Old School versus New School Football

[Escambia94]

I ran into an article that may help explain our woes on offense and defense:http://www.coachingsearch.com/article?a=will-muschamp-explains-the-dying-breeds-in-college-football

Muschamp stated earlier this year that although he is young, he is old fashioned. He wants a 1980s pro-style, pro-set offense and a 1980s/ 1990s 3-4 defense. The problem is that high schools and the professional leagues are all moving to up-tempo spread offenses and nickel/dime defenses. This makes it harder for the Gators to recruit 1st team and 2nd team (lesson learned due to injuries) players that fit our schemes. As much as we as a Gator Nation hate Urban Meyer, he made it easier to recruit hybrid players for the spread and nickel/dime. Few of our current players leftover from the Meyer era fit this old school scheme on offense and defense. Our best players now are the hybrids that were caught in a transition from a 2010s offense and defense to a 1980s version: Trey Burton, Solomon Patton, Ronald Powell.

The point is that no matter what direction this program takes, the program needs to decide if the way forward is to continue to recruit old school players for a classical style of football or to move forward to an era of hybrid players. Oddly enough, I think Urban Meyer was just a couple years ahead of his time. Florida should have either built off his momentum with hybrid players or announced that it might time to reverse the recruiting base for a classical offense and defense--especially if high schools in Florida are all moving towards hybrid 2010s schemes.

 

[DRU2012]

@Escambia94,
It's just stubborn, mis-aimed and mis-timed all around. If "good-coaching" is "working-with-what-you've-got", then by that measure as well (and not just simply looking at the results--which far as I'm concerned tell the story quite well already), then Muschamp just isn't a very good "Head Coach". Sorry, but there it is.

(BTW--We just lost Easley for good--officially, that is: He just withdrew from school and signed with an agent...
Meanwhile, Driskel got his cast off coupla days ago, and already Muschamp, Pease and the questionably-referred-to--as-"Braintrust" on offense are already projecting , PLANNING on a "competition at first-string QB" between he and Murphy by late next Spring, as Driskel rehabs...Mornigweg is considered an afterthought/maybe-2nd-string now, and our hope for excellence and rejuvenation at that all-important position, Grier, is not even "in-the-mix", ALREADY consigned to a red shirt once we get him in here. If this isn't a surrender-to-mediocrity going IN, I don't know how better to define it. This is according to the backroom-projections being discussed privately, under-wraps but nonetheless the attitude and plan of those currently "at-the-top" in our program. Unbelievable--and to me, "secret and unofficial" or NOT, grounds in itself for thinking twice about retaining this regime.)

 

[Leakfan12]

I think even Pell and Hall threw the ball downfield than Muschamp. He was a Gator fan right? Does he remember the days of Kerwin Bell?

 

[Escambia94]

It is hard to tell what is going on with the offense under Will Muschamp. The Gator Nation has this great theory that Muschamp has restricted the offense that Charlie Weis and Brent Pease have run, but there has been plenty of evidence that the rumor is not true. I think it comes down to the offensive coordinator and the players that have been recruited. Charlie Weis as head coach, recruiter, and offensive coordinator at Kansas has shown us that his results in 2011 at Florida were not a fluke. I have to believe that the same would be true if we sent Brent Pease packing--whatever team Pease is coaching the next couple years is going to have a 100th-ranked offense unless that team has a Kellen Moore on it.

Now, it is still Coach Muschamp's job to make decisions that put his team in best position to win. It is all but a foregone conclusion that the best decision Muschamp can make is to change up the offensive coaches. He can do that any way he wants, but something needs to change. Replace the OC, swap the OC and another position coach...do something.

 

[DRU2012]

I'm just about whined-out by now on this whole question (yeah, I know--that takes some DOING). It's gotta just be a complete disconnection between how most of us view, not just offense, but GATOR OFFENSE, and how Muschamp & Co. look at all this: I mean, he even said last year, "I don't care how we look or where we're ranked statistically as long as we're winning--and this 'pro-style ball-control offense' "...(my extra quotes)..."gives this team and its defense the best chance to do just that!" I'm not even gonna argue anymore about whether that's what that was or is, or whether it was an illusion stemming from other factors (Caleb Sturgess, for eg., among several) that merely provided seeming support for a mistaken rationale (oh, guess I DID throw in one more argument after all...ah well, fork-it). JUST WATCH THE DAMN THING! It bothered me, back-of-my-mind, then; It haunts me now. With the players we have access to??? Don't know what else to say that hasn't been said, here and elsewhere.

Btw: I just went on record on the Gameday thread, I think we're gonna lose today--as I say, pretty certain of it without a real set of significant changes on offense.
May just "monitor" the game--I find us just painful to watch half the time (y'all know which half...).

 

[Escambia94]

I tried to avoid last week's game, but I could not stop myself from 30+ years of habit. Win or lose, I will follow the game, because I bleed orange and blue. I just will not be happy until the games are fun to watch again, or at least interesting.

 

[DRU2012]

Actually, I'm finding myself now falling back on a behavioral attitude developed during my Junior year at UF (1979--The dreaded, "How did your team DO this past season?'--"Oh, 10-and-1..."-year): By now, "the worst" has already happened--no use worrying about outcomes anymore; THAT concern is over for now, and with it has come that strange "relaxed relief"...You don't wanna put too much thought into it--soon as I start talking about the team and/or the season to anyone, at the most casual, tangential remark I still go off on detailed analytical tirades--so this facade of philosophical acceptance is just that...but for the most part, it just doesn't weigh on me at all heavily as compared to how, say, that one Georgia loss last season, or the first couple of two-field-goal-performances to "support" what were then still sterling defensive performances earlier this season completely bummed me for DAYS when they occurred.
It'll ALL come boiling out of me, the fully repressed, packaged and buried anger and frustration, though, the moment I become finally convinced that nothing will be done, that the decision for whatever reasons turns out to be to do NOTHING after the season, to "let it ride" one more year, if that is what is "done". I mean it: I will have ZERO patience with any kind of "holding action"...and if I feel that way, gotta believe there'll be some fairly powerful people with WAY more time on their hands and an inclination to "make their presence felt and opinions known", usually well-lubricated with alcohol, who'll be a lot louder and more expressive with THEIR similar attitudes, freely expressed on the scene.