WHAT Will/Needs TO HAPPEN IN YEAR THREE!

Agreed. Knowledgeable Gator fans saw trouble potentially brewing when that studly 2012 D moved on to greener pastures. And they were proved right when trouble with a capital T showed up at the door in 2013.

 

It's a dishonest argument to use 2006 2009 and 2012 to say gators only want offense. Gators want to see improvement. Meyer himself wasn't satisfied with the offe se in 2006. It was pedestrian much of the year and still somewhat disjunct at times. We used a vaunted defense and the occasional injection of Tebow to get through some tough times. 2009 struggled in the red zone and we thought things would eventually click to get us over the hump. It was a great offense picking up yards but struggled to put up points. 2012 was unsustainable. Personally, I think that team doesn't get enough credit offensive warts and all. That defense would have had us playing with anyone in the country but offensive ranking in the 100s isn't typically winning football and its certainly not balanced football.

In every one of those seasons Gator fans were critical because they knew the dam would break without improvement and jelling down the road. 2006 the offense seemed to click against fsu and on. In 2009 the Cincinnati game was an offensive explosion. 2012 it never happened.

 

Actually, Urban's last offense was ranked 82d in the nation. Why? Because Cam Newton got booted off. He fit Meyer's offense to a T. Poor John Brantley didn't. And I remember the rationales. "John is like Leak with better tools." John was a solid Gator, but he wasn't Chris Leak.

 

Dishonest?

2009 National Rankings:

Total Offense: 6th
Passing Offense: 41st
Passing Efficiency: 1st
Rushing Offense: 10th
Scoring Offense: 10th

In 2008, the strength of our team was still the defense.

As for 2006, Florida played eight defenses ranked in the top 30, to include:

LSU: 3d
Georgia: 8th
Ohio State: 12th
FSU: 18th
Auburn: 19th
Alabama: 23d
Arkansas: 26th
Southern Miss: 30th

Granted, it wasn't as explosive as the 2008 team with Percy, Tim, and AHern, among others, but they had some stiff competition.

I agree, but frankly, our fans were spoiled by high passing offenses, and after going 11-1 in the regular season, there wasn't much whining in 2012, except by those who wanted 500 yards/game. You're right, we all wanted a balanced team, but most fans will forever think we are an offense first program, when in fact, we have always been a defense-dominant team -- that is, until recently.

 

2 entirely separate circumstances between the 0's and 12. Our D last year was better than that 2012 O, yet unsurprisingly, I haven't seen a single rational thought saying our D doesn't need to be fixed. We just didn't have an elite (there is that word again) unit on the other side propping up last years D to a winning record.

 

I can't disagree with most of that. 2006 played a daunting schedule and Meyer's conservative ball control nature at that time was critical to our success but it was still a work in progress and Meyer himself was frustrated trying to make Leak a spread option QB. It was a masterful coaching job that needed every bit of the defense and special teams to assist the offense.

The 2009 stats don't refute anything I said. We moved the ball and put up tons of yards. We struggled to finish drives and we put up gaudy points against the patsies on the schedule and struggled to score relative to the offense production against the meat of the schedule. Fans realized something was off.

That's all. It's not wrong to say we are accustomed and like our offense but we have experienced both extremes this past decade. Great defense with awful offense and vice versa. I don't think anyone was or should be happy with either. It's not too much to ask the other side of the ball to at least be mid when the other side is carrying so much weight.

All I'm saying is there is nuance to each of those particular situations. Gator fans are a bit spoiled at times though and I do remember complaints even during spurriers heyday about our inability to run when we needed to at times.

Also, dishonest probably wasn't the best descriptive. My fault

 

That was a good defense but we were fortunate to say the least in several games that year. The offense was awful. They played hard but it was so predictable.

 

I know during Spurrier day, I’ve sat there yelling at the tv for Spurt to run the damn ball. Two games in particular. Auburn when we had a big lead and kept throwing interceptions and a couple of Tennessee games that may have had more to do with our inability to stop the run. It does seem like Taylor got the carries the next year against Tennessee and we won though.
The Tennessee games seemed to always come down to running the ball but I think that’s more to do with winning tough games.

 

They beat us in '98 up in K'ville and had a total of 7 first downs. Unfortunately they scored on a couple of really long plays (1 pass to down inside the 10, 1 long run). That loss in OT was more about the errors we made that kept them in the game and gave them a chance to win it by having a FG kick contest at the end.