The issue is our D was historically bad again. This puts enormous pressure on the offense in its first year. In Urbans first year or SOS debut in 1990, he had a dominating D to rely on. Given the situation I think BNs offense did well. Imagine a quick strike O with this D, we will be gassed and under even more pressure to score every time. Also on O, the running game is the harder aspect to get right as the OL needs to mesh. This year we had that run game going - good news for next yearIMO.
He is calling a next level run game- sub par pass game. And he has zero feel for the game when to call certain things, get guys involved, call timeouts, be aggressive… he needs to give up play calling.
Call me crazy but, I’m not ready to give up on Patrick Toney. I do believe our defense is bad but took some baby steps steps toward playing more disciplined as the season progressed. We seemed to be in better position although I think we are bad at containment on most plays outside the tackle box. We don’t appear, to me anyway, to be fast enough on defense. I have this vision that won’t go away of our guys chasing QBS in their own backfield but never catching up. Yes, line backers and DL aren’t the fastest guys on the field but neither are QBs. As a whole we look as slow as pond water compared to the LSU’s, Georgia’s and even FSU. Hell, I even thought we looked slower than South Florida. Given time BN will fix this. Looking forward to winning our bowl game and next year. Go Gators!
From what I've heard CBN mainly leaves the QB's to Coach O'Hara, who by all accounts has done a good job at his previous stop with CBN
I'll just say that Kirby inherited a UGA team that finished the season prior to Kirby's hiring as the 10th ranked defense overall and still lost to Tenn, UF, Vandy, ole miss, and Ga Tech in his first season. CBN got a Defense that had been in the 90's for a couple years, and then lost his 2 best linebackers before the season even started. This season for UF is just gonna make next season special.
I think the trask year really warped our perception of Mullen offense. Or maybe we are not giving CBN enough credit. Outside of trasks great season Mullens offenses hardly ,if at all out performed this year's. Mullens offensive numbers yards per game and pts per game '18/'19 = 30.8 pts pg 409 yds pg '19/'20 = 31.7 pts pg 421 yds pg '20/'21 = 39.8 pts pg 509 yds pg '21/'22 = 27.4 pts pg 443 yds pg CBN's lone season '22/'23 = 29.9 pts pg 420 yds pg So as you can see outside of the Trask/Pitt year the other seasons were either the same or worse for Mullen. Not counting the excellent offensive performance from trask and co. Which is the best season among all listed, there is only 1 other year Mullens offense avg more yds pg and that was last year with the 8 losses, last year was also the lowest points pg we've avg over the last 5 years as well at just over 27 points pg. The other 2 non Trask seasons he avg less then a point more in one season and less then 2 points more in the other. So for all this talk about CBN's offense out side of having a generational offensive out put from a QB like Trask gave Mullen, their offense has been comparable. In fact CBN, scored more points per game then Mullen did last year, with the same QB Mullen had.
We are talking about play-calling. Do you not know what play-calling is? It’s knowing what to do in situations. For example, Red-zone efficiency is all about play-calling. We are ranked 117th out of 131 teams in red zone efficiency. Play-calling is coming out of a half with a game plan, possibly even something scripted to take advantage of the deficiencies you discovered at halftime. We are at terrible in the third quarter. Play-calling is running a two-minute drill that gives your team a chance to make up ground. Again, terrible. We all want the same thing, for UF to get back to the top. Suggesting he Hand off the play-calling to someone more skilled at is not an attack on Napier.
I give BN 50/50 odds of succeeding by year 3. I’d have said the same thing before the year started. I didn’t have high hope for this season given how last season turned out. The only wild card that I thought could propel the gators to a good season was if AR had a lights out season and essentially carried the team. While I think AR takes WAY too much criticism here, and his performance was respectable, it wasn’t enough to carry the team. UF hired Napier as the antidote of Mullen. We decided we wanted a program builder, not necessarily a top notch OC and play caller as head coach. As such while 6-6 is not at all satisfying, there was no reason to expect this season would be any better than last year, unless AR had a Cam Newton like season. By all accounts BN Is having success on the recruiting trail. I actually thought the offensive production was respectable. One of the better rushing seasons for the gators I’ve seen in a while. And while AR wasn’t always consistent, I thought on balance he looked much better than his few games last year. As to 6-6, there is no good 6-6 but 4 of the losses were to teams ending in the top 20, KY while unranked was as high as #7, and all of the losses except for GA were close down to the wire and could have gone either way. They beat 2 top 20 teams. At this point I think BN is on track. Even marginally better defensive play and UF was a top 15 team, maybe top 10. I have to believe that the defensive talent and scheme will get better.
I didn't think that was an attack on CBN. I just happened to quote you because your post reminded me of it. I was simply pointing out the offense has been equally productive to all but one of the Mullen years. Now Like you pointed out, it needs to be more efficient in situational football, ie RZ, 3rd down, 2 min drill. What it does show me is that even while not being as efficient as the offense should have been they still put up points Like most of mullens tenure. (Trask year excluded) which means the potential to avg even more points is already there just by cleaning up and being more efficient. I mean how many points did we leave on the field this year that should have been on the scoreboard? Not saying CBN offense is flawless, in fact these numbers being so comparable to mullens kind of shocked me. And imagine if our defense actually starts helping out the offense.
Not exactly...he lost his 2nd and 3rd best linebackers and got his best one back. Miller didn't play for almost the entire 2021 season due to injury
I didn't see any improvement over the course of the whole season. Whatever scheme they dialed up that let the FSU QB, a guy not known for his passing prowess, run wild was criminal.
The offense did some good things despite a very erratic QB at the helm although they seemed to go into a shell at critical times in several games. Lets not even discuss the defense so we can keep some modicum of positivity here
Crazy how we dominated USCe holding them to 6 points then they go reel off 96 points against 2 playoffs contenders back to back.
This was, IMO, by far the worst D performance, and what puts it over the top is that there is no rational explanation for the disaster we witnessed. It was PLAIN that 5 man pressure was a NO GO, yet we did it repeatedly. The film screeched to play C2M and other zone coverages, limiting the man and 5 man pressures. Instead, we had Burney and Shemar on their slot receiver all night. Marshall was fine in coverage generally, Wilson only had two catches, yet they were both big and he also got a PI. I am willing to bet that Travis made basically no reads all night. He knows he's going to throw it to Wilson on deep routes in M2M with no other consideration, and they targeted Tre-vez and Dean on every other play except the ones that Travis decided to throw at Burney and Shemar in the slot. Travis knew where he was going to throw the ball before every snap. He only completed 13, but they went for 274. The M2M also had us with backs to Travis casually running around the Panicked Five. We get all that trash C3/6 all year, and the ONE game that demands it: GONE. I'm not sure we played dime a single play. This lack of tactical play in game 12 is outrageous. The almost comical out-of-control rushers and edges, again in game 12, is ridiculous. It was HS form, and I get it from young guys in their first games. But we basically have no one who matches that description out there anymore. Just panicked and pathetic diving and reaching. Why they haven't learned to allow the QB to make a devastating mistake is baffling. Maybe you go a little harder at Mahomes, because an extra second and he might throw a Best in The World dime. Travis?? Absolute catastrophe, if you'll just let him. This is not an advanced concept after about two weeks in college. The almost desperate methods the whole team displayed for the whole year except about a two game stretch in the middle being as bad as ever in game 12 is beyond troubling. TD can just do anything he wants and never sits. Beats, holds, PI's, busts, anything. It's as if there isn't a second player on the team that plays that position. Except for one mystery game he just ran roughshod over consequences. The tactics thing MAYBE has an explanation, i.e. that we are establishing foundations and systems. That doesn't seem crazy maybe through game 6. But 12? And we just ignore all data and film and do the exact things that reality has told you not to. But the other points about technique, awareness, effort, choice and consequence, and so forth? What could justify any of that? It's not just BCox screaming upfield 8 yards on 3 and 1 or doing that goofy superman dive for no reason. It's an entire team at this point, and again, game 12. IMO all three of these things need an emergency fix, but I'm not even sure the last two should get you another shot.
Are you saying we should have been a playoff team? Works for me! Well, as long as we don't actually have to play in a game.
