SEC Media Days 2011: Florida Prepares for Charlie Weis. And Will Muschamp

You could say that Florida is transitioning right now. That would be the polite way to put it.

Or you could put it this way. Florida has hired only the second man as its permanent head coach who has not at least had interim head coaching experience since it tabbed Ray Graves in 1960. The first one was Ron Zook, whom you might remember.

That's not to say that Will Muschamp isn't going to do a good job. It is to say that he faces a daunting task, particularly since Muschamp is a defensive coach and a healthy portion of Florida fans tends to judge their program based on offensive success almost as much as the team's record.

So control of that problem will not fall to Muschamp, but to Charlie Weis -- the frumpy and often disliked former Notre Dame head coach whose "decided schematic advantage" crumbled when he had to do things like recruit and win bowl games.

But Muschamp is embracing Charlie Weis and making it clear that he has no reservations about a coach who spent much of his career in the NFL. (Must ... avoid ... obvious ... joke ... here ... ) Indeed, Muschamp thinks it's an advantage to have coaches with NFL experience -- and he clearly thinks having Weis comes with its own advantages.

I hired Charlie to run the offense. I've got great confidence in what he's going to do, what we want to be offensively, what I've identified we want to be offensively to be successful. ... Hire people to do their job and trust in them and have confidence they're going to do an outstanding job and at a high level.

And Muschamp isn't worried about switching from Meyer's hybrid, spread-based offense to Weis' pro set.

We're still looking for receivers that can stretch the field vertically, create plays in space, block when we ask you to block. There's not a lot of difference fundamentally what you're trying to attract. It's still the same sort of things from the offensive line standpoint. Quarterback might be a little bit different from a runner's standpoint as opposed to being a thrower.

Which seems to skip over some critical points -- but again, Muschamp is running the defense. The rest of it is obviously Weis' concern. As for John Brantley, he could hardly be happier with the change after spending a year with an offensive coordinator who seemed to actively avoid playing to the quarterback's strengths.

Brantley insists he was comfortable with last year's offense. "But this one suits me better and my abilities," he said.

However much Will Muschamp cares about that, it could make a very big difference in how Florida fans perceive his first season at the helm.