Something to consider as the Gators head into Billy Napier’s rookie season as the boss in Gainesville, Florida: a fresh start is not guaranteed to solve your problems.
Since the departure of Steve Spurrier in 2001, fresh starts have yielded, at best, mixed results for four of the five coaches between the HBC and Napier.
A difficult 2021 and a staff in transition have tempered expectations among even the most optimistic within Gator Nation heading into the 2022 season.
What are realistic expectations for a first-year head coach at Florida?
Does the first-year performance have much of an impact on the rest of the coaches’ tenure?
Let’s take a look at what has been accomplished by previous first-year head coaches at Florida and compare those results to first-year head coaches at other SEC contenders (Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Georgia, and Tennessee – back to 1990).
Any conversation about Florida football should start with Steve Spurrier, but one could argue that Galen Hall was just as impressive start to his tenure at UF thanks to monster recruiting classes assembled under Charley Pell (who went an infamous 0-10-1 to kick off his time at UF in 1979).
Galen Hall went unbeaten in 1984 (PHOTO CREDIT: UF University Athletic Association, UAA)
Hall took over in game four of the controversial 1984 season after Pell was ousted amidst claims of NCAA violations. The Gators were 1-1-1 when Hall was handed the reigns to a ready-made title contender. His calming influence was a steady presence and allowed Florida to slay the Georgia dragon, propelling the Gators to the program’s first-ever SEC Championship. The title was later stripped in a garbage ruling by the league and the Gators were left with an asterisk on one of the prolific seasons in school history. Hall was promoted from the interim title and selected as the next head coach to lead UF. In his first full season on the job, he followed up an unbeaten finish to 1984 with a 9-1-1 record in 1985, earning the school’s first No. 1 national ranking before falling to the Dawgs.
Hall was burdened with sanctions and unable to recruit to full capacity for a couple of seasons, but as soon as the NCAA handcuffs were off, he amassed a few solid recruiting classes and left Steve Spurrier with an ultra-talented roster. Spurrier’s first Florida team captured yet another unrecognized SEC Championship in 1990. Florida fans had waited since 1933 to win a single SEC title in football, the program’s first two titles were won in two seasons in which the league chose not to recognize the Gators’ titles and folks wonder why Spurrier spent the rest of the 1990s running-up the score?
Spurrier’s first squad finished 9-2 (6-1 SEC) with a win over No. 4 Auburn and losses to two Top-10 teams: No. 5 Tennessee and No. 8 Florida State. The 1990 season set the tone for the most successful decade of Florida Gators football.
A good rule of thumb in coaching is that you never want to be the guy who replaces the legend. That unenviable task in Florida football lore fell to Ron Zook. After an easy opening with against UAB, Zook’s Gators were crushed 41-16 by the defending national champion No.1 ranked Miami Hurricanes.
Whether it’s fair or not, first impressions matter. The Gators may have not been expected to walk away with a win against a loaded Canes squad, but losing by more than three touchdowns at home to an in-state rival was no way to win over an already skeptical fanbase which had been spoiled by a decade of excellence.
Zook rebounded a couple of weeks later and knocked off the No. 4 Vols in Neyland and though he’d later lead the Gators to an upset over No. 5 Georgia, the lows of losses to No. 18 LSU, No. 23 Florida State, and No. 12 Michigan in the bowl would overshadow the highs on the way to an inconsistent 8-5 finish.
The Zook era played out much like his opening campaign and led the Gators to hire the hottest name in the Group of Five coaching ranks: Urban Meyer. Though Zook had recruited at an elite level, a stacked Gators roster was plagued by levels of inconsistency that were no longer tolerated in a post-Spurrier world.
Year one was all about building confidence in the program. In addition to recruiting players like Tebow, Harvin, and Spikes, Meyer told the fans the Gators needed to take back The Swamp. Zook had dropped six home games between 2002-2004, eclipsing the five home losses of the entire Spurrier era (1993 FSU 33-21; 1994 AUBURN 36-33; 1999 ALABAMA 40-39; 1999 FSU 30-23; & 2001 TENNESSEE 34-32). Meyer faced an early test at home against Phil Fulmer and the No. 5 Volunteers, but the Gators rode a stout defense and leaned on a rowdy home crowd to recapture the magic of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
Moments like these gave the fans enough hope to live with tough losses to Alabama, LSU, and Spurrier’s Gamecocks during an, at times, offensively challenged 2005 campaign. Florida would finish 9-3 with an upset over No. 4 Georgia, a dominating effort against No. 23 Florida State, and a momentum sustaining bowl win over No. 25 Iowa.
Meyer used 2005 to steadily build momentum, delivered in some big moments on the field, and worked wonders on the recruiting trail to lay the foundation for two national championships. Two titles in four years may not be a bit much to ask out of Napier, but establishing the brand and dominating on the recruiting trail right out of the gate can set the tone for the next few years.
If the departure of Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer have taught us one thing, it’s that the fall can happen quickly.
In 2010, Urban Meyer landed the No. 1 recruiting class in America and handed what was thought to be a national title contender over to the widely coveted up & comer, Willi Muschamp. The Saban protégé/Texas head coach in-waiting/Horns defensive coordinator had spurned his future job in Austin to return to his hometown of Gainesville.
Muschamp was a logical choice. He kept up Florida’s reputation as a stellar recruiter on the trail, but unlike the HBC and Meyer, Champ favored the slower pace of a pre-Lane Kiffin-ized Nick Saban. He wanted to follow the Bama blueprint of suffocating defense paired with a physical running game which would wear teams down in the second half.
Much like Saban in 2007, Muschamp showed a stubborn willingness to stick with the plan despite a .500 finish which moved to 7-6 after a Gator Bowl win over a Luke Fickell-led pre-Urban Meyer-ized Ohio State team in transition. Muschamp finished 0-5 against ranked teams, but was granted a good deal of wiggle room because after Meyer’s bumpy exit, fans slowly learned there were real issues within team. Meyer himself had referenced the poor state of affairs within the locker room after his exit. Between a shift to a radically different style of play and the impression that there was a mess to clean up, the fans were patient with a less than thrilling start to the Muschamp era.
Though that patience seemingly paid off and the future looked bright after an 11-2 season which saw the Gators briefly work their way back into the national title picture in 2012, some misses on the recruiting trail coupled with an ever-changing yet ever-ineffective approach on offense led to what has become a quadrennial staple of the last decade of Gators football – the lost season in 2013. When 2014 failed to show much progress toward the ultimate goal, Muschamp was relieved of his duties and, once again, Gator Nation turned its lonely eyes to St. Nick.
Jim McElwain’s main point of attraction was that he another man who breathed the same air as Nick Saban at one point in time. Muschamp felt like a solid choice at the time of the hire. McElwain felt like we settled. And settle we did.
Yes, McElwain had shown promise at Colorado State, and yes, McElwain had led the Tide offense to two national titles, but there was a certain lack of charisma that kept the fanbase from ever fully embracing him during his time in Gainesville. As we’ve now seen the last two tenures, likability can go a long way in keeping the coach around after a difficult year. If you want to do a poor man’s Saban impression without the winning, good luck ever feeling fully appreciated by a demanding fanbase.
McElwain opened with a bang (no, not the shark photo), sprinting out to a 5-0 start after a miraculous win over Tennessee and an eyebrow raising demolition of a Hugh Freeze led No. 3 Ole Miss in which it appeared McElwain had already accomplished what he was hired to do – solve the quarterback conundrum and bring the offense back to life. QB Will Grier lit up the Rebels for four touchdown passes. Before the celebration died down, McElwain suffered what could be argued to be his fatal wound just five games into his tenure (no, not the shark photo) – Will Grier would be suspended for the rest of the season for testing positive for a banned substance.
Joy turned into disbelief and disbelief morphed into despair as a sorry Florida offense, akin to the likes UF fans had become accustomed to under Muschamp, took over putting a huge damper on what should’ve been a special season. It’s hard to get fired up and bust out the “WE WANT BAMA” signs when the way the team qualified for Atlanta was by kicking a late field goal for a 9-7 win over lowly Vanderbilt.
Mac’s Gators capped the 2015 regular season with one of the more depressing games of my lifetime, a 27-2 loss to Florida State at home. A Bama blowout and a non-competitive bowl loss against Michigan left Florida fans reeling heading into the offseason despite an impressive 10-4 record on paper. It didn’t resonate in Gainesville since 10-4 meant 1-4 against ranked teams and the Gators were outscored by 80 combined points in those four losses. A SEC title appearance should be something to praise in year one of any coaching staff. It doesn’t happen often, but in this case, something felt off with the program…and while Florida continued to search for its soul, the school up north finally got their act together and started to clearly pull ahead in the East.
The Gators may have won two Eastern division crowns under McElwain, but don’t forget: Tennessee had been lost in the wilderness for about a decade (and they still haven’t found what they’re looking for), Spurrier’s best days at Carolina were in the rearview, and Georgia was on the downslope of Mark Richt’s tenure. McElwain had the chance to bury the Bulldogs and take control of the East, instead the opening was squandered as he failed to solve the hole at quarterback left by his would-be star pupil Grier, who tortured Gators fans in a Cam Newton Lite capacity by moving on to star at West Virginia. Meanwhile, Georgia hired Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart, another promising young coach from the Saban tree.
Whatever was lost in translation from Saban to Muschamp and McElwain at Florida, found its way to Athens with Kirby Smart. Though he came with some of his own deficiencies – quarterbacks have not been a bright spot – Smart quickly ascended in the eyes of the national media and his Bama-like recruiting classes led some to declare Georgia as the next Death Star in college football.
A quick side note…
Alabama building a championship-level roster and winning at a crazy rate certainly has an impact on the Gators, but in more years than not, Florida only has to face Alabama in Atlanta in the SEC Championship Game.
The Tide are not in our day to day lives. They have forever been the standard of the SEC, so encountering Bama on the way to the top is nothing more an expected entity in the world of Florida football. However, Georgia is a whole different beast.
Georgia is an annual deal – hell, Georgia is a daily deal in the life of a Gator. We see the Dawgs every year. Georgia fans are a different breed. They bark. They smugly live off the accomplishment of old men on grainy television broadcasts and attempt to talk trash about clothing all while their sister-cousins (or whatever between the hedges type of action they’re into) also bark at you in the background.
A note the media loves to point out in the rivalry is that Florida and Georgia don’t even agree on the number of games they’ve played in the series.
How is that possible?
Georgia counts one game more than Florida does. A win over the Gators in 1904.
Florida did not field a team until 1906.
Georgia claims they played the Gators in 1904 when the Gators did not exist – and when the error has been pointed out to them, they refuse to adjust it.
That’s really all you need to know about how Georgia operates.
This is the same school that told their entire roster to flood the field to celebrate in the end zone after an opening touchdown in 2007.
Got distracted on the Georgia hate tangent, back to the article.
Kirby Smart needed only into his second year to build a juggernaut that would decimate Jim McElwain and as his Bulldogs built a 42-0 lead over the Gators, news outlets began to report that Mac’s days in Gainesville were numbered. Though it wasn’t the primary reason he was shown the door (no, not the shark photo), allowing Kirby Smart to waltz into Athens and build a Bama-like program was the final metaphorical nail in the coffin for a coach who had claimed to receive real death threats.
The Gators had to find someone who could build fast. Someone who could bring energy back into a program that had become a shell of itself. Dan Mullen had built Mississippi State into an annual bowl team in a brutal SEC West and if he could build lowly Mississippi State into a tough team, what could he do with the resources at Florida? Though he was not the first choice, when Mullen stepped off of the UF jet a with a big smile and thunderous Gator chomp, fans felt more excited about Florida football in that single moment than they had during the entirety of the McElwain era.
The talent gap was still a bit too wide and the Dawgs pulled away in the second half, but after a 10-win season and a Peach Bowl blowout win against McElwain nemesis No. 8 Michigan, hope found its way back to Gainesville. Mullen was a stout 3-1 against ranked opponents in year one, but slip-ups against Kentucky and Missouri along with a couple of other close calls left some room for doubt. Though his teams would morph a bit each year, one of the weaknesses of the Mullen era was week-to-week consistency.
In 2018, he got away with some close calls and it led to a nice 10-win season. In 2020, his team was a defensively challenged game at A&M and shoe toss away from an unbeaten showdown with an all-time great Bama team in Atlanta. There were some serious red flags within that 2020 season, but the fanbase marveled at two major accomplishments: Trask, Pitts, and Toney put on the best offensive show since the Meyer years and Mullen’s roster of non-five-star talent had beaten up Smart’s loaded Dawgs. Fans hoped Mullen could continue to develop lesser talent into elite offensive talent, but in 2021, the wheels fell off and some of the red flags we saw early in Mullen’s tenure came back to bite the Gators.
Now, it is Billy Napier’s turn to guide the Gators and though expectations are not as high as they can be at UF, it’s still fair to expect some early success.
Since Galen Hall’s first full season in 1985, five of seven head coaches have won at least nine games in their opening season at Florida. Only Ron Zook (8-5) and Will Muschamp (7-6) failed to reach the nine-win mark.
Though no one will be picking the Gators to win the SEC in 2022, the schedule is favorable despite a tough three-game stretch in the middle.
CREDIT: www.floridagators.com
Let’s split the schedule into three tiers.
Tier #1 – Cupcakes: USF, Eastern Washington, and Vanderbilt.
The Gators should roll to three easy wins against three weaker opponents. Assuming Napier avoids disaster and gets it done (3 total wins).
Tier #2 – Favorable matchups – Missouri, South Carolina, and Florida State.
Mizzou and Carolina come to The Swamp. Florida may struggle occasionally with each on the road, especially in a down year, but these two programs rarely walk away with wins at Florida. FSU had their shot to kick us while we were down last year. Rivalry on the road, but Florida should take care of business. Dan Mullen struggled in this category of game – if Napier is bringing more focus and consistency, these three games should be wins. (6 total wins)
Tier # 3 – Ranked opponents – Utah, Kentucky, Tennessee, LSU, Georgia, and Texas A&M.
These six games will define the season. Utah, Kentucky, and Tennessee will all be played in September, so we’ll know a lot about this Gators’ roster once they turn the corner for the back half of the schedule. LSU travels to Florida this year, UGA will be a tough out, and a road trip to Texas A&M does not look favorable on paper. If Napier finds a way to split these six games, a nine-win regular season is quite do-able. However, I believe a nine-win season is contingent on a fast-start, locking down wins against Utah, Kentucky, and Tennessee early on as a 1-2 split against LSU, Georgia, and Texas A&M is more than likely this year.
FIRST YEAR HEAD COACH RECORDS
Florida (back to 1933)
