It’s been an interesting two years for South Carolina head coach Will Muschamp, to say the least.
Will Muschamp returns to Florida almost exactly 2 years later
He’ll be coaching against his former team of four years.
Photo by Frederick Breedon/Getty Images
On Nov. 16, 2014, he was fired from Florida as the head football after compiling a 28-21 record, with no SEC East titles or major bowl victories. His defenses mostly played well, but his offenses exasperated fans.
Almost two years to the date of the Muschamp era coming to an end in Gainesville, he will return to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
Things are a lot different for Muschamp now. He’s in his first season at South Carolina as its head coach, and from the get-go, he vowed to run things differently on offense. But there are some striking similarities, in terms of circumstance.
He’s still in the SEC East, the division that’s been wide open for the last seven seasons. He’s also proceeding a massively successful head coach again. At Florida, he replaced Urban Meyer, who gave Florida two national titles and brought the program back to being a perennial power. He’s now following the legendary Steve Spurrier, who led South Carolina to a program-best three 11-win seasons.
A long, disheartening four years in Gainesville
Muschamp’s Year One was solid. The Gators finished 7-6 with a TaxSlayer.com Bowl win over Ohio State.
In 2012, Muschamp managed to assemble the No. 3 recruiting class in the country. Florida finished its regular season 11-1, with signature wins over No. 4 LSU and Florida State. Florida earned a bid to the Sugar Bowl to face Louisville, but the Cardinals embarrassed the Gators, 33-23. Florida fans were intrigued, but they were by no means sold on Champ.
2013 was a disaster. The Gators went 4-8, marking the worst season in Gainesville since Charlie Pell’s 0-10 1979. They were upset at home, 26-20, by Georgia Southern, the first loss to an FCS program in its history.
A lifeless, 42-13 loss to Missouri on Homecoming marked his days as numbered in 2014. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the 23-20 OT loss to a 5-5 South Carolina.
“We didn’t win enough football games, that’s the bottom line,” Muschamp said the Monday after the South Carolina loss. “You’ve got to win games. We didn’t get that done. Very disappointed and frustrated that did not happen. Certainly had our opportunities, especially this year, keeping a healthy roster and having the opportunity to win football games, and we didn’t get it done.”
The most points scored for Muschamp’s offenses at Florida was an average of 30 per game in 2014. The Gators never ranked higher than 67th in yards per play or had a scoring offense better than 56th.
He handled his presser after the firing announcement with class.
“This is a business,” he said. “You don’t let your personal life and your business life mess things up. You can’t get personal in this situation. In any case, I don’t let my personal feelings get involved as far as how you feel personally about a situation. You develop friendships and as long as you’re treated right and fairly, I feel like I’ve been treated right and fairly. Again, I don’t have any hard feelings or regrets in any situation of where we are.”
Two fresh starts in the SEC
As one of the country’s most respected defensive minds, based on his years as a coordinator at LSU and Texas and his defenses at UF, Muschamp was hired by Auburn as its coordinator a month later. His salary of $1.5 million made him the nation’s highest-paid assistant by a mile.
About a year later, he was hired by South Carolina as head coach, with Spurrier’s backing.
After a 2-4 start this season, his Gamecock team has won the last three straight, including an upset win over Tennessee.
A lot of the credit can be due to the quarterback change Muschamp made three weeks ago, to true freshman Jake Bentley. In three starts, Bentley has thrown for 622 yards, six touchdowns, and zero interceptions. Against Missouri and UMass, the Gamecock offense put up its most points of the season.
The defense has also improved under Muschamp, as expected. It’s gone from No. 97 in S&P+ to No. 40 this year.
The wins over Missouri and Kentucky have put the Gamecocks at third in the SEC East. If South Carolina can pull off an upset over Florida, it would drastically shake things up and give the Gamecocks as high as a 23 percent chance of winning the East.
Muschamp said this week that it will be a surreal feeling, seeing guys that he brought into Florida and having to coach against them.
“Seeing those guys on the field and having been in their living rooms and recruited them and all that, heck, I didn’t realize it was going to be senior day until today,” Muschamp said via SEC Country. “It’s their last home game. There’s some great young men on that football team. Guys I’ve got tremendous respect for. I admire a lot of those guys, recruited them to Florida …”
He added that despite what some may think, he has no ill will toward anyone associated with his firing.
“We’ve got great memories, we’ve got great friends that are still friends to this day that we stay in touch with and we talk to a lot. And in this profession, if you don’t win enough games, you get fired. And that’s part of it. There’s no hard feelings, there’s no animosity, there’s no grudge. It’s part of our profession.”
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