Zook never had those issues, and if anything, his teams were younger than Billy's. Zook's failures was his conservatism and those silly 2-pt conversion attempts, but he often had his teams ready to play. How many Gator coaches handed an opponent their only loss in consecutive years? Not to mention not having anywhere near a losing season? Billy's issues are mistakes that even weak coaching staff's don't do. I don't necessarily blame Billy for them, but something has to be done here. I want him to succeed, but Billy needs to seriously re-assess...
I'm not so sure UK doesn't come out next week and stick it to UGA. They have by far the best run defense in the SEC and their DBs have proved to be opportunistic ball hawks. Our very poor showing yesterday aside I'm not sure manybare giving UK much credit for maybe actually being a good team. Of course the next few weeks will tell us more but I think a lot of us are allowing our perception of UKs past of being a conference dwelling team cloud the fact that they may actually be pretty good, at worst they are certainly not the UK team they've been known to be the last 3+ decades.
It actually should be a conversion that is already happening. (Not the been nice knowing you just yet). SS needs to put together a list and tell him pick one….
Bottom line— Billy must hire a really good Offensive Play Caller. That will make Billy look good too. Now who would that be? We just want what the GatorNation wants… wins and Championships. Gooo Gators!
So, you're saying that SOS left the cupboard bare? There are currently only 5 seniors on the depth chart with only one of those being a major contributor. Not a great deal of juniors either. As far as often ready to play, the final straw for Zook was his lack of having his team ready to play against Mississippi State, the same team that had previously lost to Maine. I'm not a Zook basher. In fact, I was a Zook proponent as he really wanted to be at UF, and I think he was here to stay, not looking for greener pastures. However, his biggest issue was he couldn't get out of his own way and often looked buffoonish, which is what it looks like at times with the too many men on the field, not enough men on the field, and two players wearing the same number while on the field at the same time.
Positives: Mertz, the defense is improved from the past two years, overall wr talent, and we beat Tennessee We are not where we were, but we are not the finished product either
That cupboard was far from bare, UF had the #1 class in the country in 2000....Zook just didn't know how to set a place setting. He took one of the strongest armed QB's in UF history, an excellent receiver and a transcendent TE and installed a horizontal passing O. I mean WTF could possibly go wrong?
Wasn't just me saying SOS left the cupboard bare. Spurrier himself said it. But enough Zook defense for me lol. Suffice it to say, he looks much better in retrospect than he did at the time.
Positives: I'm watching the press conference now and Billy says the right things that give me the impression he understands what the deficiencies are. He gets the recruiting aspect and has shown that his staff is able to evaluate talent that contributes early. His changing DCs to Armstrong first year shows that he's willing to make changes. Armstrong and the defense are young and will be boom or bust for a while but the future looks bright. Even though there are some issues that are holdovers from last year (such as special teams and coming out flat) it's very possible those were issues that were addressed internally or evaluated as "These things can be improved with more time/coaching" so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt because things that may work at ULL just may not have translated well to the next level. Turns out, whatever was/wasnt done wasn't enough. How he addresses the lingering pain points during/after this season will be the true indicator of how things are going to go long term. Pounding heads against the wall and attempting to put square pegs in round holes isn't going to get it done.
2002 OFFENSE Rex Grossman-Jr Ingle Martin-Fr RB Earnest Graham-Sr Ran Carthon-Jr WR Taylor Jacobs-Sr Matt Jackson-Jr WR O.J. Small-So Carlos Perez-Jr WR Reggie Vickers-So Kelvin Kight-Jr TE Aaron Walker-Sr Ben Troupe-Jr OT Max Starks-Jr Bobby Williams-So OG Shannon Snell-Jr Steven Bell-Jr C David Jorgensen-Sr Mike Degory-Fr OG Jonathan Colon-So Ronald Dowdy-So OT Mo Mitchell-So Lance Butler-Fr K Matt Leach-So DEFENSE DE Darrell Lee-Jr Clint Mitchell-Jr NT Ian Scott-Jr Arpedge Rolle-Sr DT Tron LaFavor-Sr Bryan Savelio-Sr DE Bobby McCray-Jr Marcus Oquendo-Johnson-Sr SLB Mike Nattiel-Sr Travis Harris-So MLB Matt Farrior-Jr Reid Fleming-Jr WLB Byron "Bam" Hardmon-Sr Todd McCullough-So CB Keiwan Ratliff-Jr Vernell Brown-Fr CB Robert Cromartie-Sr Marquis Westbrook-Sr SS Guss Scott-Jr Cory Bailey-So FS Todd Johnson-Sr Lester Norwood-Sr P Sean Morton-Jr Nick Fleming-Fr While that wasn't the greatest depth chart, it's head and shoulders better than what Billy inherited. Zook inherited eight senior starters, plus 17 juniors on that depth chart. We currently have 5 seniors on the depth chart and only one starts. I think at least 16 of them had time in the NFL.
Zook had a bad habit of his teams not being clutch in the 4th quarter. Too many close losses. Also had the misfortune of an obvious superstar in Utah gaining momentum
I agree to a point. It was better than what Billy had, but it was by no means loaded, as it was in 1990 and 2005. He had 12 new starters in 2002, and 13 new starters in both 2003 and 2004. That's a LOT of turnover, especially if you had the limited skills of Zook.
Don't recall anyone saying it was. But, you stated that even SOS said he left the cupboard bare which we know the cupboard was far from bare. I liked Zook, he tried very hard to succeed, and our 2006 National Championship under Meyer had 22 starters who Zook recruited, which all Gators should be grateful for. Zook was an outstanding recruiter and maybe he would've learned to let his assistants do their jobs without meddling, but we'll never know. He did, however, do some very dumb things that cost us games.
