GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) -Scot Loeffler and Brian White spent all of last season searching for a victory. The coaches approached every week, every game, with the belief this would be the one.
It never happened.
Home or road. Day or night. Close game or lopsided affair. The details varied from week to week, but the result was always the same.
A loss, 28 setbacks in a row between them.
It almost certainly won’t be like this year.
After experiencing winless campaigns in 2008, Loeffler and White are at Florida, surrounded by lofty expectations and talk about going undefeated and repeating as national champions. It’s a welcome change for two assistant coaches who haven’t experienced victory in about 600 days.
“We kind of try to forget about last year,” Loeffler said. “That was a long year.”
was fired in September, then head coach Rod Marinelli and most of his assistants were let go the day after the franchise made history.
“I look back at it and think it’s one of the best learning experiences I ever had,” Loeffler said. “I got to watch coach Marinelli manage and handle a team when everything was going wrong. It was a tremendous learning experience. It kept everyone together, and it’s something I will benefit from in my career down the road.”
About 1,900 miles west-northwest, White had a similar experience.
He was special teams coordinator and tight ends coach at Washington. The Huskies became the first 0-12 team in Pac-10 history last year and were the only winless team in major college football. He was essentially fired along with coach Tyrone Willingham in October.
“There’s always learning experiences in everything that you do, whether you win Rose Bowl championships, national championships or go through a winless season,” White said. “There’s lessons to be learned and gathered, and you gather the information and you work with it.”
Both coaches gladly moved on.
hing job at Mississippi State.
Loeffler inherited Tim Tebow, the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner who carried the Gators down the stretch in a 24-14 win against Oklahoma in the Bowl Championship Series title game, and talented sophomore John Brantley. He also pretty much guaranteed himself of avoiding another winless season.
The Gators open against Charleston Southern, a Football Championship Subdivision program that has been pounded by South Florida and Miami in recent years.
If Florida wins, it would be Loeffler’s first since Michigan defeated Florida 41-35 in the 2008 Capital One Bowl, a span of 614 days.
It’s been even longer for White, who was hired as tight ends coach after John Hevesy joined Mullen at Mississippi State. Now, he’s tutoring Florida’s best pass-catcher, tight end Aaron Hernandez.
White spent two seasons at Syracuse before moving to Seattle in 2008, and the Orange went 6-18 during his tenure. His last win came Oct. 20, 2007, against Buffalo. If Florida beats Charleston Southern, it will be White’s first victory in 686 days.
“I went through a season and we didn’t win a game, but I can tell you this: We never went into a game thinking we didn’t have a chance to win,” White said.
positions, he gave more weight to their previous posts. Loeffler worked with Drew Henson, John Navarre and Chad Henne at Michigan; White spent 11 years working with running backs, including Michael Bennett and Ron Dayne, at Wisconsin.
Meyer said he never would have kept coaching had he endured what Loeffler and White went through.
“Done. Done. Honestly, done,” Meyer said. “See you later. I’m not kidding.”
Loeffler and White said they never felt that way. Instead, they insist it was a learning experience – albeit a humbling one.
“You learn about every single person in that organization,” Loeffler said. “You find out the people that are going to stay strong and try to be competitive and find a way to win in your most adverse situations. You learn how to keep a team together. It was a great learning experience, one I don’t want to have again.”
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