Florida Football: Gators Need to Exercise Patience with Will Muschamp

The offseason is a glorious time of year filled with stories on practice reports, glorified scrimmages and, sadly, off-the-field issues.

Sporting News jumped into the fray on Monday with a lengthy report detailing a Florida program that was out-of-control under former head coach Urban Meyer.

But other than the nugget about Percy Harvin getting into a scrap with assistant coach Billy Gonzales and the fact that former Florida safety Bryan Thomas went on-the-record, nothing in it was truly groundbreaking.

Players party, coaches play favorites and locker rooms routinely become divided in every sport.

That's not breaking news—or really news at all.

In Florida's case, it was especially true. It's been well-chronicled that more than 30 arrests under Meyer, and his disciplinary tactics while at Florida weren't exactly the harshest in the world. 

That's why the rest of the college football world laughed when Meyer said that college football needed to be cleaned up while with ESPN in 2011. 

The last sentence of the story—a quote from current Florida head coach Will Muschamp—is what I found truly interesting:

"

This team is 15-11 over the last two years. I always look at the difference between reality and perception. Sometimes perception isn’t always what reality is.

"

The Sporting News story suggests that the quote could be directed towards the state of the program off of the field when Muschamp took over. That may or may not be the case; but if it is, Florida fans have to be happy with Muschamp. 

The 7-6 record last season wasn't exactly ideal, but if Muschamp's intent is to win while "fixing the program," Florida fans need to be patient with their coach.

The Florida job is one of the most pressure-packed jobs in college football, and while wins and losses will ultimately determine Muschamp's fate, fixing the perception of the program should also play a large role. 

Programs rise and fall in waves. Developing a program of high-quality players goes a long way in preventing those lulls from becoming the kind the kind that gets coaches fired.

In the end, that makes the program as a whole stronger—even if it doesn't win two crystal footballs in six seasons.

Follow @BarrettSallee