Will Muschamp and Randy Shannon meet at midfield after Saturday's game in Columbia, S.C. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA Communications)
Nine Thoughts after Ninth Game
Sunday, November 12, 2017 | Football, Scott Carter
The Gators return home Saturday in search of their first win since Sept. 30.
In a season such as this one for the Florida Gators, it can be difficult to stay grounded in the present. Perhaps not as much for players and coaches as for fans and this chronicler of Saturday's events.
The Gators lost again, this time 28-20 to South Carolina. The loss was Florida's fifth in a row and barring the unlikely development the Gators win their final two home games and earn a bowl berth at 5-6 – and then win the bowl game to finish .500 – ensured the program's second losing season in the past five years.
The final 11 words of the above paragraph – ensured the program's second losing season in the past five years – seemed unfathomable just a few years ago for most who visit this website regularly. They certainly did to me when I signed on with the University Athletic Association in September 2010.
Still, that's the reality on this beautiful Sunday here in central North Florida, where the sun rose above Ben Hill Griffin Stadium without a hint of what has transpired over the past six weeks for the Gators.
This is clearly a program burdened by the present and in flux, one with the head coach at the start of the season gone, an interim head coach doing his best to keep things together, a roster depleted due to suspensions and injuries, and an athletic director on the hunt for the man who will be charged with the task of restoring order in the Gators' universe.
You could say it's been an eventful season.
The Gators return home for the first time in a month on Saturday to face UAB, a school that restarted its football program this season and has won five of six, including victories over Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss and Rice over that span.
The Blazers are no cupcake. Then the following week, it's the annual showdown against Florida State. While the Gators and Seminoles are closer to the bottom than top of the FBS rankings, the game matters. Always. People will be paying close attention to see which program enters the offseason with an advantage on the recruiting trail as both seek to rebuild in 2018.
But first, with the mind unmoored and adrift – and fans suggesting they have no interest in rehashing details of another loss – nine random thoughts after Florida's ninth game of the season:
*****
1. COACHING SEARCH
It has been two weeks since Florida Athletic Director Scott Stricklin held a Sunday night press conference the day following the Gators' 42-7 loss to Georgia and announced the UAA and ex-head coach Jim McElwain had reached a separation agreement.
As Stricklin knew it would and addressed during the press conference, speculation has run rampant the past 14 days about who will be the next Gators head coach. Scott Frost, Dan Mullen and Chip Kelly are the names mentioned most often on fan message boards and in the media.
If Stricklin knows whom the next coach is going to be, he has a better poker face than Lady Gaga. Stricklin had an impromptu chat with a group of reporters on the field prior to Saturday's game and gave nothing away other than his amusement at some of the rumors that have surfaced during the search.
This is nothing more than a reporter's instinct and in no way should be misconstrued as "insider knowledge," but Stricklin exudes the calm and composure of a leader who knows his plan, is waiting for the dominoes to fall, and once they do, will be ready to act on multiple options he has researched and is comfortable acting upon.
2. SHANNON FACTOR
In his three seasons at UF, Randy Shannon has been mostly invisible in the public conscious other than for his occasional media sessions.
That was life for an assistant coach under McElwain, who subscribed to Nick Saban's "one voice" philosophy, meaning assistant coaches rarely speak to the media and stay in the background working for the greater good while the head coach faces the music in good times and bad.
Of course, that changed for Shannon when Stricklin asked him to take over the team after the departure of McElwain. The Gators lost at Missouri by 29 points in Shannon's first game as interim head coach, apparently still shell-shocked from the previous week's events.
But on Saturday at South Carolina, execution wasn't always there, but the effort returned and Florida was in position for a potential game-tying driving with less than four minutes remaining. The drive ended with an interception, leaving Shannon to say there are no moral victories.
That is true in major college football, but Shannon has handled the transition professionally. While his last season as head coach at Miami came in Urban Meyer's final season at Florida, Shannon remains comfortable in the chair. Whether he remains at Florida or not, Shannon deserves credit for the way the team responded in the loss to the Gamecocks and for maintaining a semblance of order.
3. WAITING GAME
One of the most unsettling aspects of a midseason coaching change is the staff-in-limbo effect. Coming off back-to-back appearances in the Southeastern Conference Championship Game, no one on McElwain's coaching staff was thinking about losing their job in 2017.
However, a strange confluence of circumstances led to McElwain's exit, leaving his assistants wondering about their futures. In most cases such as this, a new head coach hires his own staff and cuts ties with those assistants from the previous regime.
You can sense the weight of the situation around the team's current staff. The coaches have wives, kids, mortgages and career goals like the rest of us and while constant change is a given in the coaching profession, this shift happened over a short period.
Maybe some will have an opportunity to remain with the program under the next head coach. When McElwain took over, he retained offensive line coach Mike Summers from Will Muschamp's staff. When Muschamp took over, he retained running backs coach Brian White and special teams/linebackers coach D.J. Durkin from Meyer's staff. The only certainty now is that next season's staff will have several new faces.
4. INJURY FACTOR
The season is at that point when it's impossible to evaluate this team fairly without strong attention to the avalanche of injuries it has stomached.
From the start, we knew the loss of nine players due to suspension for their alleged involvement in credit-card fraud would have an impact due to the absence of receiver Antonio Callaway and running back Jordan Scarlett. The season-ending injury to starting safety Marcell Harris also cast an ominous cloud over preseason camp.
Players have continued to drop consistently, very reminiscent of 2013 when a rash of injuries depleted the roster of starting quarterback Jeff Driskel and backup Tyler Murphy on the way to a 4-8 record, the program's first losing season in 34 years. The same scenario has unfolded this season.
In Saturday's loss, starting quarterback Malik Zaire, center T.J. McCoy and defensive lineman Elijah Conliffe had to leave the game due to injury. By the end of the game, the Gators had only 55 available scholarship players on the sideline among the 70 players on the travel roster.
The Gators have other issues – an offense ranked 113th nationally after Saturday's loss tops the list – but it's unrealistic to say the mounting injuries have not played a role in the recent decline.
5. FRANKS FORWARD
The quarterback quandary the Gators have faced since Tim Tebow left after the 2009 season has lingered to the end of yet another season.
Florida will play its 100th game on Saturday since Tebow's departure. Florida is 59-40 over the last eight seasons, a .596 winning percentage. Meanwhile, the Gators won 48 of 55 games (a .873 winning percentage) from 2006-09 with Tebow, and, don't forget, two national championships.
How strange has Florida's quarterback dilemma been this season? Consider that at the end of the summer, Florida had six healthy scholarship quarterbacks on the roster: Luke Del Rio, Feleipe Franks, Kyle Trask, Jake Allen, Kadarius Toney and Zaire.
Only Franks is healthy heading into Saturday's game against UAB. Del Rio (broken collarbone) is out for the season, Trask (broken foot) has not played, Allen (back) is out and expected to redshirt, Zaire's status is uncertain after his injury at South Carolina, and Toney, a prep quarterback who took snaps at the position early in camp, was moved to receiver to showcase his playmaking ability.
At this point, no harm in letting Franks play out the season to gain more experience. He has the physical tools to play the part; it's just a matter of whether he can master the nuances of the position at this level and speed up his decision-making.
6. BAD LUCK
When a season takes a nosedive like this one has for the Gators, some things are inexplicable. Take what happened in the first quarter of Saturday's loss.
Trailing 7-0 and forced to punt, the Gators downed a 58-yard punt by senior Johnny Townsend at South Carolina's 4-yard line. On first down, freshman CJ Henderson intercepts Gamecocks quarterback Jake Bentley.
Henderson returns the interception 24 yards and appears on the way into the end zone when he fumbles. South Carolina running back A.J. Turner picks up the fumble and returns it to the 24-yard line. That really happened.
The Gamecocks eventually drive to their 39 before punting. Florida's Brandon Powell muffs the kick and South Carolina's Javon Charleston recovers it at UF's 13. On the next play, Bentley's pass is picked off at the 1 by Chauncey Gardner Jr. Gardner caught the ball on the run and appeared on his way to a 99-yard interception return for a touchdown.
Instead, out of nowhere Gamecocks tight end Jacob August made shoestring tackle to down Gardner after his 46-yard return. Three plays and two penalties later, the Gators punt.
It's been that kind of season.
7. MUSCHAMP MOMENT
It took the former UF coach eight attempts to register his first win in the Florida-Georgia rivalry.
Muschamp was 0-4 against the Gators as a player at Georgia and lost his first three games against the Bulldogs as Florida's head coach. He finally broke through with a win over the Bulldogs in 2014, his final season at UF.
Muschamp needed only two attempts at South Carolina to get his first win over the Gators. After losing 20-7 last year in Gainesville, South Carolina clinched second place in the SEC East with Saturday's win, improving to 7-3, 5-3 in Muschamp's second season.
As the dejected Gators exited their locker room and headed for the buses outside Williams-Brice Stadium late Saturday afternoon, it was difficult not to notice the ironic juxtaposition of the scene. Right outside the locker room, Muschamp's postseason press conference played on a gigantic video board above. His unmistakable voice blasted across the empty stadium.
Three years after Muschamp's time at Florida ended, he is just getting started at South Carolina.
8. RECRUITING SUPPORT
A major concern for any program going through a coaching transition is trying to keep the recruiting class, or at least a portion of it, intact. Stricklin stepped in to help on that front recently.
During his radio show prior to the South Carolina game, Shannon said Stricklin has gotten on the phone with recruits the coaches have called to convince them to stay committed to the Gators.
"It was like he was a natural. We made all the phone calls, but he wanted to get on the phone and reassure them that he's going to make the right decision for the University of Florida and let them guys know that he wanted to be a part of their family,'' Shannon said. "He can't go on the road. He can't make the phone calls. We can make the phone calls and he can talk to them, and I think that him doing that really, really shows what type of man he is."
9. HOME SUPPORT
How many fans will be at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Saturday when the Gators kick off against UAB at 4 p.m.? Good question.
The mood on social media has been dark of late for Gator fans, and since nobody likes losing, I get it. Still, there is only two games left at 'The Swamp' this season before we have to wait another eight months to get together.
Following Saturday's loss, linebacker David Reese called on Gator Nation to rally around the team at home.
"We still want Gator Nation to support us and have our back even though we're going through this rough time," Reese said. "I feel like our future is still bright. It's been a bumpy path. But we just have to step up and do what's right for the program. We just got to be Gators."
Franks echoed Reese's comments.
"A big part of it is having our fans out there supporting us,'' he said. "It's always great when they support us and they're not head banging us and all that kind of stuff. It's really great when they're supportive and send these seniors out the right way. That's what I think we're playing for these last two games."
UAB on Saturday, Florida State on Nov. 25. The Gators hope to see you there.
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