Saturday, December 11, 2010

Muschamp to Florida: What It Means for Vandy

The news that Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp has become the new head coach at Florida may very well mean that no coaching dominoes will fall in the SEC.

In addition, Cam Newton just won the Heisman Trophy.

What does it all mean for the Commodores? Gus Malzahn is now clear to make a decision without upstaging his quarterback's ceremony and without wondering if there will be another SEC head coaching job coming available. (Mississippi State's Dan Mullen and Arkansas' Bobby Petrino were discussed as potential candidates for the Florida job, but apparently Muschamp -- who has SEC roots, having attended UGA and served as DC at LSU and then Auburn before heading to Texas -- was the only guy interviewed and the only one who received an offer from UF.)

Decision time is upon us. If anything, you'd think this news would only increase the likelihood of Malzahn accepting Vanderbilt's (unofficial?) offer. Guess we'll find out soon enough.

3 comments:

AD said...

As a student of time and a sometimes conspiracy theorist, two immediate thoughts:

1) They did that fast.
a. Not whom I was expecting
b. Not on the popular perception scale I was expecting.
2) I don't know whether Urb originally leaked the Newton-Miss. St.-behavior at UF news, but I think it came right before a very big game for Auburn, and now this news in the middle of Newton's Heisman ceremony? In the words of Tayshaun Prince, "Come on."

Andrew Smith said...

A bit late on Malzahn, I know, but I don't like the length of the contract. What if, for whatever reason, he lacks what it takes to be a great head coach or he simply isn't the right fit for Vandy? If Vandy wants to be a good football program, it needs to commit to finding the right coach (actually, finding a string of right coaches as the successful ones leave for better jobs). Putting up this money means that if Malzahn fails we won't have another real chance to improve the program for a decade.

Seth said...

Very true Andrew but at the same time... what does Vandy have to loose? We have always been the botton feeder so I'm proud of Williams and co. going out and trying to get the sexy hire. Malzahn is a great recruiter and if he can put a good staff together (which he should) we'd be in good shape. This is his first college head coaching job too so he isnt going to wanna screw this up.

Any word today on where he's leaning? He needs to go ahead and make up his mind so I can get my life back. I feel like Ive logged on to here and espn a few times every hour to see if we got him.