Exciting offense would fill the Swamp
New Florida Gators head coach Dan Mullen has it backward.
He says UF fans need to start selling out the Swamp and providing an invigorating, exhilarating home-field advantage if they expect a winning program. I say — and have been saying about every Gators coach for the better part of a decade — that Mullen needs to put an invigorating, exhilarating offense on the field before he expects a winning crowd.
In a not-so-veiled knock on UF’s season-low homecoming crowd of 80,017 during Saturday’s abysmal 38-17 loss to a Missouri team that was previously winless in the SEC, an obviously frustrated Mullen said: “We want the program back; we need a sold-out stadium next week and unbelievable home-field advantage. That’s how it works. I’m gonna be honest with you, this is how it works: When we sell out the stadium, we win a championship. It doesn’t go the other way. It’s not we win, you sell out. You sell out, you win. Go watch teams that have built programs. That’s how it works.” Well, not exactly. Nebraska has sold out 366 consecutive games dating to before JFK was assassinated more than a half-century ago. The ’Huskers are 2-7 and haven’t won a conference championship in 20 years.
Then, of course, there are the dynastic Miami Hurricanes of the 1980s and 1990s who won five national championships playing in front of mostly half-full stadiums at the Orange Bowl.
But I digress. The point is the same point I’ve been making for years as UF crowds have continued to dwindle. Until the Gators put an entertaining star-studded brand of offense on the field, then they can forget about consistently selling out the Swamp.
Not in today’s sports landscape where more and more fans are staying home and watching games on their 90-inch high-def TVs rather than fighting the crowd, paying $6 for a cup of Coke and doling out $250 for a Saturday-night stay at a flea-bag
hotel that normally charges $75.
Mullen, like most other coaches, insists that he doesn’t care how his team wins just as long as the Gators win. That’s fine — as long as he realizes that his fans DO care how they win. They don’t want slobberknocking 10-6 victories; they would much rather have edge-of-your-seat 48-44 victories.
Exhibit A: Will Muschamp, the former Gators coach who will bring his South Carolina Gamecocks to Gainesville Saturday for a noon kickoff that — contrary to Mullen’s wishes — will not even be close to a packed house.
It’s no coincidence that Muschamp’s first game as UF’s head coach back in 2011 ended a 22-year streak of 137 straight Swamp sellouts. It wasn’t because fans disliked Muschamp at the time; it was because Florida’s offense the previous year (Urban Meyer’s final season) was stale, starless and painful to watch.
Florida’s offense has been that way ever since. Even when Muschamp won 11 games in his second year and took the Gators into the final week of the regular season with a chance to play for the national championship, fans grumbled and the nonsellouts continued because the offense was tediously boring.
Steve Spurrier spoiled Gators fans in the 1990s when his Fun ’N’ Gun revolutionized passing offenses in the SEC. In the mid-2000s, Meyer (with Mullen as his offensive coordinator) came in and recruited Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin and loads of other playmakers as UF’s spread attack again revolutionized the SEC.
In the last decade, Florida’s offense has gone from revolutionary to just plain revolting. Mullen is obviously a good enough coach to make Florida’s offense fun and exciting again, but it’s going to take a couple of recruiting classes. This year’s offense, although significantly better than former coach Jim McElwain’s inept attack, is still is ranked 81st in the country.
If Mullen wants to lure Gators fans back into the Swamp, he must first give them a reason to get off their couches and leave their houses. Why do you think UCF’s attendance has spiked significantly over the last couple of seasons? Yes, the Knights are winning, but they’re winning with pedal-to-the-metal offense, breathtaking playmakers and a star quarterback in McKenzie Milton who, alone, is worth the price of admission.
The Gators haven’t had a star quarterback since Tebow left in 2009. They haven’t had a legitimate superstar running back or wide receiver since Harvin left in 2008. Yes, Florida has had some good offensive players over the years — Chris Rainey, Jordan Reed, Mike Gillislee and Antonio Callaway (when he wasn’t suspended) — but nobody who would convince you to actually buy a ticket to a game.
Instead of taking the stance that fans must sell out the Swamp before the Gators win, UF’s coach needs to channel his inner “Field of Dreams.”
A word of advice for Dan Mullen:
If you build it — an exciting scoreboard-lighting offense — they will come.