Andy Staples article on “why Florida has fallen behind”

BS - all you do is chip away at Napier with sarcastic comments like you’ve put together here. To try your best to erode public opinion of our head coach, and then claim you support him is the height of hypocrisy. You diss Napier at every turn - the least you could do is own it

 

I haven’t dissed any coach. Enough with the hysterics, learn how to handle differing opinions.

 

You’re wasting energy responding to him Skink. He thrives on it.

 

Seems like an "either-or" argument and I don't see it that way at all. I saw the team makeup DURING the Utah game. And I am not talking about having post-2020 SEC Championship fatigue. I saw a team that had a LOT of missing pieces and an O-line that did not look as good as we wanted it to be. Our best defensive player got drafted in the 4th round...luckily. I wish him the best but his skills seem limited in the NFL game. But we shall see. Anyways, he spent some the season recovering from injuries and did not play in the bowl game.

But to what I said, what I saw in the Utah game was that this team needed AR to be transcendent against the upper echelon teams (Utah was disciplined but not SEC-sized) or else we needed to win the turnover battle handily or the other team just loses it (we lost less against Utah than they did). The Missouri game was a prime example of the other team losing it rather than our team winning it. And as we all know, AR was mainly "less-than-transcendent" during the season. And...he did not play in the bowl game.

You call it a less-than-stellar effort to fire up the troops. I say it is more like the Texans at the Alamo: they were outnumbered. And if you know anything about sports (especially football) it isn't that the underdog can't be inspired to win against a much better team, but once the momentum goes south it is DAMN HARD to overcome. And Miller and Company just did not have it. It is what it is.

 

Leave to Zilla to only come on here to be negative.

 

UF wasn’t the only team playing in a bowl game short-handed, some teams were missing their best players due to opting out for the draft or because of injuries, and they still put up valiant efforts and a few even managed to win. I’m not blaming Napier at all for that bowl loss, it was his first season and those weren’t his players etc but like I said I saw other teams manage to play inspired and focused even while short handed.

 

Muschamp, McElwain, and Mullen all ended on sour notes. However, each had a chance to go big. Muschamp was a USC win over Notre Dame away from going to the national championship (would have been in the playoffs nowadays). If Will Grier doesn't get caught with the banned substance, we were on our way to a magic season in 2015. Hell, if we have a pulse of a defense in 2021, we had a shot for the playoffs.

It's doable here, even with being a couple of steps behind, we just need to make that big leap forward.

 

Truth be told, if I were in my teens and 20s living through this period of college football landscape I'd be a pretty irrational complainer myself. The combination of age, rearranging priorities and the unequal enforcement by the NCAA has just let me take it for what it is. It should be nothing more than a diversion. So many people tie their happiness and worth to the success of sports teams. I'm just not there anymore

 

Bama was awful and a joke until they found Saban

The reality if we want to compete with the big boys then we need to operate like them. Frankly that is why CBN was brought in

Our failures over the last 13 years is NOT due to talent. We have guys littered in the NFL. Our problem was 100% coaching. The talent wasn’t national title worthy but far, far, far better than what showed up on Saturdays

Napier has to bring the talent up a little but more importantly get the most out of the players through scheme and development. That has been our problems for years and it’s TBD if CBN is up to the task

 

I’m just addressing lumping UGA and Bama together in academia. Sure seems like a wide gap. I won’t pretend to speak for or care what other UGA fans think about academics.

 

Those were pretty different situations.

The Muschamp dream season was built on recruiting. Meyer had the #1 recruiting class in 2010 and then Muschamp was #3 in 2012. It does not seem we're doing that again anytime soon.

McElwain's almost dream season and Mullen's for real dream season were mostly built on elite QB play. That's not easy but it's easier to hit one homerun with a QB than 10 homeruns with position players. That kind of seemed to be the plan with Mullen but his recruiting was worse than predicted and he couldn't find the good 3 and 4-star players like McElwain could.

 

To paraphrase Billy Beane, “There are the rich teams and the poor teams and then there is us”

Somebody said it when they said the younger “fans” are entitled. SC, VT ATM would kill for our championships.

 

Agree. Georgia has always been a respectable university. Much more so than Alabama. The really shady stuff obviously going on between the athletic dept, the local police, and God knows who else that are now coming to light are cause for pause though. Really smacks of crooked ref$u and Tallahassee politics and casts an unfavorable light on UGa. This is likely at least part of the reason people might be inclined to lump Ga and Bama together. Win at all costs works though doesn’t it?

 

All winning programs has/had their warts. Huntley Johnson comes to mind.

Hate the stuff. Hate young men getting hurt or killed. They do stupid stuff, always have. And all programs have always had fixers. Part of the equation unfortunately.

 

Blah blah blah

 

I have concerns but I also can't help thinking our offense would have moved chains and put up numbers with even a mediocre short to mid passing game. I do wish our head coach would get an OC but again, if our qb just takes the short stuff last year we do fine on offense. The defense was a travesty and I'm happy we have a new DC. I still would like an explanation for some of the stuff we saw last year like lining up so far off the line of scrimmage or the lack of disguising schemes but I'll take the change and look forward to the future just as well.

 

Yeah really

 

Great post!

 

I don’t think Billy is the problem especially since I don’t believe he’s been given everything he was promised.

I blame everything on our crappy AD and UAA.

Anyone have a link to that recent article where Billy hints he was having problems with the Admissions?