A long look at Florida football’s history with interim head coaches

What would a modern-day Florida-FSU game be without interim coaches?

It would have been a smoother transition if Dan Mullen didn’t punt his love for loyalty and stuck with his seniors for one more game. But this is the Mullenade that is being served for the final regular-season game and possibly the last game of 2021 period.

Both teams need wins to be bowl eligible and FSU has seen this before. The difference is that the Seminoles have won five of their last seven games after an 0-4 start while Florida has lost four of its last five.

The Gators have the interim coach this time around – the third interim from the two schools in the last five meetings and a fourth was close with Jimbo Fisher leaving after the Florida game in 2017 – although I’m not sure what a game between a pair of 5-6 teams will do for anyone’s resume.

Rather than give you the often-recited history of the Florida-FSU series, we thought we’d remember the long list of Florida interim coaches through the years:

Galen Hall 1984

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The ultimate winner of the interim coach sweepstakes, Galen Hall parlayed his success in 1984 into the full-time job as Florida’s coach.

Hall took over from the embattled Charley Pell after three games that season and his success pushed Florida to start negotiations to make him the permanent coach. He turned down the first offer, according to reports, but after the Gators clinched their first SEC title in Lexington, UF president Marshall Criser told a team that was celebrating in the locker room that Hall was the permanent head coach.

So, as an interim coach, Hall was 7-0, then won the season finale over FSU 27-17.

The SEC title would later be stripped by the SEC, but Hall had a second great season at 9-1-1 before the effects of probation hit and the Gators struggled for the next four years before Hall was ousted by another NCAA investigation. In this case, the NCAA was in town investigating Norm Sloan and found some small violations Hall had committed (or didn’t commit).

That opened the door for Gary Darnell

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…who took over the day after Hall had won his final game on a buzzer-beating kick against LSU.

Gary Darnell was the defensive coordinator and coached the last seven games including the bowl game against Washington in Anaheim, California. He went 3-4 in those games losing a heartbreaker to Auburn on a last-second touchdown pass 10-7. He also lost by seven to both Georgia and FSU.

Darnell was not retained when Steve Spurrier took over on New Year’s Eve 1989.

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Spurrier never needed an interim coach, but his successor did.

Ron Zook was fired after a loss to Mississippi State, but was allowed to finish out the season. That included a win in his final game at FSU on the night they honored Bobby Bowden by naming the field after him, which prompted Gator fans to refer to Doak Campbell Stadium “Ron Zook Field”.

Zook chose not to coach in the bowl game and Florida named Charlie Strong the interim coach. But the rest of Florida’s coaches weren’t buying in. At least one had to be threatened with losing his pay if he didn’t coach in the Peach Bowl and several assistants spent bowl week and the weeks leading up to the final game wearing Illinois shirts in the building and at practices because Zook had hired them for his new gig with the Illini.

Florida lost that game 27-10, as well as quarterback Brock Berlin, mainly because of special teams gaffes — the area where Zook had so much expertise.

That opened the door for Urban Meyer

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…who won two national titles at UF. But after the 2009 loss to Alabama, Meyer had some health problems and resigned. He was talked out of it by athletic director Jeremy Foley on the condition Meyer would take some time to get it together.

Steve Addazio, who took over for Mullen as offensive coordinator in 2009, served as the interim while Meyer toured the world and tried to get right.

Addazio handled everything a head coach needs to handle during the offseason, but never was the interim coach in a game. Meyer resigned after the 2010 season. Again.

And in came Will Muschamp.

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Muschamp went 11-2 in his second season, but after a 4-8 mark the next year that included a home loss to Georgia Southern, he was definitely on the hot seat.

In 2014, Muschamp’s Gators lost at home in overtime to Spurrier’s South Carolina team and he was fired the next day.

He did coach the rest of the regular season, finishing 6-5, but declined to coach in the Birmingham Bowl against East Carolina. D.J. Durkin, now the defensive coordinator at Ole Miss, took over for the bowl game and did a remarkable job getting the team to play at a high level in the bowl game, a 28-20 victory.

Among the people watching from the press box for that game was new Florida coach Jim McElwain.

McElwain won the SEC East in his first two seasons, but there was trouble brewing.

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His “circle the wagons” mentality did not sit well with the UF administration. He insulted other head coaches at UF, criticized Gator fans and the athletic administration every chance he had and finally started losing.

Then came the death threats. McElwain talked about receiving them during the Monday press conference leading up to the Georgia game. Because he did not report them to the administration and instead deleted them from the answering machine where they were recorded in the football office, Florida started working on ousting him at a reduced cost heading into the Georgia game.

Stories circulated on game day that McElwain was out and it showed during a 42-7 loss to the Bulldogs.

McElwain was fired the day after the loss and Randy Shannon was named interim coach. Shannon had experience after being the head coach at Miami, but there wasn’t much fight left in the Florida team.

The Gators lost three of the four games with Shannon as interim (the lone win was against UAB), and Florida was moving on again, this time to hire Mullen after being turned down by Chip Kelly.

Which brings us to here

UAA Communications/Tim Casey

… another interim coach in Greg Knox working with a skeleton staff down three coaches. Whether Knox is a one-game head coach will be up to a Florida team that needs a win to become bowl eligible and lives to see another game.

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