Post-Game Discussion: FLORIDA at LSU

LSU has a horrid defense. Worse than ours? No. Look at Arky's last 3 games. Zip vs Miss St and minimal vs Aubie, yet they lit us up.

We have a sufficient number of experienced players on defense to at least play average defense. See Cam Jackson, Big Dez, Princely, Wingo, Scooby, Marshall etc

 

Nope, we can't look at the grains of sand and figure out what is the lay of the beach. Not talking about world-class beach, but definitely not a beach filled with garbage. There is something amiss, and it isn't the quality of the sand.

 

How tough are practices? Should we bring in Bucholtz so they some competition to train against.

 

Yep, next year's class will go a long way to fix that. We just need to figure out a way to substitute players in and out when our defense gets gassed. That is the tricky part, but with the guys coming in next year that should be easier to address... I hope.

One thing I do know is that unlike the NFL college coaches need to keep players fresh on the defense more often than they do in that league. That is one huge reason why I roll my eyes when we get a position coach that has "extensive" NFL experience.

 

You cannot put all of this on one coach, but If I were a head college football coach I would NEVER EVER hire an NFL experienced coach as a position coach or coordinator on defense especially. I just don't trust that they can see that in the college game you have to substitute more often than you do in the pros/NFL.

Like I said, on defense and on the back end must be rotated often in these types of frenetically paced games.

 

So we played the #1 offense and they lead the country in explosive plays, and we are dogging the defense? Aren't they mainly young too? I'm sure w/o Daniels we would have had a much better chance to win this one. I saw progress. We just have to get consistent, and I feel that will come next year once these youngin's get more experience under their belt. It would be nice to have a bowl game to help with that.

 

Hello te,
I notice that your posts sometimes address the "bigger picture" and I value your opinion.

Perhaps I am coming around to your perspectives a bit more.

I am no football mind but I can review history. When Meyers had his acid reflux issue (or was it a nervous breakdown?)
and departure, UF has been in steady decline ever since, with the occasional upward spike, followed by a continued downward trend.

If I am reading you correctly this is due to a series of poor upper level management decisions by those in charge.

Including AD and coaching hires, infrastructure investment, commitment to recruiting and who knows what else.

I suppose the biggest "TELL" would be Florida (and interestingly Miami and FSU)
becoming hapless and ineffective with in state recruiting.

I suppose this happened due to lack of vision on the realities of recruiting (level of cheating and financial compensation).

How the hell did Bama, Clemson, Ohio State, UGA etc become ascendant in DOMINATING State of Florida 5 star recruiting anyway? The easy answer is money thrown at every angle to build a program, as recognized by the management of those programs.

I am no fan of Strickland and thought it was BEYOND STUPID, at the time, to go fishing for success in a Mississippi mud hole that hasn't won shit since what? 1958??

Sure Chump and Peanut Butter had a few decent classes but they lacked balance and were often position loaded. And BOTH of those guys had terrible offenses.

Yeah, Chump could recruit and coach defense, but with a poor man's Woody Hayes offense.

I will end this Tolstoy novel by saying, it does appear UF is putting money into the program at several levels but I'm with you, Strickland ain't the answer, and the Gators may want to take a hard look at that end.

I don't know if Napier will cut it but I do believe it absolutely critical to keep this class together until signing day.

 

Some have voiced constructive criticism. I have posted what we could do better, that is NOT dogging anyone, but it is instead critiquing what they can do better as coaches and players.

Some post their disdain for our team/players and coaches. That is "dogging," IMHO. There's a huge difference between the two.

 

"Defense struggled". Lol. They gave up more yards than any Gator defense ever. Tommy Frazier can finally stop running and let Daniels take over.

 

Without him. lol

 

We are hopeful changes will come during the offseason.

Last year against FSU we could not contain Travis this year it was Daniels.

Saw more from this team last night than I had pretty much the entire year.

Defense was pathetic....Everyone receiver seems to run free and the QB has as much time as he needs to find an open receiver or run for ridiculous yards.

I still feel it is the talent and experience level at this point.

If we see the same next year this would be cause for alarm.

Tough to say but I see only Vanderbilt as a team in worse shape than we are right now.

Auburn put up 48 on the hogs!!!

 

We have a new coach teaching freshman against all world SEC competition... Give is some time, we have a huge class on the way and we need to let this process unfold.

Sure we could spend all our money on portal players, or we can build a program from the ground up, which takes more time, but will be far more sustainable than playing Portal Kombat every year to keep up with the other SEC giants in our conference.

So, with the #3 recruiting class coming in, we should top talking about drastic changes in the beginning of a great rebuild. Our football program is in the middle of huge upgrades that will take more time than just 2 years. And we are moving in the right direction, IMHO.

So... let's table this discussion until after we sign this 2024 class and see just what our team looks like next year.

Right now is not the time to toss the baby out with the bathwater.

 

I try to keep it simple, at least in this instance. If anyone SHOULD have known what was Mullen's M.O. and ultimate motives (a NFL HC position), it WAS Stricklin. He gets a mulligan. That is ONE, not several. As they say, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Regarding the Ivory Tower, I do not believe that any AD is THE MAN. Too many moving parts and implications for one person. That being said, yes, I think we are content with what we had/have and the "Clemsons and OSUs" have decided to play a different game.

The real question is, and I postulated that in my post-UGa thread, what can and what SHOULD we do in light of this obvious S__tshow we have known as major college football. We are in rare territory in that we are an elite university academically and yet we have remarkable success in sports. Football IS The Blob that can and WILL eat the entire university system if it is allowed. I seriously doubt that the folks in the Ivory Tower are willing to "go there". Maybe that is wishful thinking on my part, but if my experience with UF and what it has stood for all these years, we will likely be "also getting votes" status in the college football playoffs but outside the real NC contention. But if we decide that is a hell we don't want to live in and decide to make a deal with the Devil, I WILL find something better to do with my time than root for a bunch of self-serving mercenaries.

 

the biggest problem I saw last night on Dee was our depth- the game was a track meet and we had zero left in the tank and very little available for back ups that could step in- add in our injuries and what happened last night is what you get from that situation - some on here are in my opinion unable to look at things objectively and seem to think the only way forward is to fire the current coaches- fortunately, that is not going to happen - some of you need to think long and hard before next week's game about how much you drink or smoke - we deleted close to 50 posts by halftime- in the second have we deleted almost 100 posts for negative comments, calling out players or calling for our coaches to be fired, and I am sure we missed some as well. Mizzoo will be a huge favorite next Saturday. We all want UF to pull off the upset but you need to realistic in your posts and not NOT call out players by name negatively, and you may not call for the firing of our coaches. We also edited out the F bomb over 30 times and I am sure we missed some as the thread was fast and furious. It is okay to get angry when we get beat, it is okay to be upset when we get beat - it is not okay to bring it to the game thread. And put down the bottle or the weed- it turns some of you into asshats as the game goes on.

 

smh!





Brian Kelly is only in his 2nd season at LSU, too..

 

Yep, it's almost the perfect storm of high quality QB that we have and will have faced by the end of this year. It's working against out team, a team that is very young and getting more experience playing college ball.

We have to remember that part of our schedule and the quality of teams with outstanding QB this year in particular.. it's an outlier of great QBs that is working against us. But we as a team will be better for it in the long run. We will be better experienced and learn how to better practice with even more talent on our team next year.

So, our bad luck is NOT just becasue we were caught rebuilding with youth and inexperience, it's becasue we are doing it against the best QBs we have faced in a long time. We will get there and we get our own killer QB next yer. So keep your eye on the prize and understand that in a normal year we might not face any of the best QBs in the nation on our schedule. That is an anomaly and not the norm, IMHO.

 

Jayden Daniels made Anthony Richardson look like a chump at QB, Now LSU is QBU. Throwing with touch and running with no one, no one even touching him. I had dreams he was running all over the field in circles laughing and yelling at us to tackle him as he just glided around, through us over and over again. This is what the national media has to deliver to the nation, another year of this ahead, looming, made me have a headache last night. TV networks love the Gators, but even they are getting gun shy airing one of our games. The little cartoon they put on late in the game of our coach was in poor taste and I don’t like it.

 

Like I have been saying, we're facing the perfect storm of the most experienced high draft QBs that I can ever remember. That and the fact that we are a very young rebuilding team makes this year's competition far better than we normally face.

Help is on the way, but we still have two more good/great QBs on our schedule, so don't be mad when we don't make them look average, which these next two QBs are NOT.

It's the perfect storm of ridiculously high quality QBs that we are 10 games into this season. Next year we get #3 class, and Lagway our own ace, and many of our scheduled team wont have their aces.

However you think about our team I feel okay that we had to go thought these growing pains to get our football program on the right track. IT WAS NEVER AN OVERNIGHT one or two year fix, and we haven't even finished year 2 as of yet.

We are still the youngest team in the SEC and we will get better very soon. And we've faced the best QBs that I can remember ever playing against in one season. We will get far better sooner than you think.

 

Save this post and re-post it after next year's football season is in the books, and see if it still holds true.

 

I was at a Gator Gathering in the 80's here in Daytona Beach and Norm Sloan (Former UF Basketball Coach) was speaking. As he got to the podium someone from the crowd yelled out "Who's Number One"? Without missing a beat Sloan said "Duke" who had won the NC that year.

He went to speak about building a team and said "you win cause you have the best players".

Sounds simple but it really stuck with me.

I think about the 84 team and that offensive line that all played in the NFL.
The recruiting class SOS got in 1994 that won the NC in 96.

Muschamp recruited good defensive talent but was brain dead when it came to offense. McElwain and Mullen didn't recruit well. Kept saying if we keep getting mid teen recruiting classes it will catch up to us.
Mullen could coach offense but completely dropped the ball in recruiting and as a result of these last 7-8 years we are WAY behind.

Kirby started recruiting top 5 classes as soon as he got to Georgia and has stockpiled the best talent in the nation.

Bottom line is it is the Jimmie's and Joe's and we don't have them.

Makes me wonder why it seems to be us who is almost always in this funk? Do we have an administration problem. Why do these coaches just give up or am I way overthinking it?

I can't help but think that something is going on at Georgia that allows them to get the talent they are getting and that as a result of our past transgressions we are very careful not to cross lines. I don't know and again I am grasping for answers.

Read somewhere Kirby during a speaking tour called out the alumni for their help in building a team. Wondering what kind of help they gave?

Dis Mullen and McElwain "Give Up" because they saw it was not possible to compete with these other schools who possibly have different rules? Again I am grasping for answers here.

Go Gators!