Gamecocks fired Muschamp. These kind of moves elicit some strong, complex reactions
Let’s start with a conversation with a coach. Names are protected here.
The coach had just helped his staff secure a high-profile quarterback and was quickly turning to lock in another for the next recruiting class. The first passer had given up some opportunities to enroll. A naive reporter asked said coach how he planned to deal with the dynamic of multiple coveted QBs on the roster.
After all, someone gave something up to be part of this team, and their reward was to potentially be replaced quickly.
The coach put is this way: He wanted guys ready to compete. He wanted players who would not care that the team just added someone who might be better, because they were going to go out and prove they deserved the job.
In the end, one QB failed and transferred. The other carved out a mostly successful career.
The coach in this true story wasn’t Will Muschamp, but the lesson is somewhat the same. He’s in a competition business.
One of those quarterbacks was almost assuredly destined to leave his school not fulfilled by the experience. The majority of coaches who are hired to lead programs fail — and if they don’t, they usually rise up to the level where they eventually do.
This might be the clearest lens through which to view a sort of complex, conflicting batch of cases for how different groups feel about the whole thing.
Muschamp knew, and has long known, the business he’s in. He had players who he replaced in lineups. He had players who gave what they gave but couldn’t give enough to craft more than a role as a special-teamer. Some accepted that, some departed.
Muschamp gave a lot to the South Carolina job, but he was graded like his players were and didn’t deliver enough.
Still, there are a variety of perspectives and reactions that represent different aspects of the reality and perhaps some personal toll.
▪ An old standby: Fans who are simply pleased that some measure of change is coming. It’s simple, but people follow their favorite teams for joy. When those teams stop bringing joy, they get mad. Something new is a temporary reprieve with the promise of hope. People like that.
▪ That first part brings the inevitable crack back that these are people, and taking joy in their failures is a bit tacky. This comes into play less for head coaches (we’ll get to that in a moment), but for others there’s a lot of uncertainty at this moment. Football staffs have dozens of folks tied to the head coach. People making regular-folks money could be unemployed and hunting for jobs before too long. Moves will have to be made. Kids will be pulled out of schools, or go months with dads or moms not living in the house. There’s always some degree of this in any offseason, but it’s still a disruption.
▪ Others will point out, Muschamp will be guaranteed $3.3 million a year the next four years. That’s generational wealth, on top of the money he’s already earned from actually coaching the Gamecocks, the Florida Gators and from his Florida contract buyout. That’s a blessing. If Muschamp didn’t want to work again, he won’t have to. So it’s hard to feel too sorry for someone in such a spot.
▪ Still, there’s a level of irony in that Muschamp probably would’ve coached for a pretty modest salary, and this break represents, in all likelihood, the death of a lifelong dream of being a head coach in the SEC. Jobs are going to defensive coaches less and less often. Coaches who can’t generate consistent success across two SEC stints almost never get third chances. There’s a chance a smaller school, like a Valdosta State, grabs him down the road. But realistically, SEC schools will be hiring him as defensive coordinator for large sums for the foreseeable future.
How people feel about Muschamp’s situation will be determined by how they see coaches as people, and if they are looking at things through a lens of experience, personal contact, politics or something else.
In the end, Muschamp is a part of a competitive world, and failure is built into that. It’s part of his business, and he, better than that pair of quarterbacks in the earlier tale, knows the landscape he’s traveling across.
