I just wanted to start a thread that gives these young men some love and Napier for getting them here. I can’t remember the last time we had an off field incident, kids go to class, say what you will about special teams, play calling at times… but they play hard no matter what. You see them give effort regardless of score and they seem to care about being at UF. Napier deserves a ton of credit for getting the right kids here. I just heard Montrell on Gators Breakdown and he seems like a genuinely good kid. Talked about his love for Habitat for humanity and personally, as someone who cares about affordable housing in Gnv, that warmed my heart. Personally, I’d like to see the athletic dept as a whole do more LOCAL service especially on the Eastside, but still…. They really seem to have gotten that part of the operation right. Good kids. I’d take 8-9 wins and good kids all day … (but not 5 wins… I draw the line of caring about what kind of people they are at 5 wins… I kid I kid)
Someone mentioned this in another thread and you are right- I can't remember the last time a Gator football player had trouble. It seemed like it was every week under Meyer. What a refreshing change. Now if we could only figure out those special teams!! (We will!!)
I haven't seen a thread about on campus scooter incidents in a while. A Google search on "UF football player scooter" shows that's scooters are a historically recurring issue.
We have a lot of great, talented players who are, very young. Unfortunately, too many people want to pretend that it doesn’t take time to develop. The expect a freshman lineman who was going against 18 year olds last year at this time to by now be dominating 20 - 23 year olds who have been in SEC strength and conditioning programs for 1-3 off seasons for an entire game. They expect our young dbs and lbs to know how to react and rotate to each and every wrinkle that SEC OCs throw at them. These are great kids who want to be here. Let’s give these kids time to develop while coach brings in even more talent to push them and make them better.
I loved the play on the sideline where LSU player drove our guy into the stands basically and Richie Leonard was in the middle of the LSU sideline giving all of them the business protecting his guy. The result might not be what we want but I still want these young men to hold their heads high and carry themselves with pride and find that chip they need on their shoulders. Austin Barber is easily my favorite lineman.
Sure it's all hugs but history shows you don't win championships without a few, let's say, savory characters on your team.
Great kids, A+ academics and 5 win seasons without a bowl....I bet Vandy is nervous they have so much competition.
I'd rather have thugs if it meant wins and championships. It's what we had in 2006 and 2008. Those were good years.
We all want championships, but too many bad apples can spoil the bushel. I'm not sure that recruiting known thugs would be worth the risk just to accelerate a championship.
I’ve always had mixed feelings about the Urban Meyer era of Florida football. I like to win but Meyer has proven over and over he is a low-character individual and he brought quite a few of the same type of players to UF. Unfortunately, even though there is a lot more to a school than football, in a lot of ways the football coach is the public face of a school and personally I thought Urban Meyer was an embarrassment to The University of Florida. I personally can’t see eye to eye with people who would have him back as coach, it’s the same mentality that accepts Freeze or Petrino just to win football games. Having said all that losing and looking inept in the process is also a bad look for the school. I’m pleased with the type of individuals and the off the field discipline Napier has brought to Florida, I think so far that is one of the highlights of his tenure. In the future I’d like to see good kids that are well coached and put in a position to win by the coaching staff, that would be my ideal.
No more ESPN 30 for 30's please. Being tied to Hernandez on top of the many years of seeing player after player arrested for one dumb ass thing after another is tiring.
Losing is tiring. . Hopefully we can start winning again, and with high character players. No reason we can't have the best of both worlds.
