If you were to ask Florida fans, many would say that the Florida Gators haven't been relevant in football since 2009. https://si.com/college/auburn/footb...02a2a409800026fe&pid=14-vanderbilt-commodores Here's a Sports Illustrated Ranking from 2022 for every SEC football program since 2012 (the Muschamp era for Florida). The rankings were as follows: 1. Alabama 2. Georgia 3. LSU 4. Florida 5. Auburn 6. Texas A&M 7. Mississippi State 8. Ole Miss 9. Missouri 10. South Carolina 11. Tennessee 12. Kentucky 13. Arkansas 14. Vanderbilt I think as Florida fans, we need to manage expectations for what we have and what we're willing to spend. We want to compete with Alabama and Georgia, but we just don't have the same degree of support as those programs right now. And LSU has more built-in advantages in modern college football. This isn't the 80s and 90s anymore. I think Florida can have a reasonable expectation of being something like Auburn. High ceiling, low floor. High highs, and low lows. I think we should want the floor to be raised. I almost hate losing seasons more than I like winning seasons. But based on this SI list, and my assessment of the current program, it's not like Florida dramatically underperformed based on their resources and their competition. In the aggregate, from 2012 to 2022, they were about what we should expect them to be. It's not like this list is an exact science, but if we're around 4th overall in the conference over time, and we're ahead of Texas A&M and Auburn. That's about where we can expect to be over time hopefully with some great years sprinkled in. Please note that this doesn't suggest that we made the wrong call in firing any coach that we fired in that time frame. All of them had an indication that the wheels were falling off which prompted necessary action or even worse results moving forward.
Here is a dose of predictive reality.. .The new-look SEC: A prediction on how the 2024 season might play out The Athletics prediction for the Gators is 5-7...thats the ceiling. Given the schedule and stance the program is in heading into the 2024 season. I'd take a 5-7 season and thats pathetic!
That would be 4 losing seasons in a row. If that’s the expectation we might as well get Lagway lots of playing time since we won’t have him very long. Maybe then by 25 we can make a run at it. by it I mean a winning season.
He needs to be Tebow 2.0 in the beginning. Few true freshmen are prepared to be The Man in the SEC. And I would say that any who look really good are mainly not screwing up a great team. He will not have that luxury. But when you get to the 7th game and we are 2-4, yep. Start him because...Napier has no choice other than to be canned.
Whoever wrote that should never be allowed to write about College Football again. Even for free. He picked LSU to go undefeated. Yes, that LSU who had a Defense that was practically the only one in the country worse than ours. The same LSU which lost their #1 offensive playmaker, the Heisman trophy winner to graduation. I would be willing to wager that its about 1000x more likely that USCw torches them in Game 1 than they go undefeated!
If basketball is any indication, we are spending bottom of the SEC dollars and expecting top of the SEC results. Florida Gators basketball ranked 12th out of 13 SEC teams in spending
That’s no surprise, Scott made a very green low budget hire. That’s not the case in football though, they’re spending $$$$, just not getting much for it, yet.
We may be spending more in football relatively, but I think we are middle of the road in the SEC in spending and expecting top of the SEC results still. UGA, Bama, Texas, TAMU, LSU, Auburn…and maybe even Ole Miss are outspending us in football right now.
Yeah, no. Napier’s performance to date has not earned that kind of grace. If it comes to that, the discussion needs to be about what kinds of skullduggery are necessary to get us out of this ridiculous, unearned buyout. But, hey, I’m still willing to believe that Napier can take the necessary steps this offseason necessary to win. Things like hiring a signal caller for the booth, a special teams coach who can get 11 players (and only 11 players) on the field, and someone to smack him upside the head next time it’s 4th down in our territory in the 2nd Quarters and he says, “Let’s go for it!”
We spend a lot more on football than basketball, but still not “top of the SEC level.” Not saying we should, not mad at the boosters. I’m not a booster. But it is what it is.
Not a bad call, tbh. If you want to be an “everything school,” it’s much easier to build from the football program out than to build from the basketball program out. Football actually has significant earning potential to pay for itself and fund the other sports. Basketball doesn’t.
This post should fine it's way to NBN when folks start whining about the former and current hoops coaches. It could get nasty there in a few weeks.
