The Official Fire Will Muschamp Thread

[Escambia94]

I am not saying that I want Will Muschamp fired, but...

 

[Leakfan12]

Why is Pease on that board? I hope it means please not Brent Pease.

 

[awebbf5]

Muschamp and pease

 

[miltongator]

Just another reason:
http://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/sec-football/florida-fan-criticizes-muschamp-praises-miles-injury/

 

[DRU2012]

Just belatedly noticed this thread...
We are far from alone in this: I have a practice here in Austin (Gator fans publicly flaunting their loyalties being a relatively rare thing among a sea of burnt orange) of pulling up beside folks in cars sporting Gator bumper stickers or license plate frames and giving a thumbs up, maybe a wide-armed "chomp", etc. Sometimes it is returned in kind, sometimes a blank stare (people forget they have these things on their cars, I guess), but lately it must be front and center on their minds, 'cause the last three times I have had a chance to do it, windows immediately came down and the first half-smiling, half-angry words out of their mouths has been "Fire Muschamp!". Just yesterday, I pulled up beside a young woman at a light, pulled around into the empty spot at the light on her driver's side after coming up behind and spying the "Gator Alumnus" license frame, and this time opened my mouth to be the FIRST to say it--and she actually JOINED me, the two of us shouting in unison, "FIRE MUSCHAMP!"...I added an emphatic "Yeah!", light changed and we at least went off smiling.
In a time of pain and darkness, it is the little things that light the way.
"Go Gators, and Fire Will Muschamp, y'all."

 

[Escambia94]

Just to seed future conversations, here is the total salary roll-up for Florida compared to Alabama. The rule of thumb for a top-tier football program is that the head coach should make over $3M in today's dollars and the total salary for the assistants should be about the total salary of the head coach. This further implies that a top-tier program should at least pay $6M for its head coach and assistants. Assuming Chris Leak only makes $100K, when Florida lost Joker Phillips it dropped from the $6M mark. Will Muschamp actually makes about $3M with incentives. Whomever replaces Muschamp should be worth $3M a year, and the coaches that the new guys brings in should be worth about as much.

 

[DRU2012]

(Re above tables of info, See our comments, back and forth, E- and I, re this same data and implications, reaction to it, elsewhere here at GE)
Well, it's "Sunday Morning", a CLASSIC "Morning After", in this case "Morning after the MASSACRE": another one--just as frustrating as every game save the "first"--one that SHOULD have been our "SECOND one" (and who would have figured that what happened in the "real" FIRST, "Showers" run-back the season's high point, and now "never happened", and the non-game itself one of the LEAST frustrating moments of this season???).
Why am I even HERE, on this thread, saying any of this?
Because it is FINALLY front and center: "When will WILL be fired?"
Not "if". Not "probably". Just "WHEN???" Or "When?", if you prefer.
That is the level at which this debate is taking place now, even among those who have a say, or at least real and direct influence in the matter. Variations include "When will Foley get this done?' "How can we get Foley off his stubborn ass and GET him to get this done?!" "When is the 'right time' to do it?" "What's best for the program in the hows, whens and WHOs of all this?" And so on.
Wish there were more and BETTER consideration as to that last--and wish it had begun in earnest seriousness before now... Oh well, this is where we're at NOW. High time, but at least we ARE there now--or damn well BETTER be.
(Just deleted a stupid, if possibly amusing AND poorly-considered-for-public-consumption line here a moment ago: Apologies to anyone who happened to be here and opened it in the few moments it was up before I reread and reconsidered its inclusion here)
I kind of lost my sense of fairness and equilibrium, let alone a sense of propriety, perspective and "taste" in all of this some time ago.
"What's this 'TASTE'-shit???" is more my state-of-mind now.

 

[Escambia94]

The reports from the UAA, Pat Dooley, and other RUMINT all say the firing notice will NOT occur in the next two weeks. Rather than debate the accuracy/ trustworthiness of the RUMINT, let us remember that Mr. Foley stated he will not fire Muschamp before the end of the season and let us assume that the word from Mr. Foley is that Muschamp must beat Georgia in order to get consideration for 2015.

I know this is not what the Gator Nation wants to hear, but this is the cost of being a Gator--we support each other even when we are down. Everything we have seen indicates that Mr. Foley will remain true to his word about not firing Muschamp before the end of the season, but there is nothing to indicate that he is not maintaining a list in his pocket. On that list are probably a few names and phone numbers, plus a shopping list of must-do items. My guess is that the must-do list probably says: keep players out of jail and win the East. Logically, Florida has no chance at the East, but mathematically it retains a chance by beating Georgia in two weeks. If/ when Florida loses to Georgia in two weeks, all bets are off logically and mathematically.

Nobody wants to hear this, but here are the remaining games that will shape the SEC East:

• 10/25: Missouri - Vanderbilt, Kentucky - Mississippi State, Tennessee - Alabama, South Carolina - Auburn
• 11/1: Florida - Georgia, Missouri - Kentucky, Tennessee - South Carolina
• 11/8: Florida - Vanderbilt, Kentucky - Georgia
• 11/15: Florida - South Carolina, Kentucky - Tennessee, Georgia - Auburn, Missouri - Texas A&M
• 11/22: Missouri - Tennessee
• 11/28: Missouri - Arkansas, Tennessee - Vanderbilt

The unlikely scenario to win the East:

• Georgia drops 2 of its 3 remaining SEC matches AND Missouri drops 3 of its 5 remaining SEC matches AND Kentucky drops 2 of its 4 remaining SEC matches AND Florida wins out its SEC matches (but still loses to FSU)

In summary, Foley, as a good man of his word, will not think about firing Muschamp until our inevitable loss to Georgia (effective end of season). If Florida defeats Georgia (SOMEHOW), then it could also lose to Auburn. I do not see Georgia losing to Kentucky. Missouri and Kentucky have a lot of SEC games they could lose.

 

[Escambia94]

If Muschamp were a smart man, he would assume his time as Gator head coach is limited to five more games. It is all but a given that the Gators will get massacred by Georgia and FSU. Muschamp needs to beat South Carolina in order to make a case for his next job. He must not lose to Vanderbilt or Eastern Kentucky. Note the wording. Thanks to Georgia Southern, Muschamp must work harder than normal to beat Eastern Kentucky.

His going away gift to Florida should be a bowl game--any bowl game--coached by an interim head coach.

 

[Escambia94]

I do not think William Larry Muschamp will be fired before November 29th. Here are the coaches that I hope Jeremy Foley has on his list:

• Dan Mullen. If Dak Prescott goes to the NFL I can see 4 million reasons for Mullen to come back to Gainesville. Then again, he may be delusional and think Staley or Fitzgerald are the next Prescott.
• John "Doc" Holliday. Doc was Reggie Nelson's position coach here at Florida. Now that he has Marshall ranked, he could get a triple boost in salary to replace Muschamp. He is a good recruiter, and with his focus on defense he would be a natural fit here. He may also consider retaining Roper on offense.
  
• Jim McElwain. Jim's offense at Alabama destroyed Florida's reign of supremacy and reduced Tim Tebow to tears. He has the Colorado State Rams offense humming, and he knows how to recruit and win in the SEC.
• Josh McDaniels. There are not a lot of hot college coaches on the market, but there are plenty of NFL coaches that could do well here. Why not grab a young, hot coach that is looking for a springboard to a head coaching position? Maybe he will learn a few tricks that he needed in his failed position at Denver.

Here are the coaches that show up on everyone else's list that I highly doubt are viable candidates due to strong family ties elsewhere, contract obligations, inexperience or character issues:

• Art Briles
• Kirby Smart
• Jim Harbaugh
• Charlie Strong
• Steve Spurrier
• Dana Holgersen
• Chris Petersen
• Kerwin Bell
• Brian Shottenheimer
• Bob Stoops

 

[Dale J. Rodriguez]

Escambia, I think Bob Stoops is the best coach out there for us. What is your opinion of Stoops?

 

[Escambia94]

Escambia, I think Bob Stoops is the best coach out there for us. What is your opinion of Stoops?

I will put him in the "too many attachments to current school or wrong person for the current situation".

Personally I would love to have him.

 

[Escambia94]

Just because Mike Gundy is rising on everyone's list:
Mike Gundy: $3.275 million
Todd Monken: $600,000
Joe Wickline: $440,000
Bill Young: $430,000
Glenn Spencer: $360,000
Doug Meacham: $305,000
Jason Jones: $240,000
Kasey Dunn: $210,000
Jemal Singleton: $210,000
Van Malone: $210,000

Oklahoma State has about the same payroll and football budget, but with less revenue than Florida. Mike Gundy could be pried away for $4M.

 

[miltongator]

This was posted on SDS:

More than likely, this will be Will Muschamp’s last season at Florida. Barring a miraculous turnaround, Muschamp simply wasn’t able to put a consistent product out on the field, despite achieving three top-10 recruiting classes.

Right now, recruits can still look back at the national titles in 2006 and 2008 and envision this Gators program returning to its championship form, but Florida is teetering on the edge of the cliff. Another couple seasons like fans and recruits have seen over the past two years, and they’re looking at nearly a decade of an average football from a program that was destined for a dynasty back in 2008.

At some point, the novelty wears off and you are what your record says you are. And Florida’s record proves the program is heading in a downward trend.

Of course, that’s not to say it can’t be turned around. The biggest factor in that will be the Gators’ next hire if it does reach that point. Coaching hires — or lack thereof — can make all the difference and the Gators wouldn’t be the first top program to fall victim to irrelevancy.

Look at Texas. The Longhorns were a perennial powerhouse and had a BCS Championship appearance in the 2009 season, just four seasons after winning the national title. But as the program started slipping, the program’s reluctancy to let go of Mack Brown cost them and the Longhorns have lost at least four conference games in every season since 2010.

The Tennessee Volunteers, a program to be reckoned with in the 90s and early 2000s, is fighting just be relevant within the conference. Once Phillip Fulmer left, the Vols’ hiring of Lane Kiffin and subsequent hiring of Derek Dooley just a year later set the program back several years. Now, Butch Jones is left picking up the pieces and is just now seeing some positive results in his second season.

For the Gators, they are at a crossroads. The decision by Urban Meyer to un-retire and come back in 2010, ultimately was a poor choice in hindsight. The lack of heart and care he put into that season left the cupboard bare for Muschamp when he came in.

And despite a hopeful 2012 season, Muschamp will probably leave this program in a very similar situation in terms of on-field success — middle of the road and off the college football radar. So where will this program go?

If you described to Florida fans after that 2009 SEC Championship loss what the state of the program would be just five years later, they would have described it as mere fiction.

But sadly, for those fans, the stark truth of how far this program has fallen and the direction in which its headed is becoming more and more of a reality with every passing week.

 

[DRU2012]

This was posted on SDS:

More than likely, this will be Will Muschamp’s last season at Florida. Barring a miraculous turnaround, Muschamp simply wasn’t able to put a consistent product out on the field, despite achieving three top-10 recruiting classes.

Right now, recruits can still look back at the national titles in 2006 and 2008 and envision this Gators program returning to its championship form, but Florida is teetering on the edge of the cliff. Another couple seasons like fans and recruits have seen over the past two years, and they’re looking at nearly a decade of an average football from a program that was destined for a dynasty back in 2008.

At some point, the novelty wears off and you are what your record says you are. And Florida’s record proves the program is heading in a downward trend.

Of course, that’s not to say it can’t be turned around. The biggest factor in that will be the Gators’ next hire if it does reach that point. Coaching hires — or lack thereof — can make all the difference and the Gators wouldn’t be the first top program to fall victim to irrelevancy.

Look at Texas. The Longhorns were a perennial powerhouse and had a BCS Championship appearance in the 2009 season, just four seasons after winning the national title. But as the program started slipping, the program’s reluctancy to let go of Mack Brown cost them and the Longhorns have lost at least four conference games in every season since 2010.

The Tennessee Volunteers, a program to be reckoned with in the 90s and early 2000s, is fighting just be relevant within the conference. Once Phillip Fulmer left, the Vols’ hiring of Lane Kiffin and subsequent hiring of Derek Dooley just a year later set the program back several years. Now, Butch Jones is left picking up the pieces and is just now seeing some positive results in his second season.

For the Gators, they are at a crossroads. The decision by Urban Meyer to un-retire and come back in 2010, ultimately was a poor choice in hindsight. The lack of heart and care he put into that season left the cupboard bare for Muschamp when he came in.

And despite a hopeful 2012 season, Muschamp will probably leave this program in a very similar situation in terms of on-field success — middle of the road and off the college football radar. So where will this program go?

If you described to Florida fans after that 2009 SEC Championship loss what the state of the program would be just five years later, they would have described it as mere fiction.

But sadly, for those fans, the stark truth of how far this program has fallen and the direction in which its headed is becoming more and more of a reality with every passing week.

...And THAT (the above) actually puts a less-pessimistic/holds-SOME-hope spin on it, compared to my own view. "Teetering on the edge of a cliff" puts us one step from the full-on, complete disaster of a fall-from-grace, whereas I see us as blindfolded and in the middle of TAKING that step-into-nowhere.
But it's close enough: I just don't believe we have the "luxury" of "waiting to see what will happen" at the END of the season. By that time, we are PAST "there". The process of saving this program, saving ourselves from that "ten years of irrelevancy", and worse, has to begin right away. Perhaps "consideration" has already begun in earnest, maybe there ARE "discussions", "feelers" going out "back channel" to and with a certain few--but we need to move a lot further, faster, and we need to DO IT NOW.
Is there any good reason left to "wait and see"??? Is there any real "downside risk" to trying to get out ahead of this? Do we really care "how it looks" at this point, or whose toes we tread on moving big and quick?
We can't worry about any of that. Call it what you will, no ones gonna be scoring the "grace" or "degree of difficulty" for THIS fall. At the same time, we have to stay cool, settle on who WE want, narrow it down to a few that appear (for various reasons) to be ideal, and go after them (quietly, one by one, I suppose, as we get a feel for the best MUTUAL "fit"), make our case in positive, confident fashion. We haven't gone over that "cliff" YET.

 

[DRU2012]

Escambia, I think Bob Stoops is the best coach out there for us. What is your opinion of Stoops?

We do have a history with Stoops--but unless we have started such an effort before now, it's almost certainly too late--unless OU themselves are softening in their loyalty and commitment to the point that Stoops is feeling it there now. Without that, a feeling from behind him that "the good times are done" there, his once seemingly ever-stronger "welcome" finally wearing thin, only a long seduction, complete with "name-your-own-price--just-give-it-some-thought-and-come-up-with-a-number" blank-sheet contract hinted at, was likely to even get us to "meaningful talks" with The Bob of Stoops. If those have begun on some super-secret, behind-the-scenes level, well, maybe we have a shot. Otherwise, move on. And remember this: As far as our public plans, moves and methods are concerned, we're already seen somewhat as "damaged goods"...We start forcing too many consecutive "No"s in too quick succession and we heighten and intensify that feeling surrounding our program. Lets be sure who and what we want, no matter who we're going after, before we embark on an "anyone who's anyone", panic-attack scramble all over the coaching map. The UF job is still a high-profile, highly-regarded (as WELL as highly-paid) job that hasn't plunged into the abyss YET. We SHOULD still be able to "get the guy we WANT", not just "settle for whomever guy-with-a-rep will TAKE us".
It's all a gamble, no matter what. As the above article well notes, we get this wrong and that's it for a long time, no matter what else we do or how fast we do it. I recognize the dangerous dilemma: We need to move quickly, but we need to move SMART. Personally, I lean more towards finding the right guy with "a hot hand and a hunger", myself--but that's part of a whole discussion unto itself.

 

[miltongator]

And now Rivals has us # 68 in recruiting. You know you're in trouble when you can't out-recruit Northern Illinois. Talk about a free fall.

 

[DRU2012]

And now Rivals has us # 68 in recruiting. You know you're in trouble when you can't out-recruit Northern Illinois. Talk about a free fall.

I've been staying away from this--partly out of the "it's early" hopes I had for us as recent as a month or so ago, and (lets face it) partly out of a continuing sense of disbelief; together, they add up to head-in-the-sand "denial".
Can't be buried, ignored or brushed over any longer: At this point, that one simple reality can be seen as a barometer, a stark, can't-miss-it sign of what's ahead, how bad it is and where we're going, barring some kind of hiring/recruiting "miracle"--never MIND some mythical, ain't-gonna-happen miracle come-back from THIS Coach and the mess of a team and program he will leave us on his and our present course.
Frankly, I just don't understand how otherwise intelligent and reasonable folks can even talk about how this all has to happen in some "orderly", "classy" and/or "timely" manner. By now that seems like the most extreme and self-delusional kind of the "denial" I suppose we've all been somewhat guilty of. But the writing's on the wall now, people. Big red letters, dripping down and pooling at the base boards--where we'll be, looking up from the bottom of the SEC damn soon. We will be the "poster boys" for the coming media-trumpeted coverage of "the SEC's fall back to mediocrity, parity with all the rest".
I don't know what else to say to get thru' to anyone: If we are to have any HOPE of this being just "a down couple of years while we regroup, rebuild and return to prominence under a new regime", it had better be in full gear long before December. In fact, I'm damn well hoping it has already begun--and we just don't have any word on its early maneuvers.

 

[DRU2012]

(PS Regarding the above, this is another case of NOT WANTING to be "right"--hoping against hope that it is at the very least a slightly premature, turns out-they-were-already-making-a-move, "Chicken Little/Sky Is Falling" over-reaction to a situation that only SEEMED that dire...Trouble is, it's hardly an "early warning" alarm, at this point. Don't know what effective form that could have taken, but I'm among the many who missed the "first signs of disaster ahead", I suppose. It don't take Nostradamus to see what's happening and where we're headed now, though. WHATEVER is done, whatever degree-of-success there will be in the moves and changes ahead, I couldn't possible be more relieved and satisfied to see us get through it and back on track in smooth and relatively quick fashion. I'll be among the first to give credit and thanks to those who pull that off--and you will NOT find me dwelling on any "I told you so's" should things go badly south after all. I am all about solving and taking action...We just have to get off our asses and get moving NOW. That's what everything I've been saying here of late has been and is about.)

 

[miltongator]

The sooner the axe falls, the better. Then we can have a little optimism around here and something to look forward to. I'm getting tired of worrying about when WM will get canned and who will be the program savior. We need to be concerned about getting the new staff in place and getting the recruiting revved up. Instead, we have to worry about getting rid of this loser ASAP.