EDIT: Yeah, about that… Dan Quinn accepted the Seattle job either immediately before this post went live or immediately after. Not sure which. In any event, the Gators will begin 2013 under a different OC-DC combination for the sixth straight year. We are losing the off season turnover battle. Badly.

It is “a strong possibility” that Florida defensive coordinator Dan Quinn will become the defensive coordinator of the Seattle Seahawks very soon. Quinn’s name is also floating around as a possible defensive coordinator on Gus Bradley’s new staff in Jacksonville. Either way, it’s a tremendous blow to a Florida program that has seen just about enough of this.

I’m not sure it matters much from an X’s and O’s standpoint – how much of the Gator defense is Quinn and how much of it is attributable to Will Muschamp? I’m also not sure Florida will take much of a hit on the recruiting trail. Quinn has been targeted in the past by Tampa Bay, Florida International (as a head coach), Cleveland and Philadelphia, so you have to hope/assume that this year’s class wasn’t built around a defensive coordinator who poses such a flight risk. Where this one really stings is in the continuity department, because I believe that’s the only thing that separates Alabama from Florida today.

Remember 2008? Florida was coming off a National Championship just two years prior and was about to face undefeated Alabama. The Crimson Tide had a second-year head coach and a first-year defensive coordinator, and lost the game. The Gators, headed by fourth-year coach Urban Meyer, fourth-year offensive coordinator Dan Mullen and longtime defensive coordinator Charlie Strong beat the Tide and rolled to their second national championship in three years.

Then Dan Mullen took the head coaching job at Mississippi State. Then Alabama won the national championship. Then Charlie Strong took the head coaching job at Louisville while Meyer retired and then didn’t and then did again. (Skipping Auburn here) Then Alabama, still under Saban and Smart, won two more national championships while the Gators went through some serious rebuilding years.

What happened? Strong and Mullen were both gone by 2010, replaced by Steve Addazio and Teryl Austin, respectively. By 2011 both of those guys were gone thanks to Meyer’s second no-for-serious-you-guys-I-mean-it-this-time retirement. Muschamp brought in Quinn on defense and I’m sure you remember the fat man on offense. The fat man was gone for Kansas before the bowl game.

So now with Quinn going into his third year and Brent Pease entering his second, the Gators are poised to start a season under the same HC-OC-DC trio for the first time since the last time they won a national championship (HT @OnlyGators). Unless, of course, Quinn leaves town.

Now, will SOMEBODY PLEASE HIRE SOMEBODY from Alabama’s staff for once? Why does it always have to be a Gator?