Fixing Florida

I think you have me wrong in a couple of ways. I am very much looking forward to the coming season and hope we see some of the promise of Napier translate into results. I am also not (yet) of the “we-need-another-coach” mantra. But what I have been clear on is that 2024 is a year of decision, and we need to get away from this idea that it “doesn’t count” and any decision on Napier’s future will have to wait “a couple [deliberately vague] more years.” I’m glad you see some positive trends, and I hope it works out. But the time to see results is this season, not a couple more from now.

 

You seem unable to focus on anything other than how many guaranteed years Napier gets, or what w/l record will get him fired. It’s almost all you’ve talked about for months and is immediately where you try to take every conversation. You choose to live in that head space.

 

Your “direct question” is bullshit slanted to speculate only on failure for our team. It is not worthy of any thought, certainly not an answer.

 

Interesting how many people seem to ‘misunderstand’ you

 

I think we are moving in the right direction, but we are still playing catch-up. What talent Napier has recruited is still too young to be a junior and senior laden team.

 

Now you’re closer to the truth. We measure effectiveness only one way in this game: wins. His record has been below minimum standard for two years. He needs to put up this season (hope he does) or take his bizarre coaching practices somewhere else. I don’t want to be sitting here two years from now debating whether or not Year 5 is the season his wins finally outnumber his losses. It’s ridiculous that it’s come down to debating whether or not a third straight losing season is acceptable so long as Napier means well. It’s dumb. He needs to start winning.

 

I doubt a lady trying to make a name and money from youtube knows what the UF admin thinks or cares about. Napier is an effective recruiter overall. Talent on roster, whether available for this staff or the next staff, is important. Even if the administration had little confidence in Napier's process, progress and ability, they have to give him what other teams have in order to compete and recruit. If they waited until they had a new HC, who wouldn't be on the roster that might have been? And, it's not that we are outspending, we are heading towards equal spending, finally. It's a good thing, but not an indication that the administration is all-in on Napier or financially competent.
Top 20 spenders for recruiting by Power Five college football programs

You repeat "this is about fixing UF". Well, we lost at least two games last season arguably to coaching inadequacies and STs malfunction. Did he hire a STs coordinator? Recruiting, training/development, and how the staff prepares for and manages games are the most important pieces to "fixing" Florida. Questioning uftaipan's loyalty or motives seems unreasonable.

 

Wasn’t Mullen offered more money for recruiting and turned it down?

 

we all get that but if you repeat it like like 5000 more times, I might hear it

 

$500,000 is due to UF owning own planes and UGA having to fly commercially. With the adjustment, the differential between UGA and UF is not as extreme.

 

Understood. There’s nothing more to add to this by either side. Let the Miami game come, and we’ll see.

 

You won't get an answer, just some labels thrown at you.

 

I’ve heard that but doubt it. No one turns down money.

 

Really?
Oh, wins are a big factor. There are ways to measure effectiveness.

1. Recruiting. Napper's first recruiting class in 2022 is an out liar because did not get on the UF Recruiting train until November 28, 2022. His second recruiting class in 2023 had a respect national ranking of 12th. In that class he had 0 five star signees, 18 four start signees, 4 three star signees. In that class he had 12 transfers into UF. Those transfers were all three and four start signees. His third recruiting class for 2024 had a respectable national ranking of 12. In that class he 2 had Five star signees, 15 four star signees, 13 three star signees. In that class he had 11 transfers into UF. Those transfers were all three, four, and five stars signees. Please do not carp about that these classes not generating enough wins because they were not here long enough to become a major factor last season.
2. Integrity and Control Napier has only been at UF for two years. However, during that time he has had few instances of wayward players nor as has he been accused of any improprieties.
3. Getting support from UAA So far so good. Napper recent got a 50% increase in the recruiting budget.
4. Wins and Losses So far not so good. Napper deserves some of the blame but not the majority. Since the beginning of the 2011 season the Gator Football program started a slow but steady down hill run. This run had a revolving door of coaches (poor hires). It is not secret that no one expected Napper to pull off a Charlie Pell like rebuild that took only one season. We are now entering Napper third season (and it is still 5 months away from opening kickoff). This is the season that we should start seeing positive results.
5. Luck This is one item that has to considered when it come to effectiveness. Good capitalize on good luck. In other words take a good break and run with it. On the other hand, when it comes to bad luck, good coaches go into damage control and try to minimize their loses and grind their way out of it. At this time Napper looks like a grinder. More on this item later.

[QU14OTE="uftaipan, post: 16326671, member: 7639"] His record has been below minimum standard for two years.[/QUOTE]

• Whose measuring stick are you using?
• Please tell me what standard are using for a coach to rebuild a team after the prior coach melted it down?
• I suggest that you go back and take a look at records of other successful coaches that took on a total rebuild project. Especially in the era of NIL and the Portal. I suggest that you look up Kerwin Bell (you may of heard of him). He recently completed his third season at Western Carolina. This was a major rebuild job too. This past season (his third) he finished 7-3 and his total record is 17-16. I guess this is below your minimum standards too.
• Is luck in your measuring stick? Did the Gators have some bad luck in 2023? Lets take a quick look back at last season when the Gators lost both Shemar James and Graham Mertz late in that season. The Gators were 5 and 3 after that UGA, where they lost James. Gators. Without James the Gators lost the next four games against four very good offensive teams. Also, the Gators lost 2 games when Mertz got injured. If the Gators had not lost both players, it is possible that they could of eked two or may four wins. That would of turn the a 5-7 season into an 8-4 season.

I suggest that you need to dump the butt hurt that you are hanging onto.
It is clouding your mind to where you are more about bitching and not about dealing with the facts.
To see those facts, you need to do some internet search and look at more of the data from 2022 and 2023 instead of nursing you butt hurt feeling.
Stop looking at 6-7 and 5-7 and look at what really happened in those games that created those records. Yes there is a lot of disappointment there. However there is a lot of good there, and also Luck (both good and bad).

I do agree with you on one thing. Napper needs to get better results this season
What you are not seeing is that he has done a great job in recruiting.
This season will tell if he has done a great job in building a coaching staff and addressing his mistakes of the past two season.

 

I think you are confusing the concept of measuring effectiveness (doing the right things) with measuring performance (doing things right). There are lots of measures of performance in football, some you mentioned, others such as rushing yards, time of possession, etc. There is only one measure of effectiveness, and that is wins. Everything else you and I mentioned only serves to win games and means nothing if you don’t win games. Not that we shouldn’t worry about those things, but ultimately it comes down to wins. That was my meaning.

At any rate, I think we are beating a dead horse now. Let’s see how the first couple of games go next season, then we’ll revisit. Go Gators!

 

Golden and Calipari just got first round exits but they feel very different. Why is that? Is there something there other than just the losses. Winning is the goal but there some objectivity involved in progress. There’s no finite decision numbers.

 

No dispute that not all wins and losses are created equal. But I’ll leave it at that, so we don’t rehash old ground again.