Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Spring practice is over with at Florida and the gap in the quarterback battle hasn’t budged an inch.

When it comes to rising sophomores Jacoby Brissett and Jeff Driskel, there doesn’t seem to be much space at all. When you talk to coaches, players and people around Florida’s program, they come back to the same response: no one has a clue which one will be THE GUY this fall.

That could be interpreted as a bad thing. After all, the saying is that if you have two quarterbacks you really don’t have one. But coach Will Muschamp is thinking positively.

Last year, he didn’t want to see either on the field because he had his starter in senior John Brantley. However, a devastating ankle injury early in the season changed that.

“Both of those guys, as I said last year, unfortunately played for us,” Muschamp said. “Right now, fortunately they play for us. They’ve got some game-time experience, they understand what it takes to be successful. Both have God-given ability. They’re talented.”

Muschamp and his players have said all spring that they feel good with either taking snaps and believe they can win a championship at some point with either one.

“I feel like we can win with any one of them,” rising sophomore wide receiver Quinton Dunbar said. “They both had great springs.”

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Now that spring football is over, it's time to wrap it all up with another live message board chat. GatorNation staff members Derek Tyson, Mike DiRocco and Jeff Barlis will be inside The Chompions Club at 9 p.m. ET tonight. Insider subscribers will want to talk about Florida's spring football season, all 15 verbal commitments and further targets, basketball, baseball and more.

You can post questions in the thread at any time.

Andrea Adelson had a chance to catch up with Florida coach Will Muschamp about the state of college football in Florida. Here is a little of what he had to say.

Where do you think the big three of Miami, Florida and Florida State are right now?

Will Muschamp: It goes in cycles. Obviously in our situation there’s been a transition. In Tallahassee and Miami, there’s been transition. When you go through transition, it isn’t always smooth and so whether you’re changing schemes or changing philosophy or changing what you do or how you do it or who you recruit, whatever the cases may be, throughout the entire state there’s been a lot of transition at the head coaching position, and that trickles down to coordinators and position coaches. It changes recruiting areas. There’s still a lot of great high school football players and great high school coaches in the state of Florida, but things go in cycles. You could go back to the 80s when things weren’t as good, then the ‘90s, these three programs were at the top of college football, then into 2000 … it’ll come back.

You think so?

WM: No question.

Why?

WM: The recruiting areas are too good and there’s too good of coaches at all three institutions. You’re going to have good players, you’re going to develop good players when you get them on campus. I’m confident in our staff, and I know the other programs have good staffs as well.

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Matt Hayes of The Sporting News has an extensive piece on Urban Meyer leaving what Meyer himself once described as a "broken" program at Florida.

Quoting sources and former players, Hayes paints a picture of a program that had a serious drug problem and one that had a different set of rules for star players.

Former Florida safety Bryan Thomas told Hayes, "The program was out of control."

Meyer, now the Ohio State coach, reportedly told top receiver prospect Stefon Diggs during the recent recruiting cycle that Meyer wouldn't allow his son to go to Florida because of significant character issues in the locker room. Diggs was considering Florida, Maryland and Ohio State at the time and wound up choosing Maryland.

Meyer denies that he ever painted Florida in a bad light to Diggs or his family.

Either way, it's not a pretty picture that Hayes paints in his piece, which was the culmination of a three-month Sporting News investigation.

One former player told Hayes, "Over the last two years (Meyer) was there, the players had taken complete control of the team."

Hayes' investigation uncovered what was called a "Circle of Trust," where select players were said to be given preferential treatment and not punished the same as others, which rocked team chemistry.

For instance, Hayes writes that former receiver Percy Harvin physically attacked then receivers coach Billy Gonzales during the 2008 season and threw him to the ground and had to be pulled off of Gonzales by other coaches. Sources told Hayes that Harvin was never disciplined. Meyer said he'd never heard of a "Circle of Trust."

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Florida coach Will Muschamp’s image of success is displayed in a single photo.

It’s a picture of LSU’s 2003 national championship team on which Muschamp served as defensive coordinator/linebackers coach. It didn’t hit home how special the picture was until a player sent it to him for him to sign.

As his eyes ran over every face and number appearing in front of him, he truly understood what he was seeing.

Not only was this a team talented enough to win a national championship in the nation’s toughest conference, it was a team with enormous heart and character, he thought. Muschamp saw people willing to take the selfishness out of being a part of a team sport, people who understood their roles and were willing to come together for the common purpose of building a championship-caliber team.

“At the end of the day, you win with good people,” Muschamp said.

What Muschamp also saw was a group of players willing to lead, not just themselves but their coaches. So as Muschamp embarks on his second season in Gainesville, he’s hoping to see more of that attitude from the Gators.

The notion of putting more on the team was echoed by men’s basketball coach Billy Donovan at a recent football banquet, when he used the analogy of climbing a mountain. There are three ways to reach the top: One, everyone runs together. Two, the coaches guide. Three, the coaches jump on the players’ backs.

Muschamp is going for the third way.

“Coach Muschamp has told us all along this team has to be ours,” rising sophomore quarterback Jeff Driskel said. “If it’s the coaching staff’s team, then we’re not going to go anywhere.”

Added linebacker Michael Taylor: “We’re not counting on the coaches to step in. We’re running it ourselves.”

That’s what the Gators struggled with in Muschamp’s debut season. He took over a program that had fallen well below standards in 2010 and continued to tumble under his watch. Offensive ineptitude bled over from the previous season, and discipline continued to be a major issue (10 player arrests have occurred during Muschamp’s short tenure).

Last spring was filled with awkward transitions of coaches and philosophies, and Muschamp had to reach a team that really wasn’t sure who he was. Honestly, he wasn’t sure what he had, either.

This spring, things have changed and comfort has arrived. Staff changes have been made, but those inside the program think they’ve been for the better.

Muschamp has his guys and he’s starting to get his players.

“I really like our locker room right now,” Muschamp said. “I like where we’re headed. We’re not perfect, but we got guys who understand what it takes to be successful.”

You wouldn’t know it by last season’s resume. The Gators limped to a 7-6 finish, and for the first time since 1971, Florida had no position players on the first-team All-SEC team. This month, Muschamp said Florida’s 2011 struggles will really show in this year’s NFL draft. With only two players being invited to the NFL combine (tied for the fewest since it moved to Indianapolis in 1985), the Gators might have only two or three players taken.

To Muschamp, that’s simply unacceptable.

“We need to do a better job recruiting,” he said. “We need to do a better job developing players. We need to do a better job coaching.”

Strides have certainly been made. Muschamp’s first real recruiting class ranked fourth nationally by ESPN recruiting services, and it focused more on building power, aggression and line production.

Muschamp has to wait to put his hands on the bulk of Florida’s 2012 class, but for now he’s concentrating on those already on campus. Before and during spring, Muschamp saw the transformations he wanted from his players, especially when it came to toughness.

Months removed from labeling his team -- and himself -- as soft, Muschamp said he hasn’t seen the lazy, tentative habits that hurt Florida last season. So far, soft hasn’t been an issue.

It’s still very early in terms of finding out exactly what kind of team Muschamp has, but just being around his players you can sense a difference. Leaders are emerging, confidence is brewing and players are buying in. It appears things are changing in Gainesville.

“We want to come out with that mindset that nobody can mess with us; we’re ... going to be the best team in the country, best team in the land, and get back to that glory that we’ve had in the past,” Taylor said. “We’re definitely capable of it.”

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- At the beginning of spring practice, GatorNation brought readers' attention to five questions, five guys under pressure and five players to watch.

With 15 spring practices behind the Gators, including Saturday’s spring game, let’s re-examine those questions and decide whether they were answered as well as take another look at those guys to see whether they handled the pressure and made any improvements.

FIVE QUESTIONS

Will there be a clear-cut starter at quarterback by the time spring practice ends?

Nope. Coach Will Muschamp said the competition between Jacoby Brissett and Jeff Driskel will continue into the offseason -- and likely into fall practice, as well. The two played pretty well in the spring game -- Driskel completed 12 of 14 passes for 147 yards and Brissett completed 9 of 16 passes for 233 yards and two touchdowns -- but neither has been able to gain separation.

What will UF's new offense look like?

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