HOOVER, Ala. — We’ve all heard the horror stories, vicariously witnessing them in places like Toomer’s Corner and a Krystal in the French Quarter.
Will Muschamp has one for you, one that underscores just how unhinged it all can get. Remember now, Muschamp played in the SEC at Georgia long before he took the job at Florida and 4-8 happened and he eventually found himself in this crossroads season of win or else.
His friend from college called him this offseason, and told him a guy he works with is convinced that Muschamp threw the Georgia game because — why else? — he’s a Georgia grad.
It was Muschamp, the fan said, who took control of the Florida offense in the game and started calling plays that contributed to game-turning turnovers.
“It’s so irrational it’s scary,” Muschamp says. “And that’s not the first of those kind of stories I’ve heard. But that’s football in the South.”
It’s football in the South when the unthinkable happens and you lose your starting quarterback in Week 3 and the only thing behind him are two guys who shouldn’t be playing FBS football.
It’s football in the South when your rival beats you for the third straight season — another gut-wrenching loss in an another game that could have been won — and the rivalry you once took for granted is now a burning hole in the pit of your stomach.
It’s football in the South when, in consecutive weeks, you lose to FCS Georgia Southern and eventual national champion Florida State on your home field, the former the ultimate embarrassment and the latter a 30-point emasculation of a loss to cap seven straight defeats.
This hot-seat talk with Muschamp didn’t just happen because of 4-8; it happened because a season of Murphy’s Law left a choice of how to view a coach: the guy whose team won 11 games in 2012 (four against top 10 teams), or the guy whose team had the worst record at Florida since 1979.
Instead of defining a coach by a season of success, the choice for some Florida fans is pigeonhole him by his worst.
“Nothing changed from one year to the next,” said Florida defensive end Dante Fowler. “Absolutely nothing — other than all those injuries.”
That was the backdrop to Muschamp’s offseason of what in the world went wrong, and how are you going to fix it? It began earlier this spring at the annual Gator Clubs tour, when he walked to the podium in Jacksonville — in front of the largest Gator Club of all — and declared that Nike had come up with a new line of apparel for the Gators, and he was wearing the shirt.
“It’s bulletproof,” he deadpanned.
It got some laughs. Not all were comfortable.
This is what Muschamp walked into Monday afternoon at SEC Media Days, the annual carnival of glomming onto something and making it bigger than it should or could be. He rotated through 14 different media sessions, and dealt with the same theme over and over and over.
By the time he hit the halfway point of the day, he already had been asked about his job security, or questions related to his job security, more than 40 times.
Question: How do you bounce back from last year?
Answer: “How much time do you have?”
Question: What have you learned from 2013?
Answer: “Keep your quarterback healthy.”
This back-and-forth went on for more than five hours, until Muschamp hopped in the university plane and flew out of Birmingham and into a three-week wait until his season of win or walk begins. Look, he’s not ignoring he obvious; he’s just focusing on what he knows to be true.
His team is talented, his defense will be nasty again, his quarterback is healthy and motivated.
“The most complete team we’ve had since we got here,” Muschamp says.
That’s what he stressed to his boss, Jeremy Foley, after a February meeting of evaluating the program. It’s what Foley has stressed all offseason, declaring that evaluation is based on “seasons, not (a) season.”
That’s what his players have stressed week after week this offseason, focusing on “burying the past” and moving forward with a group embarrassed by what happened in 2013 and eager to make it right in 2014.
“You want to blame someone for last season, blame the players,” says quarterback Jeff Driskel, who was among the injured last year . “Ultimately, we have to win out there. Every one of us has to look in the mirror and realize it’s up to us as a team to go get it done.”
The same team that last year, because of injuries, had only two players start all 12 games at the same position. The same team that, because of injuries, had a different starting 11 on offense every single game.
And, of course, the same team whose coach had to have thrown the Georgia game.
“He did what? Come on, man,” Fowler said. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
Nothing does with football in the South.
Except winning.