors
"I don't deal in rumors or message boards," Muschamp said (thanks for the shoutout coach) "I don't know any good ball coaches that do that."
Muschamp was unable to flatly say that Demps will return to the team, or rule out any possibility the senior tailback will focus exclusively on track as has been rumored for the last week.
There is also a possibility that Demps could make the USA Track Team 4X100 relay team (which he is in Italy training for now) and be competing in the Track and Field World Championships in South Korea when the season begins against Florida Atlantic Sept. 3.
"Based on our conversations, he'll be back. He and I will meet next week to see when he will join our football team in August. I'll update you once he and I speak and talk about that. I expect him to be a part of our football team."
Obviously, it's not standard procedure to meet with a guy who has been a star on the football team to see if he'll be a part of the whole thing for the upcoming seasno. But Muschamp needs Jeff Demps and he's got to know that.
Muschamp added, "Well, he's in Italy right now. When I deal with people, I like to deal eyeball to eyeball, talk to them face to face. That's been hard to do with some of the traveling he's been doing. I ain't never been to Italy."
Big Changes on the horizon for College Football?
SEC Commissioner Slive, as only he can do, delivered a key-note address which would appear is the first real impetus towards a pay-for-play model in college sports.
Slive won't say outright cash attendance, but spoke about giving the full cost of attendance and increasing scholarships guarantees from the current 1-year re-newable scholly to a full four year scholarship and allowing those who did not complete their degree for whatever reason to go back to school with with a scholarship, even after their athletic career is done.
One could argue/wonder why is Slive the man to push change, and or de-regulation in college football? Five National Championships and there is disattisfaction? Or is there a real threat from the outside to conference and its dominant athletic programs.
Slive gave us the answer in what I believe is the most interesting comment of the day:
"It's time to push the reset button on the regulatory rules on recruiting in order to move away from the idea that recruiting rules are designed to create a level playing field (i.e. the SEC vs everyone else)."
"There are significant differences between institutions in resources, climate, tradition, history, stadiums and fan interest and many other things that make the idea of a level playing field an illusion."
