Florida Gators football tickets have been hard to find, and the team has held a special place in the hearts of Gators fans, for over 20 years now. The team was a perennial also-ran before the likes of Steve Spurrier showed up in Gainesville and transformed the Gators into a national power. The roots of such a run of dominance were beginning to take hold a bit before Spurrier arrived, but Florida was always a national contender under Spurrier and won the national championship in 1996.
However, after Spurrier left for the NFL, the Gators’ dominance began to wane as the team searched for an identity and lost quite a few games it never would have under their sometimes-controversial leader. Ron Zook, Spurrier’s replacement, was not beloved by any stretch in Gainesville, and he was basically run out of town after the 2004 season.
Zook is now struggling with a very bad Illinois team, and the job of restoring Gator glory fell on Urban Meyer, who was the “hot” coaching candidate after the 2004 season when he led Utah to unprecedented results and rankings. No one thought that Meyer would wind up in Florida, as most had him penciled in for the Notre Dame job, but in a very surprising turn of events, Meyer took the Florida job and declined Notre Dame’s overtures. The results are already beginning to show, and Florida Gators football tickets could once again become nearly impossible to find, as Meyer is building a foundation at Florida that could wind up rivaling Spurrier’s work. Below are a few reasons why this is the case.
Meyer’s System
Let’s face it - big-time college coaches are all more than competent when it comes to preparing a team for a game. There’s a reason they rose through the ranks and got to where they are. So what sets the truly great one apart? When it comes to in-game coaching, it’s the system that they have in place. Meyer’s spread offense is famous for its creativity and the difficulty it presents opponents in defending it. No one has really figured out how to stop it, and now that Meyer is in his second year, his system is beginning to take hold.
This spread offense has made several average-to-decent quarterbacks great ones, and one only need look at the current exploits of Chris Leak and Tim Tebow as well as how things worked out for Alex Smith at Utah to see just how effective this system can be. It’s possible that none of these quarterbacks would be NFL prospects without Meyer’s coaching, but Smith wound up being the first overall pick in the draft and Leak is headed to the NFL next season. Tebow, with the benefit of having four years under Meyer, has a ceiling that can’t even be defined at this point. Great offensive coaching leads to great quarterback play, and in college football, that alone can be enough to run a team through its schedule with a lot of wins.
Recruiting
Under Zook, the Gators were starting to lose a few of the recruiting battles that they had grown accustomed to winning under Spurrier, but Meyer has changed all of that. Meyer’s reputation is such that players want to go play for him, which does not bode well for Miami and Florida State, Florida’s traditional recruiting rivals. One can already see a few cracks in Miami’s and Florida State’s talent levels, and don’t think for a second that Meyer doesn’t have anything to do with that.
Great recruiting builds a great talent base, and even though Florida had what many considered to be the most brutal schedule in the country this season, the Gators are flying high and have a shot to qualify for the national championship game if they run the table through the rest of their SEC schedule.
All in all, a coaching system and a reputation lead to a recruiting advantage, and this recruiting advantage leads to a loaded roster, which Florida has already under Meyer. All of this can come together and lead to a run of national dominance, which is the direction in which Florida appears to be headed. If you’ve been faithfully using your Florida Gators football tickets during the recent “down years,” you may be rewarded soon for your patience.
Written By: Jay Nault
