Thoughts of the Day: June 16, 2021

A few thoughts to jump start your Wednesday morning:

ANOTHER DAY, TWO MORE WHAT IFS …

WHAT IF DAN MULLEN HAD SUCCEEDED URBAN MEYER IN 2011?

Let’s start with three facts before we get into the meat of the matter. (1) Urban Meyer SHOULD HAVE taken a year off in 2010 and gotten his health back in order; (2) Florida’s fall from a 13-1 team in 2009 to 8-5 in 2010 had plenty to do with transition in the coaching staff; and (3) the Gators had excellent personnel but the quarterback position was handicapped because John Brantley was a conservative non-runner, Trey Burton was an option QB who couldn’t hit a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle from point blank range when he threw and Jordan Reed was a tank between the tackles but too tentative as a passer to succeed.

To point No. 1, Meyer was prepared to either resign completely or take the year off but was talked into returning to the sideline in 2010. Big mistake. He needed the year to get his health back. I know a lot of people still find it hard to believe but the fact is Urban had esophageal strictures, a condition where the esophagus narrows to the point that food can barely pass. He lost close to 40 pounds during the 2009 season. I was at every press conference and noticed how haggard he was looking. Everyone in the media noticed the weight loss. During the 2010 season he had to be treated by dilation of the esophagus, which is quite painful. I think that made it very difficult for him to focus his full attention on the football team. Had he taken a sabbatical year, I think he would have gotten healthy and remained at Florida.

The 2008 coaching staff is one of the best in college football history. Gone from that staff in 2009 were Mullen (head coach Mississippi State), John Hevesy (tight ends/tackles, to MSU with Mullen), and Billy Gonzales (wide receivers, to LSU). Gone from the 2008 staff in 2010 were defensive coordinator Charlie Strong, who took with him to Louisville corners coach Vance Bedford and running backs coach. Meyer made a mistake in turning over the 2009 offense to Steve Addazio, who also called the plays in 2010. The offense didn’t dip much in 2009 but that had everything to do with Tim Tebow playing QB. Without Tebow in 2010, Addazio’s offensive limitations were exposed. The offense dropped 100 yards per game and nearly two yards per snap in 2010. Meyer needed to bring in a coordinator with Mullen-like creativity instead of going old school. Losing Strong hurt as much in the discipline department as on the field coaching. Charlie was like the chief justice of the supreme court and his word was final. With him around you wouldn’t have seen a scenario like the one when Ronald Powell and two or three other high level freshman recruits decided to skip practice because they felt they had been dissed by Mike Pouncey and some of the upper classmen who thought there was a sense of entitlement among the freshmen.

Florida did not recruit a quarterback in 2008. Jordan Reed was a high school quarterback in Connecticut who was projected to become a receiver from the day he arrived on campus in 2009. He could run but wasn’t much of a thrower and eventually made his mark at tight end. When Burton arrived in 2010, Addazio tried to use Brantley as a passer but when Burton and Reed were in the game at QB the defense instantly went eight in the box. Burton also found new life at tight end later in his UF career.

Meyer decided to retire after the 2010 season. After what Mullen had done in two seasons at Mississippi State – a competitive 5-7 in 2009 and a 9-4 2010 that finished with a win over Michigan in the Gator Bowl – he seemed like the logical candidate although there were quite a number of boosters and fans who wanted Jeremy Foley to go after Bob Stoops. Gary Patterson had just taken TCU to a 13-0 record that included a win over Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. If Patterson were to ever leave TCU, this would have been the year. He would have been an exceptional hire and it could have happened.

Foley rolled the dice and went with Will Muschamp, Nick Saban’s defensive coordinator for the 2003 LSU national champions and Mack Brown’s head coach-in-waiting at Texas. Like Zook back in 2002, Muschamp had no prior head coaching experience. From Meyer, Muschamp inherited 32 players who spent at least one year in the NFL from Meyer and a foundation from three previous recruiting classes that were ranked No. 2, 7 and 1. Five future NFL players were in Muschamp’s hastily cobbled together first recruiting class including quarterback Jeff Driskel and Jacoby Brissett, both of whom are still in the NFL.

Muschamp made a quality hire in Dan Quinn, who left to become the defensive coordinator of the Seattle Seahawks after two seasons. Defense was never the problem for the Gators during the Muschamp years, however. The problems were always on the other side of the ball. Charlie Weiss was Muschamp’s first offensive coordinator. That lasted one year with the Gators ranking 105th in total offense, 71st in scoring, 73rd in rushing and 89th in passing. It actually got worse the next two years under Brent Pease. There was improvement in 2014 with Kurt Roper calling the plays, but the Gators barely cracked the top 100 (96th).

There should be little doubt that Mullen would have been a vast improvement. His 2009 offense at Mississippi State ranked 69th, which turns out was higher ranked than any offense produced by Muschamp or his successor in 2015, Jim McElwain. Mississippi State ranked 42nd in 2010 and this was with athletes that, for the most part, Florida would have never recruited. He would have inherited far more talent on the offensive side of the ball than he had at Mississippi State. Could he have tailored an offense that would have been effective for Brantley? There seems to be little doubt Driskel would have thrived in a Mullen offense. Mullen worked a two-quarterback scheme effectively for about half his time at Mississippi State, often with one who was more of a pocket passer and the other more of a runner. Chris Rainey, Jeff Demps and Mike Gillislee would have been a very good threesome of running backs. Mullen never had the kind of speed at receiver at Mississippi State that he would have inherited with Andre Debose, Deonte Thompson and Frankie Hammond Jr. He would have inherited five future NFL linemen.

I’m of the opinion that it wouldn’t have taken Mullen very long to make Florida a championship contender had he succeeded Meyer. He already had two years of on-the-job training in Starkville where he learned how to deal with the daily non-football nuances of the job. He had two years of making game-deciding decisions in the Southeastern Conference and he was a known commodity from his four years working for Meyer.

Now, Alabama still would have had Nick Saban, but the overall gap between the personnel of the two schools wasn’t as great in 2011 as it is now. I also do not believe that Georgia would have gained such a recruiting foothold in the state had Mullen been on the job in Gainesville.

As with Ron Zook, I think Will Muschamp would have had a better chance of success had he spent time at a non-power school learning how to be a head coach. With the exception of Jimbo Fisher at Florida State, this head coach-in-waiting thing hasn’t worked all that well and it certainly hasn’t done much to prepare the coach-in-waiting for the day he takes over. I don’t think working for Mack Brown did much to prep Muschamp for a head coaching job and I certainly don’t think he was ready for a job with the expectations of Florida. He was always a fine defensive guy, but never – whether at Florida or at South Carolina – learned how to hire the right offensive guy and then turn him loose. I’m not sure he would have seen the light had he coached at a lesser job, but I think there might have been a better chance.

WILL AN EXPANDED PLAYOFF END TALK OF 16-TEAM SUPER CONFERENCES? Ever since the Southeastern Conference, ACC and Big Ten expanded to 14 teams several years back there has been speculation that four 16-team super conferences are a matter of when and not if. The power schools would align in four mega-leagues and they would only schedule each other, eliminating altogether paycheck games for D1AA and directional schools that are Division I bottom feeders. Since no one could foresee a time when any of what is now known as the Group of Five could challenge for a national championship, the four mega-league proposal seemed to have some merit.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the power schools in Division I completely turning their backs on their Group of Five brethren. UCF won 27 consecutive games including a New Years Six against an Auburn team that beat both Georgia and Alabama in the regular season and in a pandemic year, both Cincinnati and Coastal Carolina ran their regular season tables and the Fun Belt Sun Belt was unbeaten against the Big 12. If there had been a 12-team playoff in 2020, Cincy and Coastal would have been in and Pac-12 champ Oregon would have stayed home. When you add those events with the very legitimate threat by Congress to intervene in how college football conducts its business unless it becomes more inclusive of the Group of Five we now have a proposal for a 12-team playoff that grants a shot at the big prize to someone other than a power conference team. In fact, it opens the door for multiple Group of Five teams to make the playoff.

So, one of three things has happened: (1) The Power Five schools are seriously afraid that Congress will start telling them what to do; (2) they’ve gone a bridge too far by giving too many opportunities to the Group of Five; or (3) they’ve concluded that an expanded playoff means more interest, more television viewers, better ratings and therefore more money. The Power Five schools can either hoard it all and turn off the half of the country that associates with the Group of Five or expand and perhaps triple the amount of money coming in. Under the current contract with ESPN, the four-team playoff generates in the neighborhood of $650 million per year of which something like $92 million is distributed to the Group of Five.

Economists who have crunched the 12-team numbers are projecting $2 million yearly. If those numbers are correct, the power conferences could divide up something like $1.5 billion for themselves while giving the Group of Five conferences $500 million. That may not seem fair, but it is more than five times the money for the 65 schools that make up the Group of Five and would amount to more than $7 million per school. Trust me, they wouldn’t hold out for more.

I’m of the opinion that one of the primary reasons for the expanded playoff proposal is to stave off a move to four 16-team conferences. I don’t think the power conferences want to deal with the lawsuits and potential of Congressional intervention. Expanding the playoff seems to be smarter than cutting out half the teams in Division I.

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: I’m disappointed. The US Open pairings have been announced and Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka won’t be paired together. Not only that, the USGA has Koepka going out at 10:29 a.m. Thursday with Justin Thomas and Colin Morikawa and DeChambeau teeing off at 4:14 p.m. with Hideki Matsuyama and US Amateur champ Tyler Strafaci. The Koepka-DeChambeau feud is actually good for golf so I really would have preferred them matched together. Maybe some other tournament. For now, I’m going to ignore them and send all my positive vibes in Phil’s direction to help him win. Geezers of the world unite!