You may be sure of a lot of stuff - but that doesn’t make you right And I am a nice person. You got that part right
Yeah, I can tell by the polite way you talk to people who happen to disagree with your position. On football of all things. You must be swell.
I like the opinions shared on this topic thus far. I think it shows where the fan base is. A little tough, tormented and fragile. I don’t fault anyone for any of those positions.
I'm not sure that disagreeing with your posts qualifies as impolite. Is there a nicer way to disagree with everything you posted on this subject.
Here’s what I meant. It’s been 20 years since I cared whether anyone disagreed with me or not. Gave up trying to convince anyone of anything a while ago. I just like making a case. And I try hard to do it without insulting until some insults me. Usually more than once. Then I say something back. I shouldn’t. Doesn’t do anything to help a discourse. and usually leads to no one making a point, and comments that are intended to be cutting but in reality is empty bluster.
I was sometimes frustrated with Napier's first season, but I have a feeling that he's the kind of coach that learns from his mistakes, and I doubt he's as stubborn as some of the knucklehead coaches we've had in the past. Oddly enough their last names all started with the letter "M" too. I think your criticism of Napier is at least one full year too early. Let's see if he's fixed what went wrong in last year's season. I will wait till next year's over to see if he's a learning/growing coach before I get all upset over his tenure.
I don’t criticize Napier. I criticize the narrative that he’s unfallable and untouchable. I criticize the idea that it is a certainty that he knows what he’s doing, and the certainty he’s on the right path. He might be. But my argument is always simple — if you just look at the objective facts, there are as many reasons to think this won’t work out than to think it will. So when someone says, as a definitive statement, that Napier inherited a shitshow, I argue against that. That’s not a criticism of Napier; it’s an argument against the excuses made defending the record. The only person I regularly criticize is Stricklin. I think he has not made a wise, well-researched or considered coach-related decision during his tenure. He’s gotten lucky a couple of times. He’s missed badly a few times. But he’s simply bad at this.
BS Nobody here is claiming Napier is infallible or untouchable. That’s nothing but hyperbole. “there are as many reasons to think this won’t work out than to think it will”? Wow dude that’s a sad way to look at things. With that outlook on life it’s literally impossible to get full enjoyment out of much of anything. Thanks for clearing this up for me. I can stop wasting my time on you
You need to get your glass half full. Everyone on the planet can see the top half is missing. It’s just perspective.
You haven't been wasting your time on me. All I've done is given you another chance to show your unwavering and unquestioning support. You haven't made an argument beyond the purely surface "it ain't Billy's fault!!" you don't engage with actual questions unless they happen to fit the specific narrative you've crafted. That's what message boards are for -- for people to reinforce what they already believe. I have no doubt that the next time I say something you find objectionable, you'll jump back in. It's what we all do.
This is interesting. I don't see it half empty. To me, there's a lot of talent on the team, just like there was last year (and the year before, and the year before and so on and so on). I predicted 8 or 9 wins for 2023. If you're referring to Napier, I'll be honest (or you can just look at my posts). I would have preferred to hire a coach who did something different and innovative, because I think that's the funnest way to become a power, and it gives you something to pitch recruits, especially when your biggest competition is already setting the standard for establishing the NFL pipeline. But that doesn't make Napier bad. I do think he was a reach, the easiest hire that could be reasonably made by a questionable AD. The things he has gotten credit for -- like the culture change or the energetic staff or his evangelical approach and background -- make me shrug my shoulders. And what I saw on the field last year was understandable -- he had a QB who didn't fit what he wanted to do but didn't feel like he could replace, and a complex defense that sometimes didn't fit personnel -- but there was nothing that made you think anything special was going on. You couldn't see a foundation being laid -- maybe it was off the field, but not on it. So I don't know whether Napier is any good, but I'm willing to hope he can make the team competitive, and I fell strongly he probably will. However, I think is important to say this: Potential is a much more dangerous word when talking about a head coach than any particular player. If Napier turns out to not be a competent coach, that's affecting 100 or so kids who are trusting him to help them reach their potential. If the Gators struggle, it not only affects our national brand and reputation, it affects the local economy of Gainesville. The Colts can afford to have missed on Richardson (not saying they did) because if he never comes through, there are other options. That's not the case with the head coach of a major football program.
What people take issue with is that every time you say anything it’s going to have some “but what if…doomsday scenario” attached to it. Ok, not everytime, but often enough. The beginning of this post was ok, but you couldn’t walk away before saying “what if” Napier is incompetent and ruins the potential for all these kids he’s signing. If you do this in every aspect of your life, it does seem like it would be hard to enjoy anything. Let’s go to the grocery store, Honey. We could get some steak and lobster for dinner, that sounds really good. Oh, but what if we get in to a car accident and we all die on the way home? That would be a shame.
I'm just replying to what's written. If you say that someone has potential and we need to wait it out, there are consequences to that waiting. The consequences for that person being a head coach is much more significant to a college program than if that person you're waiting out is a particular player. There are program consequences. Georgia and Alabama dominate recruiting not because of Nick and Kirby's stellar personalities; it's because they get guys into the NFL. Something like half of the Eagles draft picks were Georgia players this year. Kids know that if they go to those programs, they'll get noticed. The longer a team waits for success, the harder it becomes to recruit the kids who want to play in the league. So if we're waiting 2,3,4 years for that potential to pay off, it gets harder every year to bring in the players needed to be successful. In addition, it's easy for us to say "give him time" in regards to a coach because the only consequences we have to that is our Saturdays are less enjoyable. And to be honest -- we're mostly older men and we relate more to any coach than we do to any player. So we're more invested in a coach's success than any player's, even when we wish the players well and hope the best for them. But for the kids playing, they only have four out of five years to play this game and learn how to potentially do it professionally. Every year we wait takes away 20 to 25 percent of that playing time for those kids. Likewise, for the businesses in Gainesville, the ones who depend on interest in Florida football to survive, the less relevant that team becomes, the more they suffer. Is that our problem? No. But it is reasonable to note that while we might want to give a coach the benefit of the doubt, other people have real world consequences to it.
What Billy inherited was never a one year fix... I understand and believe that, and you do too, or you wouldn't have said so. Again, it's too early to judge Napier. He has a plan, and it's going to take more than one season to get it right.
Oddsmakers are not in the business of predicting who will win games and by how much; they set lines in an attempt to get an equal amount of bets on both sides. So they are actually setting lines based on how they believe the betting public thinks games will go - not expert betters, all betters, many of which know what ESPN tells them and nothing else.
I think you confuse “blind loyalty” with full support. A lot of us, myself included, see constant negativity towards CBN and his staff as counter productive. I doubt if Skink or any other loyal Gator fans are naive enough to think CBN is infallible. But most of us know that serious problems had developed in our program that he has to deal with. Most of us also believe it will take time and he deserves the benefit of the doubt and even a mulligan or two before we give up on him. It’s a daunting task he has in front of him and a few jackasses constantly picking apart everything he does is not a way to encourage anyone.
This is the problem with these statements. You don't "know" serious problems had developed. You think, you assume, you suppose, you hypothesize. But you don't "know" serious problems had developed in our program. Likewise, you don't even know that Napier walked into a daunting roster or situation -- he had the fourth pick in the draft, two other second round draft picks and a total of six or seven guys who the pros thought were good enough to commit to, and another four or five they thought were good enough to give a shot. The argument that we were talentless enough to lose seven games last year really doesn't hold up. I'm willing to admit that the talent we had didn't match what Napier needed for his systems, but to me that issue is on him. Likewise, there haven't been a lot of off-the-field issues, not a lot of social media bitching, not a lot of vocal discontent. So we disagree on that starting position. But if we disagree on that starting point, can you see why we have different ideas of how things have turned out? Just remember every mulligan you give is a large portion of each team member's playing career. Every bad year makes the next good harder to reach. While we are letting him learn on the job, that on-the-job training comes at the expense of the kids who trusted us enough to enroll.
All of this and you didn’t answer the question. When does he own it? I said 50/50 this year and 100% next. This has nothing to do with having his back. He’s the boss and he’s able to build it the way he wants. But as some point you have to have accountability and expectations to judge success Despite your remarks I highly doubt you believe it’s indefinitely Mullens fault. So when does Billy own it?
Being objective is not constant negativity. We win games, we lose games, we have good players, we have bad players, we get recruits, we miss recruits, we have good play calls, we have bad ones, some assistants do a good job, some fail, etc. It’s important to see the full picture It’s dangerous to spin. We see it in recruiting all the time. If we miss on a player the narrative becomes “we didn’t want him” or “we don’t need him”. The objective truth is we had the most underachieving year in football given our draft picks. There is a direct correlation between draft picks (eg the Johnson point system) and record. The why is important. Blindly blaming the players 100% is just as absurd as blaming the coach 100%.
