1979 Florida Gators football team

The 1979 Florida Gators football team represented the University of Florida during the 1979 NCAA Division I-A football season. The season was Charley Pell's first of six as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team. Pell arrived in Gainesville with a new plan for building the Gators football program—new offensive and defensive schemes, new assistant coaches, a new attitude and new boosters fund-raising model to support the program and improve the stadium and training facilities. Pell's plan would produce many on-the-field victories over the next five years, but his first campaign as the Gators coach produced the most losses in any single season in Gators football history, ending with a winless 0–10–1 overall record and a 0–6 record in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The team, which was plagued by injuries, placed dead last among ten SEC teams.^[1] This was the last time until 2013 that Florida fielded a team with a losing record.

1979 Florida Gators football
Conference	Southeastern Conference
Record	0–10–1 (0–6 SEC)
Head coach	Charley Pell (1st season)
Captains	Bill Bennek Nap Green Chuck Hatch
Home stadium	Florida Field
Seasons ← 1978 1980 →

1979 Southeastern Conference football standings

v t e	Conf.							Overall
Team	W		L		T			W		L		T
No. 1 Alabama $	6	–	0	–	0			12	–	0	–	0
Georgia	5	–	1	–	0			6	–	5	–	0
No. 16 Auburn	4	–	2	–	0			8	–	3	–	0
LSU	4	–	2	–	0			7	–	5	–	0
Tennessee	3	–	3	–	0			7	–	5	–	0
Kentucky	3	–	3	–	0			5	–	6	–	0
Ole Miss	3	–	3	–	0			4	–	7	–	0
Mississippi State	2	–	4	–	0			3	–	8	–	0
Vanderbilt	0	–	6	–	0			1	–	10	–	0
Florida	0	–	6	–	0			0	–	10	–	1
$ – Conference champion Rankings from AP Poll

The 1979 Florida team had 4 starting quarterbacks: Tim Groves, Tyrone Young, John Brown and Larry Ochab, and John Brantley also played at quarterback, though he did not start. Brantley was projected to start at quarterback, but he was injured in the preseason.

Schedule

Date	Opponent	Site	TV	Result	Attendance	Source
September 15	at No. 13 Houston*	Houston Astrodome Houston, TX		L 10–14	33,851	[2]
September 22	Georgia Tech*	Florida Field Gainesville, FL		T 7–7	60,313	[3]
September 29	at Mississippi State	Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium Jackson, MS		L 10–24	38,000	[4]
October 6	at No. 17 LSU	Tiger Stadium Baton Rouge, LA (rivalry)		L 3–20	73,073	[5]
October 13	No. 2 Alabama	Florida Field Gainesville, FL (rivalry)		L 0–40	64,552	[6]
October 27	Tulsa*	Florida Field Gainesville, FL		L 10–20	60,126	[7]
November 3	at No. 20 Auburn	Jordan-Hare Stadium Auburn, AL (rivalry)		L 13–19	58,754	[8]
November 10	vs. Georgia	Gator Bowl Stadium Jacksonville, FL (rivalry)	ABC	L 10–33	68,148	[9]
November 17	Kentucky	Florida Field Gainesville, FL (rivalry)		L 3–31	55,760	[10]
November 23	No. 5 Florida State*	Florida Field Gainesville, FL (rivalry)	ABC	L 16–27	58,263	[11]
December 1	at Miami (FL)*	Miami Orange Bowl Miami, FL (rivalry)		L 24–30	28,051	[12]
*Non-conference game Rankings from AP Poll released prior to the game

^[1][13]

Roster

1979 Florida Gators football team roster
Players			Coaches
Offense Pos. # Name Class TE Bill Bell OL Bill Bennek QB 12 John Brantley Sr QB Johnell Brown TE 87 Mike Clark Jr WR 21 Cris Collinsworth Jr RB Calvin Davis TE 80 Chris Faulkner Fr WR Johnny Gaffney OL Harold Galloway QB Tim Groves RB Frank Holloway OL Wally Hough WR Spencer Jackson WR 18 Darrell Jones Sr RB James Jones OL Ray Lawrence QB Larry Ochab Jr OL Phil Pharr OL Dan Plonk RB Carl Prioleau WR 19 Johnny Smith Jr OL Jim Subers RB John Whittaker OL Joe Wickline RB Derald Williams RB Terry Williams QB 7 Tyrone Young Fr	Defense Pos. # Name Class DB 43 Thad Adams Fr LB 55 Scot Brantley Sr DB Derrick Burdgess DB 24 Kyle Coburn Sr DB Juan Collins DL Dan Fike DL Robin Fisher DB Bill Fiorillo DB Curt Garrett DL David Galloway DB 32 Napoleon Green Sr DL Tim Golden DB 25 Chuck Hatch Sr DB Dozyier Hinton DB Vernon James DL Vince Jones LB Jim Kreis LB David Little DB Gordon Pleasants DL Bubba Pratt DE 50 Yancey Sutton Jr	Special teams Pos. # Name Class K 3 Brian Clark So P Bill Conover	Head coach Charley Pell Coordinators/assistant coaches Vince Kendrick (RB) Legend (C) Team captain (S) Suspended (I) Ineligible Injured Redshirt

Postseason

The next year, in 1980, the Florida Gators made a remarkable turnaround. They won the first three games of that season before a loss to Louisiana State crushed Florida's hopes of being undefeated, but they ended the regular season with 7 wins and 4 losses, and in the Tangerine bowl they defeated Maryland 35-20 to improve to 8-4. At the time, this Florida season was an NCAA record turnaround, and this was the first team to make a bowl game after being winless the previous season.