Foley assessing Florida Gators football team

This is what Florida Gators football has come to.

For the second season in a row Athletic Director Jeremy Foley has had to come out publically and support his head football coach to a hostile fan base and amid rumors that Will Muschamp’s job is all but finished in Gainesville.

“At the beginning of the season we said we would evaluate the season as it plays out,’’ Foley said. “We will continue to do so. Our sole focus right now is supporting our coaching staff and players as they prepare for Georgia.”

Following Florida’s embarrassing 42-13 loss at the hands of Missouri — the Gators’ second consecutive double-digit homecoming loss — Muschamp was asked directly if he felt like his job was safe.

“I’m really worried about this football team right now, getting back 3 o’clock in a team meeting and sitting down with them and making sure they need to understand the things that we need to do to improve and get better,” Muschamp said on Saturday night. “That’s really what I’m worried about.”

Muschamp is in his fourth season at Florida. The head coach has comprised a 25-19 record (15-14 SEC). The Gators have lost 7-11 since kicking off the 2013 season and the loss on Saturday was just another embarrassing game that dots Muschamp’s tenure at Florida.

Foley’s statement, released by the UAA, does not mention the coach by name, only that Foley said he would evaluate the season as it plays out. Currently, it is playing out very similar to 2013 when the Gators went 4-8. The massive amount of injuries last season served as a crutch to lean on and something to point to as the cause of the futility on the field.

This year, there isn’t a mountain of injuries, just ineptitude on offense and inconsistency on all sides of the ball. Just ask the head coach himself.

“Offensively, just abysmal,” Muschamp said following the Missouri game. “No rhythm and we’ve got to figure out what we can do to try and move the football. Six turnovers. That’s hard to overcome.”

He went on to list things that the Gators need to “continue to improve” this season, ball security, mental lapses and special teams miscues to name a few.

“We’ll get it fixed” is the phrase we hear almost on a weekly basis. This Gators team may be too far gone for Will Muschamp to fix. It may now be left up to Foley to fix it for him.

Nick de la Torre
A South Florida native, Nick developed a passion for all things sports at a very young age. His love for baseball was solidified when he saw Al Leiter’s no-hitter for the Marlins live in May of 1996. He was able to play baseball in college but quickly realized there isn’t much of a market for short, slow outfielders that hit around the Mendoza line. Wanting to continue with sports in some capacity he studied journalism at the University of Central Florida. Nick got his first start in the business as an intern for a website covering all things related to the NFL draft before spending two seasons covering the Florida football team at Bleacher Report. That job led him to GatorCountry. When he isn’t covering Gator sports, Nick enjoys hitting way too many shots on the golf course, attempting to keep up with his favorite t.v. shows and watching the Heat, Dolphins and Marlins. Follow him on twitter @NickdelatorreGC

6 COMMENTS

  1. Got to have an Assistant who is willing to walk in to the fire and from what I’m hearing, none of them want anything to do with it. So, Muschamp may have to drive this one all the way back to the garage and turn it over to another mechanic. I’m afraid that things are going to get much worse before they get better.

  2. Jeremy Foley needs to , relieve Muschamp immediately, turn the team over to Roper and Durkin for the remainder of the year.
    Then Jeremy Foley should resign himself. He has made some terrible decisions regarding the Football Program for the past 14 years since he caused our Head Ball Coach to resign. Because of the bad decisions he has made including Muschamp, Foley has no respect from the fans or the Boosters.
    When the season is over, we need to bring the Head Ball Coach back as Athletic Director as long as he can and wishes to work. I do not want to brag on my solution. But, WHAT A PLAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    • That’s ridiculous. Bring a 70 year old Coach on board to replace possibly the best AD in college sports??? Thank god Foley is calling the shots and not the knuckleheads within our fan base.

  3. Thanks, Nick. To me the frustration it is simply the powerlessness we all have. It’s like we woke up on a raft heading towards the 1000ft water fall and we know we’re going to over the edge and can do absolutely nothing about it-the shore is too far away, the people on the shore watch on in horror because they can nothing either. Even the best talent we have on the team has been dragged down with our current reality. A new paradigm will not be realised within the current regime. They are caught in a brutal cyclone and vortex of redundancy. Change can only come from outside of the world they know. For us, even that is taking too long. Go Gators.

  4. Coach Muschamp is like any other person. He had an opportunity to fill a job vacancy at Florida and he took a huge chance knowing it would be hard but he is competitor and he did what competitors do It took guts to try and he did it with pride. With the exception of playing Treon Harris he has done it with class. I believe he hoped some how, some way, something good would come of putting the little thug in training it and it just backfired on him.