Shocked. Surprised. Underwhelmed.
These are just a few of the words that came to my mind when I heard that Will Muschamp will be taking over as the new head coach at Florida.
I wrote last week that the Gators should feel out Bob Stoops, and after he inevitably said “no,” throw money at Boise State head coach Chris Petersen. If Petersen stood strong on the blue turf, then and only then should the Gators settle on Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen, who served as the Florida offensive coordinator from 2005-2008.
The common theme for all of those candidates is that they all have previously served and succeeded as head coaches at the FBS level. Will Muschamp has not.
Muschamp may turn out to be a great head coach at Florida, but this hire is even more of a risk than when the Gators went to the mountains and poached Urban Meyer from Utah. Muschamp has done some fantastic things as a defensive coordinator at Auburn and Texas, but does that make “Coach Boom” worthy of taking the reins of Florida – one of the most storied programs in modern college football? I don’t think so.
He may bring Florida back to the prominence that it enjoyed under former coaches Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer, but the fact that Florida would take this kind of risk on an unproven head coach has me floored.