Florida Head Coach Duds: Rank 'Em

For me: 1. Dan Mullen 2. Ron Zook 3. Jim McElwain 4. Will Muschamp 5. Billy Napier

E3PO said:

For me: 1. Dan Mullen 2. Ron Zook 3. Jim McElwain 4. Will Muschamp 5. Billy Napier

Zook and muschamp a tossup at 2. Mac and Napier 4 and 5. Every hire gets a little worse

Napier's at the very bottom. His Offenses are so much like McElwain's it sickens me. If only Mullen would have been a recruiter, we'd be in business.

From worst to best.... 1. Napier 2. Muschamp 3. Zook 4. Mullen 5. McElwain

We should have kept Dan longer and just demanded change on assistants.

Gogators7444 said:

We should have kept Dan longer and just demanded change on assistants.

And demanded better recruiting. I'm sure he could've done that. 😂

1) Muschamp - huge mistake firing him. Needed more time 2) Zook - Set the foundation for Urban 3) Napier - Dealt a bad hand and is fighting like to hell. Lesser coach wouldn’t even be .500 4) Mac - Jus a bad fit. Bad bad hire imo 5 Mullen- Left a GD mess for the next guy. Stopped recruiting and was trying to GTFO and go the NFL.

1. Mullen 2. Muschamp 3. Zook 4. Napier 5. McElwain

Swamp_Thing said:

And demanded better recruiting. I'm sure he could've done that. 😂

It’s only speculation but I think with mercenary portal instead of HS recruiting and NIL to compensate for his shortfalls it would have been enough. Not elite, but he’d have gotten close enough in talent where game day coaching would give us a chance. There isn’t enough talent out there for biLLy to overcome how much he sucks on game days.

They all sucked. Mullen & Muschamp were by far the best X’s and O’s coaches but neither one of them could figure out the other side of the ball that they were experts on. Mullen was lazy. Muschamp was a psycho.

E3PO said:

For me: 1. Dan Mullen 2. Ron Zook 3. Jim McElwain 4. Will Muschamp 5. Billy Napier

Mac might've been onto something with Grier, guess we'll never know

Dstrange said:

1) Muschamp - huge mistake firing him. Needed more time 2) Zook - Set the foundation for Urban 3) Napier - Dealt a bad hand and is fighting like to hell. Lesser coach wouldn’t even be .500 4) Mac - Jus a bad fit. Bad bad hire imo 5 Mullen- Left a GD mess for the next guy. Stopped recruiting and was trying to GTFO and go the NFL.

Delusional. Respectfully.

E3PO said:

Let's rank the last five Florida Gator head coach busts from best to worst. Here's some stats (big help from ChatGPT, so sorry if there are mistakes): Ron Zook Overall Record: 23-14 (.621) SEC Record: 16-8 (.667) Bowl Record: 0-2 Vs. FSU: 1-2 Vs. UGA: 2-1 Vs. UT/UM/LSU: 2-7 SECCG Appearances: 0 Major Bowls: 0 10+ Win Seasons: 0 Top 10 Ranked Finishes: 0 Non-P4 Losses: 0 Top 10 Classes: 2 Will Muschamp Overall Record: 28-21 (.571) SEC Record: 17-15 (.531) Bowl Record: 1-1 Vs. FSU: 1-3 Vs. UGA: 1-3 Vs. UT/UM/LSU: 5-4 SECCG Appearances: 0 Major Bowls: 1 10+ Win Seasons: 1 Top 10 Ranked Finishes: 1 Non-P4 Losses: 1 Top 10 Classes: 2 Jim McElwain Overall Record: 22-12 (.647) SEC Record: 16-6 (.727) Bowl Record: 1-1 Vs. FSU: 0-3 Vs. UGA: 2-1 Vs. UT/UM/LSU: 3-3 SECCG Appearances: 2 Major Bowls: 0 10+ Win Seasons: 0 Top 10 Ranked Finishes: 0 Non-P4 Losses: 0 Top 10 Classes: 0 Dan Mullen Overall Record: 34-15 (.693) SEC Record: 21-13 (.618) Bowl Record: 2-1 Vs. FSU: 2-0 Vs. UGA: 1-3 Vs. UT/UM/LSU: 6-3 SECCG Appearances: 1 Major Bowls: 3 10+ Win Seasons: 3 Top 10 Ranked Finishes: 2 Non-P4 Losses: 0 Top 10 Classes: 2 Billy Napier Overall Record: 20-20 (.500) SEC Record: 10-14 (.416) Bowl Record: 1-1 Vs. FSU: 1-2 Vs. UGA: 0-3 Vs. UT/UM/LSU: 2-5 SECCG Appearances: 0 Major Bowls: 0 10+ Win Seasons: 0 Top 10 Ranked Finishes: 0 Non-P4 Losses: 1 Top 10 Classes: 1

1) Mullen 2) Muschamp 3) Zook 4) McElwain 5) Billy Psychology, most people will put Billy last because he’s our current coach and on our minds. However, he really has been the worst hire we’ve had in terms of not winning and having such a shitty offense.

Gogators7444 said:

We should have kept Dan longer and just demanded change on assistants.

If we could have got him a new OL coach and DC and then got in front of NIL, we probably would have been better off.

Dstrange said:

1) Muschamp - huge mistake firing him. Needed more time 2) Zook - Set the foundation for Urban 3) Napier - Dealt a bad hand and is fighting like to hell. Lesser coach wouldn’t even be .500 4) Mac - Jus a bad fit. Bad bad hire imo 5 Mullen- Left a GD mess for the next guy. Stopped recruiting and was trying to GTFO and go the NFL.

There is a 0% chance you graduated from UF.

Swamp_Thing said:

From worst to best.... 1. Napier 2. Muschamp 3. Zook 4. Mullen 5. McElwain

I remember we both liked McElwain more than others. I think your list is perfect. At least Muschamp defenses were pretty good.

Steviebgator1 said:

It’s only speculation but I think with mercenary portal instead of HS recruiting and NIL to compensate for his shortfalls it would have been enough. Not elite, but he’d have gotten close enough in talent where game day coaching would give us a chance. There isn’t enough talent out there for biLLy to overcome how much he sucks on game days.

I feel like he could be coaching the NFL all pro team against USF and would find a way to keep the game close or lose.

1. Muschamp. Loved his intensity and recruiting. Hated his boring offenses. 2. McElwain - weird circumstances around him but I have this off suspicion that he would have been better logn term than anyone. First coach to challenge the university to get up to standards behind the scenes. 3. Mullen - guru of offense and nothing else. Fun to watch but he really was bad at basically everything else. The recruiting was an absolute facade as you can see that once "his guys" were there, we were far worse and he clearly left a mess for Napier. 4. Zook - debated putting him at 5. Why? He's right after the legendary Spurrier, he comes in with a heisman level QB, he recruits at an incredibly high level, and he still fails to win more than 8 games in a year. Meyer comes in and immediately takes that talent and makes it a championship team. That should tell you how inept Zook was as an actual coach. 5. Napier - I do think he's done a lot oglf good at the university. I think he had the potential to be a GREAT CEO type head coach and he handles a program better than anyone on this list. Unfortunately, he's also by far the worst game day coach on this list as the results show. What sucks is, most of that is his own stubbornness with offense because it's clear that once he let go of defense and hiring young guys to control, the defense is SEC title caliber. But the offense is G5 caliber at best, and that's with a LOT of talent, which makes it even more difficult to digest. Could you imagine Mullen with these offensive weapons? We'd be putting up 45 a game.

Mullen was by far the best out of that bunch. Big gap from him to the rest. Edit: On second thought Muschamp was close but still behind Mullen. Scoring points and losing is more fun than punting and losing.

[LIST=1] [*]Mullen [*]Zook [*]McElwain [/LIST] I will stop there because a Georgia Bulldog will never make my list but even Muschamp is ahead of Billy Napier who is arguably the worst gameday coach in our football history and maybe the SEC....those 3 to 4 hours for him on Saturdays is like watching a green level skiier drop into a double black diamond (Colorado guy so had to drop in that reference)

PacoGator said:

They all sucked. Mullen & Muschamp were by far the best X’s and O’s coaches but neither one of them could figure out the other side of the ball that they were experts on. Mullen was lazy. Muschamp was a psycho.

^^^ This. Mullen and Muschamp were great coordinators for their side of the ball, but had no business being the head coach of a top school looking for championships. Zook, McElwain, and Napier should not be head coach for any P5 school. If you put a gun to my head and made me choose one of those 5 to be our head coach, I'd probably take Muschamp and force him to hire a dynamic, spread style OC that runs a balanced 60/40 pass/run ratio (if 500 yards that needs to be about 330 passing / 170 rushing). Give that guy the keys to the offense and let him have complete autonomy.

ECGator121 said:

2. McElwain - weird circumstances around him but I have this off suspicion that he would have been better logn term than anyone. First coach to challenge the university to get up to standards behind the scenes.

What was really bad about McElwain (and we mostly did not hear about all of this until after he left) was the off the field stuff especially S&C. It was like everyone on staff was so lazy. Kids would miss workouts and the response would be "oh well, you are just hurting yourself" and then kids would go and get personal trainers because every off field program sucked under him. Recruits would make it to campus and the staff would not even know their names or who they are. I can actually say the other 4 dud coaches actually gave it their all and it just wasn't good enough. I can't say that about McElwain. Mick Hubert was also on record after he retired that McElwain was the worst head coach that he worked with.

E3PO said:

If we could have got him a new OL coach and DC and then got in front of NIL, we probably would have been better off.

And somehow got him to actually give a damn about recruiting….

Jmo2313 said:

And somehow got him to actually give a damn about recruiting….

That’s what the NIL is for.