My, how times have changed. It didn’t take all that long either.
We fickle football fans change our minds on a whim, especially when given enough reasons. And by reasons, I specifically mean… losses.
Only last year, I wrote about my annual trip to Gainesville to see the boys and watch my beloved Gators play LSU. It was an emotional afternoon as the Gators won unexpectedly. Three years in, it was Billy Napier’s first big win for the program. Florida didn’t lose a game the rest of the season, beating ranked Ole Miss the following week, then the Seminoles and Tulane in the Gasparilla Bowl.
The offseason showed promise. Quarterback DJ Lagway became a Heisman hopeful. A ton of talent not only returned but transferred in. Tack on a gratuitous basketball national championship and all seemed right once again in the motherland.
Until it didn’t.
It’s been a rough stretch for the Gators. A long stretch too. We’ve cycled through more coaches than any major program, still apparently unable to find the right man for the job. We are once again calling for Napier’s head and we haven’t even hit the meat of our schedule yet.
But here’s the more disturbing news.
Jon Gruden’s name has been mentioned as a potential replacement.
Who knows whether there is any truth to these rumors. Odds are its likely internet fodder. The now disgraced Gruden (see e-mails re: Michael Sam, DeMaurice Smith, Eric Reid and Roger Goodell) stepped down from his Raiders job years ago before public opinion forced the team to terminate his contract for conduct unbecoming. Gruden’s lawsuit with the NFL is ongoing. He claims he was a scapegoat. A very racist, homophobic, out of touch scapegoat. Gruden’s only saving grace is that he’s not entirely incorrect. He wasn’t the only coach, allegedly, to oppose drafting Michael Sam or players kneeling for the anthem. He was just the only one to get exposed for putting it in written form.
Fast forward a few years when Gruden, whose love affair if not unhealthy obsession with football refuses to let him leave the game, had his name reinstated in the Buccaneers Ring of Honor, from where it was once removed. He has been linked to a bunch of other gigs while every organization desperate for a coach plays chicken with his potential hire.
The problem is that hiring Gruden brings more baggage than a Kardashian family vacation. To say you’d have protests outside the stadium would be an understatement. Those emails were inflammatory, but this is how desperate things have gotten for the University of Florida. This all presumes, of course, that Napier is on the chopping block (he is). After a loss to USF at the Swamp where Napier’s kids were less disciplined, less inspired and less prepared than those on the 18-point underdog that beat them, Napier’s leash got significantly tighter. And then came Lagway’s five interception regression in Baton Rouge. That loud bell tolling that you hear coming from Century Tower belongs to Coach Sun Belt.
So, what of Gruden?
Would a school like Florida, smack dab in the South, one of the most conservative states in an increasingly conservative nation, take a chance on Gruden knowing that he’d probably bring long-awaited wins to the program?
Let me answer that in a way that you Sunshine Staters might better understand. You’re gosh darn tootin’ they would! And they wouldn’t apologize for it either.
I can see it now. AD Scott Stricklin offering up some bullshit press conference about second chances as he makes Gruden one of the highest paid coaches in the land. Hopefully that salary will come with a class about what not to put in work e-mails, with a healthy side of encryption just in case, and maybe an extra secretary to translate his dictation as a last line of defense.
Like guitar-strapped Robert Johnson at the crossroads, this wouldn’t be the first time Florida, or any major college program, has sold their soul for wins. Urban Meyer’s two national titles in Gainesville also brought a stench that hasn’t fully left town. His dookie trail later extended to Columbus then fizzled out in Jacksonville.
Jim Harbaugh, hardly the sleaze that Meyer is, depending on who you ask, left Ann Arbor with the fire burning in his rearview mirror. I could go on and on, the lengthy list of nationwide NCAA coaching violations determined and measured by our differing moralities.
As someone who remembers Gruden’s email chain, and whose opinion of him dramatically changed after reading them, I do know that Florida hiring the one they call Chuckie, would leave me feeling dark and empty inside.
That is, of course, until we started winning football games.
He’ll fit right in with the rest of the morons . I think it’s about time to update to a more cold weather wardrobe.
Cheers heh !
There we go, Deac. I was wondering why this post didn’t ruffle a few more feathers.
The latest hot commodity, at least among my text strings, is Fran Brown, who appears to be doing a fabulous job in Syracuse.
Napier is about to hit a pretty tough stretch. If his players come out uninspired, or get blown out in any of these matchups, that might be all she wrote.