University of Florida Football's Perennial "Hot Seat"

After Jim McElwain was fired from his head coaching job at the University of Florida following his football team's humiliating 42-7 loss to rival Georgia eight days ago, speculation quickly arose as to who would eventually take his place while Randy Shannon served out the remainder of the 2017 season as interim coach.  Gator quarterback legend Tim Tebow weighed in on the matter and, to me, put it best: "It’s a program that can ascend very quickly to the top few in college football, but also what it is, it is a very hot seat." He then went on to claim that Florida's greatest two coaches, Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer...who combined guided them to lots of SEC titles and three national championships...were both finally worn out by the job and sought employment elsewhere.  And that's the problem: usually, the term "hot seat" is used to describe the position a coach is in when his team isn't doing well and he's about to be canned.  But with the University of Florida football program, every day as head coach is the hot seat...and as Tebow added, it will take someone with a very strong, unwavering personality to fill it without suffering burnout.  Gator fans come in all shapes and sizes and follow their team with varying degrees of fervor.  But there seems to be a more abundant supply of fans with very demanding and unrealistic expectations, more so than with other schools.  If two coaching icons like Spurrier and Meyer reached their own breaking points here, then something's terribly wrong...

Tim Tebow believes that the next coach will be the right fit for Florida, but as far as I'm concerned that means someone who will have a very thick hide and stand for little criticism.  Because no matter how well or poorly Florida does, there will always be a quantity of "bad fans" around.  For myself, I just want whoever does get the job to consistently put on the field a complete team, both offensively and defensively, recruiting not just star high school players but also creating depth in the roster for those inevitable injuries that take out starters.  And please, please, no more of these ridiculous scandals among the players: it's the coach's responsibility to provide some leadership here.  I don't expect the Gators to set the football world on fire every single year, but wanting them to be consistently competitive winners isn't asking too much.  And we've had too many games in recent years where they've been given little-to-no chance of winning.  At least field a team that doesn't go out there and humiliate themselves on a regular basis...