UF's Muschamp wasting no time getting up to speed

It has been a couple of months since Will Muschamp was named to succeed Urban Meyer as the head football coach at the University of Florida and we have positive news to report.

He can call each of his players by name now. That's impressive. You try matching that many names to faces in that short of a time.

His staff is in place and he knows his way around the campus. The business of Gator football rolls on, with new offensive and defensive schemes and the inevitable adjustments as players get used to a new way of doing things.

It's too soon to say how well Muschamp will fill the national championship-sized shoes left behind by Meyer and Steve Spurrier, but one thing is pretty clear already: I can see why this guy was so highly sought.

UF athletic director Jeremy Foley signed him off the staff at the University of Texas, where he was the coach-in-waiting to succeed Mack Brown. If Foley hadn't gotten him, some other big program probably would have.

Muschamp exudes high-wattage enthusiasm, intelligence and confidence. It doesn't seem like false bravado either.

Example: During a get-to-know-you session Friday, Muschamp was asked if he felt Florida State - coached by good friend Jimbo Fisher - has passed the Gators to become the top team in the state.

"No," he answered simply, quietly, quickly, and with a look that could be interpreted as saying you've got to be kidding.

Well, FSU did beat Florida 31-7 in November and just assembled the top recruiting class in the nation, so it was a legitimate question. You're looking more for Muschamp's reaction than some coach-speak answer, though, and to say the man is unshaken by the task ahead is to state the obvious.

"I'm pretty confident in my ability as a football coach," he said.

Of course, Muschamp hasn't had to navigate the SEC yet as a head coach - especially a gauntlet next season of successive games against Alabama, at LSU, at Auburn, and then Georgia. The Gators also have to go to South Carolina, where Spurrier's Gamecocks are defending division champs.

And FSU is waiting at the end.

"It's all new right now," Muschamp said. "Everyone is excited. Change is inevitable; growth is optional."

Here's some growth.

We can probably assume the end of Meyer's whackadoodle offense unveiled midway through last season, the three-quarterback rotation that looked like it was drawn up on the back of a napkin at happy hour.

New offensive coordinator Charlie Weis plans a "pro-style" attack, which translated means an approach built around order and purpose as opposed to "gee, maybe we'll get them laughing so hard on the other side of the ball we'll catch them off guard."

Muschamp said it's Weis' baby.

"I heard Bear Bryant say one time that he wanted to hire people smarter than him," he said. "Charlie Weis will call offense better than I do."

We'll start to get a glimpse of how that's all going to work at spring practice and everyone will be watching closely to see how Weis and quarterback John Brantley - whose middle name should be "pro style" - get along.

That won't be the only thing people watch, of course. These are the Gators. Basically everything they do is news, meaning Muschamp's every move is about to be dissected and interpreted like never before.

He says he's ready to dive right in, including lots of trips this spring and summer to Gator booster clubs. That will go over well with the masses. Meyer began to cut out a lot of those rubber-chicken gatherings - which you can do when you've won two national championships.

Muschamp isn't there yet.

In fact, he's so new he's still living at a hotel while his family is back in Austin, Texas. They won't be reunited for a couple of months while details like mortgage closings play out.

That's the one negative so far for this dedicated family man. He needed a stand-in Friday during "Donuts for Dads" at his son's elementary school in Texas. It's painful to miss stuff like that, but Muschamp said, "I have a little tunnel vision right now."

Meyer accomplished a lot in Gainesville, but he didn't seem to have a lot of fun along the way. My sense also is, even with his grand achievements, a sizeable portion of Gator Nation was ready for a change.

Now they have it, and the wait-and-see process begins.

"There wasn't a lot broken here," Muschamp said. "Urban did a phenomenal job."

People expect more of the same from the new guy, and he says he is up to the task. Not only does he know his players' names, but he knows the size and scope of what he has gotten into and seems to be handling it well.

It won't take long before the Nation is more demanding, but for now things seem to be going as planned.