Football is a team sport. Lamar Jackson (who just signed the richest contract in the NFL) lost to Addazio’s 7-6 BC team and an 8-5 Wake Forest team his final year in college. Louisville ended up 8-5 that year.
Jimbo fisher still remains and hasn't done shit yet. Norvell had won 8 games over 1st 2 seasons combined, then won 10 last year. Chip Kelly won 10 games total his 1st 3 seasons at UCLA. Won 8 and 9 games the last 2 seasons respectively, last year having fielded a pretty good team. There are more and more examples lately of teams getting a good return on their coaching investment with a little patience. Our win loss record next year is not the only indictator of the teams progress. Especially when you can't compare competition fairly with some of these HS schedules our competition has. Have you seen UGA's schedule next season? Pure Garbage. There will be other factors next season that can Indicate which direction this team is heading and most will be noticeable.
UCLA loses their experienced QB and best RB to NFL. Will they regress? Certainly more challenging for them in future when playing a Big 10 schedule rather than PAC schedule, especially with greater time traveling for road games.
Of course Vandy itself had a QB play many years in the NFL in Cutler. Peyton Manning list each year to UF and had an awful first year in NFL before going on to success. Winning in college does not guarantee success. Many Heisman winners will tell you that. Just look at UF QB lack of NFL success. Bama has not had a great NFL QB since Stabler or Namath and Namath had an up and down career in pros. Depends on team, coach, system and patience. My 18 year old daughter recently met AR in a Gville night club. He offered unsolicited to take a picture of my daughter and her friends. He was humble, polite, and friendly. Not cocky, full of himself or a problem child. Did not try to pick up or use celebrity/fame to womanize. Raised well and good human being. Has a good head on shoulders. Good person. Hope he had great success
Norvells seat was pretty warm going into last year, which is the point. If we have a bad year then Napiers seat warms up. Of course he then can have a great 2024 and the seat cools. Or perhaps McCall transfers now and we have a good 2023. It’s obviously tbd. But if we win 6 this year his seat warms up. Jimbo is an odd case, but his seat is pretty warm no? Kelly’s was as well. But those guys are infinitely more proven than Napier. And you are correct about schedules. We should strip out our cake games. 500 against real teams would be at least average.
Some were already named but let me give you the biggest argument for staying patient... Dabo... He looked pretty lost his first 2.5 years, though he did have some nice wins. 2008 4-3 2009- 9-5 2010- 6-7 On top of this, his recruiting sucked. His first class was 37th. His 2nd class- his bump class- was 27th. So after the 2010 season, after going 6-7 vs an ACC schedule and with this poor recruiting, what did Clemson do? They gave him a vote of confidence. Then they reached unprecedented heights. 2 NCs including beating Bama. Hmm- maybe sometimes we should have patience. (And I haven't even talked about Billy Donovan.)
Geez, this take is SO 2010... It is "quaint" to think any major college program is going to do this. Not that it isn't wise, just not the way things are wired anymore, especially with NIL.
In Power 5 conferences, the tail wags the dog. IMO, fans have unrealistic expectations, and are impatient. Bellyaching becomes the norm and the noise increases. Coaches and players are bashed on social media, and no longer feel wanted. Fans call for people’s jobs and/or make it difficult on families and friends of players and coaches. This in turn, creates pressure on AD’s and University Administration to make changes. In short, I don’t think it’s really the College programs that are impatient, I believe it’s the fans who put pressure on them and cause knee-jerk reactions.
Was his seat warm back then? I bet it was. That’s what we are talking about. We aren’t talking about firing anyone. Simply whether or not another poor year will result in his seat getting warm. Also Clemson was a weaker program then so a 9 win season wasn’t that bad. It’s rare for a coach to have weak results and then turn it around…but it’s certainly possible. It’s a low probability play though and not an ideal strategy. It’s just the data…success typically comes within 3 years or not at all. Florida basketball wasn’t very good pre BD and he had pretty good success in his third year….so he isn’t too relevant to this conversation.
And our football team isn't a "weaker" program? Talented yes, but the real success recently has been hoarded by a very select few teams like UGA, Bama, Clemson etc. While we've been trying to rebuild to what we once were. Look I love our team and will talk them up as much as possible but our recent success has been a bunch of "almosts" and "we were close's". Not sure a new coach hired to fix an entire broken football program from culture to recruiting should be expected to have everything fixed and winning titles in three years. Can it happen? It's possible, but its not probable. You can damn near count on one hand how many teams have won a natty over the last 15 years. Those who have done it, hell of a job, some certainly had different situations coming in. Our recruiting, at least of elite blue chips has noticeably increased. The last class bluebchips ratio% was probably the best we've had. He has also landed a few 5 star players withb1st clas and a half. And currently has 2 this class committed.
I think lots of us would take 8-5 at this point, with improvement on the field pointing to better years ahead.
Exactly. Ready for what exactly? AR finished around 35th in college football in actual production. Well above average in his first starting year on a bad team. From what I can see zero QBs ahead of him had a worse record. So a better team = more production which makes ARs season even better. Still not great but he was definitely good enough for a good team. So ready for what exactly? If he started under Mullen it’s pretty safe to assume his year would have been even better last year. It’s just a total false misconception that AR wasn’t good or wasn’t ready. He was good on a pretty bad team.
If you read the posts and reply’s on this site with any degree of regularity you would know Wanne 15 watches football regularly and is a knowledgeable Gator supporter. You would also know there are a growing number of posters who spew negative comments as easily as inhaling. Hope you won’t be one of those pogba.
If anyone watches a football game and thinks EJ was a similar skilled QB to AR than they are likely (a) trolling or (b) not watching the games. Other than the Alabama game, EJ was a horrific starter. He tried but the entire team responded to AR playing. Mullen decided not to go that route. People that defend that clownshow baffle me.
