Gators excited in spite of recent struggles

Will Muschamp wasn't even one minute into his appearance at Southeastern Conference Media Days and he had yet to be asked a question when he went ahead and attacked the room's elephant.

"There will be a lot of chatter about hot seat business and that's part of it," Muschamp said. "The way you combat that is having a good football team, which we're going to have, and winning football games, which we're going to do.

"I've got a lot of confidence in this team and this staff. This is probably the most complete team we've had since I've been at the University of Florida."

Every team exudes confidence at SEC Media Days. Fall camp is still nearly one month away and there is every reason to at least talk with optimism. But that can still be difficult to convey when the worst season of your life is still visible in the rearview mirror and the hottest topic of the day is whether or not you'll be fired.

Given the circumstances, Muschamp handled himself about as well as one could expect. He took the questions about his job security in stride, pronouncing as he did all spring that his team would be just fine in 2014. The most notable reason: improvements on offense.

"This is the most talent we've had on offense in my four years at Florida," Muschamp said. Kurt Roper was a great hire for us from a standpoint of a guy that philosophically is on the same page with me as what we want to be, that's a balanced offense. … You can't get one dimensional in this league or you're really going to struggle, in my opinion. We've been too one dimensional on offense."

While Muschamp actively attacked the hot-seat talk, players avoided it while putting the brunt of the duties to save their coaches job on their own shoulders.

Quarterback Jeff Driskel pointed out the frequency at which all colleges seem to change coaches and noted that most coaches in the sport are on the metaphorical "hot seat" every season to some degree.

"We don't really listen to none of the outsiders," defensive end Dante Fowler Jr. said. "We're all we've got, my brothers, my coaching staff. That's how it's going to be. Our job is to fight adversity. Our job is to make the Gator Nation happy and get Florida back on top, where it used to be. When we do that, there will be no words about jobs or a hot seat."