This year's Outback Bowl was one of the least fun Florida wins I've watched. It wasn't so much about what went on, because it was largely indistinguishable from everything I watched after the Gators' bye week.
It was that Florida had a month to prepare, and it was still largely indistinguishable from everything I watched after the Gators' bye week. Everything was disorganized, the game plan appeared to be scrapped at the half, and poor John Brantley's transition from primary quarterback to third-and-long specialist was completed. Just look at the season stats for the madness: the backup quarterback finished second on the team in both rushes and receptions. Jeff Demps was the only skill position player with than 600 total yards, and he missed significant time due to injury.
So far be it for me to complain in light of all that, but I am less than excited by the Charlie Weis hire at Florida. The primary reason is that I prefer to like the guys who coach my favorite teams, and I don't like Weis. It was just a few days ago I was poking fun at him our Sun Bowl preview, and now he's officially going to run the offense for the Gators.
Primarily, my issue is that Weis is the bad kind of arrogant. He announces that he's a genius before proving anything, and comes off as smug and smarmy every time he speaks. This is in contrast to Steve Spurrier, who was the good kind of arrogant. He knew he was better than most of the coaches he faced, but he didn't talk smack until after he started winning. Plus, you could actually tell he had fun with football.
Weis also brings the first true pro-style offense since before Spurrier's reign, though the Fun n' Gun was far more pro-style than most think it was. He's also bringing in long-time NFL veteran Frank Verducci to coach the offensive line. I know that Will Muschamp said he wanted to bring in a pro-style scheme on offense, but it bothers me that these hires essentially make Florida a minor league NFL team.
I like college football principally because it's not the NFL. Roughly 85% of the teams in the pros run the same offense (which is roughly the one Weis runs), so I could watch it all day long on Sunday if I wanted to.
Florida, for literally as long as I can remember, has brought some kind of offensive spice that you won't find in the No Fun League, from Spurrier's scheme to the passing spread of the Zook era to the spread option under Urban Meyer. It hasn't always been pretty that whole time, but it's at least been different. The most NFL-like offenses I've seen there were those in Zook's first two years, and they don't bring up many happy memories.
I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually, and the fact that Weis won't be giving many interviews or doing the booster circuit as a mere coordinator will help minimize his opportunities to make me cringe at his words. At least with Weis running things, the offense will know who it is and what it wants to be. That's far more than can be said about the last two seasons in Gainesville.