Fixing Florida

Apologies... I don't recall you being negative about Golden, either. Perhaps, I misread what you were saying about the basketball program. I think they can make a deep run to the Sweet 16 or more, but we do have the tendency to lose some close games that we led most of the game. Costly turnovers in crunch time lost us at least 2-3 games. The crazy thing is the guys who do that also hit clutch shots to ice games. Regardless, I love this team. Great bunch of guys.

 

He could/should have demaded it when he first got here like SOS did to replace Doug's Rug with grass. We could have had the indoor practive facility in no time if he really pushed for it. He failed us again.

 

I don't think Dan had anywhere near the gravitas Spurrier had. Comparisons to SOS is unfair to anyone else.

 

First- don't get me wrong. I called his mistakes unforgivable in a football sense earlier. (Grantham mainly.)
They are and were. "Unforgivable" is a big word to me, so don't let the next part confuse anything.

There's always 2 sides of every story. There's also a lot more going on than anyone knows.
If you or I knew all the details we might cut him some slack and have some sympathy. Or maybe not.

 

Please note that the last 2 seasons were 14-11. Those last two years were like a bad soap opera.

 

Perhaps one of the stories was mine, Mullen did something for me and a group of Gator fans one night while he was HC at Mississippi State that makes me believe that he is a good guy AND that at one point he really wanted the UF job. I think somewhere along the way something soured him on the university and he checked out, just as something soured Urban on UF. I think these relationships are complex and fraught with egos, money and the desire to preserve reputations. Rumors, gossip and confidentiality clauses often make it hard to determine who shares the blame and to what extent.

 

With Mike White, it is how we lost games that was the issue. Kind of similar to Napier, he would take his foot off the gas and try to run clock instead of going for the throat. He would coach not to lose, and we would lose.

That loss to Oral Roberts was the last straw for me. We couldn’t have dreamed of a better shot at going deep in the tournament, and he went conservative way too early, which gave up the momentum that we never got back.

 

I have heard this many times but as a basketball player, I disagree. I have lost games because my low I.Q. teammates thought that we need to keep pushing the ball instead of bleeding the other team out. Then we turn it over or miss shots and let them back in the game. Sometimes you need to just try and survive because you lost the momentum. It’s just so hard to say what would have happened, and IMO, people harp on the Oral Robert’s game like it was the end all, be all. It was a tough loss, but credit OU for the win.

 

I have a strong distaste for Dan Mullen. It started with his last year as our head coach and the way he left after he was terminated was cowardly (compare Zook’s departure).
I’m not putting him in a class of human being like Jimbo Fisher, Hugh Freeze or Bobby Petrino, he is obviously a cut above. But he showed who he was when he turned his back on his team after being terminated. He was still being paid and paid well. i also had a hard time dealing with his arrogance although I agree with what one poster mentioned as even SOS was perceived as arrogant when he was coaching. There’s a difference though between arrogance and Spurrier’s openness.
Even though the UF has been a cash cow for Mullen he obviously dislikes us and doesn’t have the integrity to suck up and admit much of the problem CBN inherited was due to his own doing: or undoing.

 

When you lose the momentum because you started playing “stall ball”, that is on the coach. If I remember right, we had just scored on a fast break. After that, the offense wouldn’t be initiated until less than 10 seconds were left on the shot clock. When the players wait until 10 seconds left in the shot clock to initiate offense, that is the coach slowing it down. This wasn’t the first time White would take the air out of the ball too soon with a lead.

Once the momentum had shifted, it was too late to try to restart the offense.

 

How do they compare with the following two seasons?

 

You may recall that before he signed up as head coach, his wife Megan was quoted as saying she would go to Publix in north Orlando rather than Gainesville so that she would not have to hear the sneers about her husband or be recognized. I felt even then he was not coming here to become a lifelong Gator. His former boss, Urban Meyer, is still not inducted into the Ring of Honor, even though the criteria for a coach is winning a national championship. Urban won TWO MNCs, yet the Powers That Be have yet to include him. There was bad blood.

But it begs the question. Why hasn't Meyer been inducted? Hasn't he clearly met the criteria?

 

Many people say this, but it's not always true, and even if it is true, it's not always bad to run clock. It only bothered many of you because we lost. Many, many games are won each season by bleeding the clock.

 

That is not a bad or an unreasonable question. But the one I want answered is WTH happens in the upcoming two seasons. For everyone's sake, I really hope it's not more of the same.

 

Honor

 

There has to be some sort of lingering stink there. Not putting him into the circle of honor, which he introduced if I recall, with TWO NCs is either a pointed statement or a colossal oversight. I suspect it's the former and not the latter.

 

If you recall, so did SOS.

 

This just about sums it up. The question is whether Napier has the right stuff to either dig Florida out of the hole or set up the next guy to finish that task. Mullen had a great winning record until this new era of football seemingly made him quit. Mullen is a better Xs and Os coach than Napier, but Napier seems to have the better “CEO mentality” required for modern college football. Florida’s administration and boosters are better aligned to Napier than they were to Mullen…for now. Even then, is that enough? The missing piece is not just NIL donations from middle-class fans and rich boosters, but also a stronger presence from more recent Gator alumni in the NFL. Those recognizable alumni are the ones who played for Dan Mullen and Jim McElwain, and few of them seem to be proud of their time at Florida.