You are correct, some wins were earned, and by SC, the offense was playing very well! Missouri should have been a win, and our defense gave the tigers a gift! BTW, I associate ranting with anger, so I will not concede on that point! I use exclamation marks as a point of emphasis, but, with me, it doesn't mean I'm on a tirade! Now, according to another poster, if I construct a few more sentences with exclamation marks I am ranting! Maybe there's an English teacher on her who can resolve this issue?!!! I deliberately used exclamation marks in every sentence, so does this post also constitute as a rant?
For UF to get "on track" the Gators simply must create more turnovers. Your right Rick, UF may have set a record for creating the fewest turnovers, at least in the secondary, that I can ever remember. What did the Gators have? Three picks or something crazy like that? UF used to get three a game! Man I want to see our DB's going "Old School Gator" and taking pick six's to the House! I think this is a statistic that is overlooked. Just a few more turnovers probably equates to another couple of wins last year. Compared to the last two years, suddenly, UF seems to have a young but STACKED secondary, with some good experience sprinkled in. If the injury bug soes not hit this could be one of the better defensive units on the team. It needs to be, the secondary has been a sieve the last few years. Of course they need help from the defensive line, 8 second QB drops make it "tough" to cover! Hoping that unit is vastly improved as well. So Rick - when are you going to spill the story on what went wrong with Corey Raymond? He came in with such a high profile, just a shock that his position group was unable to deliver and he was summarily dismissed. More to this story I think. Moving on: If you clearly believe that "we were lucky to win any games in 2023", then I suggest that you google the results of the 2023 seas The Gator Offense was scoreless for only 9 quarters out of 48 quarters. That they scored more than 20 points 8 times. In the 5 of the 7 loses, they were in still in game, late in the 4th quarter. For me this is further statistical evidence, much like in 22, that Napiers system is "close". Yes UF has experienced a few glaring losses - Arkansas was a particularily bitter pill considering we "made" the winning FG only to have a penalty and lose the game on the re-kick. The fan base is quick to point out the flaws. Of course. But there are some good things too. I really like the complexity of the presnap motion that Billy runs. When the offense ran it, without penalty, it was impressive to watch. I happen to align with Shane Matthews, UF's repair job was far more urgent on defense than offense. Nor did I support a new offensive coordinator. UF is emerging, on the national stage, at least with pundits, from the dark place we were in at the end of 23. For those that monitor the services: 24/7, On3, and many pundits, I see some "backtracking" on the hatin on the Gators. They are looking at Mertz, the talent aquisition, the "culture" and interestingly many are getting off the Gator bashing train. Some are even suggesting CBN may be close to turning the ship in the right direction. I am firmly in the camp of "get on board" or "get off the train" because I thnk that UF is now positioned for steady improvement in every area, including wins and losses. This thing is starting to look to me a bit like what Clemson did with Dabo. It took a few years but if Dabo never wins anything else he took em to 4 title games and won 2. I will take that Gator fans, wouldn't you? My friends, if Billy can start dominating in state recruiting, and he is making in-roads, UF is going to be kicking ass again on the regular!~
All good stuff, Gatorhead... as usual. But I got nothing on Cory Raymond. He seemed to just burnout at the wrong time. Maybe he missed Cajun cuisine or something... Lol. As for our anemic INTs coming from our defense... That is one strange anomaly that I just can't figure out. Maybe we were playing off the receivers way too far. Maybe we need to play more man-press? Either way we are too far off the receivers and we're giving up way too many pass plays for too many yards. If I can describe it I would call it playing scared on the back end of the defense...passive, non-aggressive defense. When you play passive defense you get burned and leave your defense in a place that makes it hard to make an INT. But to blame the back end alone would be shirt-sighted. I remember when we'd put so much pressure of opposing offensive lines and QB that we'd just wait for them to make mistakes that led to INTs. So it all starts up front. Our front D-line has to force quick arrant mistakes by opposing QBs by powering to the QB. A lack of aggressiveness by our front line affords opposing QB all day long to pick apart our back-end of the defense. The defense has to be balanced and right now our big-nasties aren't nasty enough to effectively force QB mistakes. As a matter of fact, we have been far too passive up front, and it's not only a personnel problem but a schematic problem. We need effective bull-rushing D-lineman in our front end of our D-line. When we finally realize how important pushing sleds are we might get to a point that we can effect movement on opposing O-lines. Squats in the off season and pushing sleds during football season is the ticket. But we also cannot line-up our DBs 10 yards of the LOS on 3rd and short either. The defense needs to work as a team coordinating the front-end of the defense end with the back-end of the defense, and that has not been happening lately. Watching our defense in some cases has been like watching street-ball where everyone just plays where they want to play, with no coordination nor organizational scheme, this I noticed on some plays. That has to get ironed out in practice. I do think we have the talent, but we have to work as a team, and that comes from coaching. I feel much better about our coaching staff talent, overall, and I feel like together with the group of players they can be successful on defense this season. It's a difficult season, but the best way to prove you belong on top is the beat the best. That's what it takes to be the best.
Wow! I couldn't beliere it, but it was true. We tied with Temple for last in the nation, finished 129th in passes intercepted. You are so right about that. Many would say that Arkansas never should be in the game, having lost six straight games prior to our game, and got blown out by 6-7 Auburn at home. OTOH, five of those six losses were by single digits. Agree completely. Dabo's first year was 9-5. He stumbled to 6-7 his second year, but then ripped off 12 straight 10+ win seasons until last year when he finished 9-4. That said, if Dabo started having three or more straight losing seasons, his seat would be on fire. Gratitude is not a reason for keeping a head coach forever. One can only fire coordinators so often until the head coach gets the axe From your lips to God's ears. By 24/7's numbers, we've been better than FSU but lagging behind Miami, plus we're about with Miami in the Portal, behind FSU. As for keeping the top talent in-state, these are the number of Sunshine State five stars we've kept: 2024: 1-7 2023: 0-8 2022: 0-5 To put it in perspective, Colorado got two from our state, and Texas A&M got three. We have to make inroads to our high schools. Of course, the greatest recruiting coordinator is winning. Georgia got eight 5-stars out of our state the last three years. It's not because Smart and Company are genius recruiters.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply! You are correct that Missouri should have been a win. I feel the same way bout the LSU and the Arky games. Points to ponder: A lot of the unforced errors/blunders that you cited were do to the massive turn over of the Gator rooster that occurred in the last two years of the Mullen era and the first year of the Napier era. A good portion of that turn over was due to the restrictions the State of Florida placed on how the State schools could use the portal. That issue was resolved with the 2023 Florida legislation. When you have turn over like that, for year after year, you are going going to loose continuity with the team. When that happens, you are going to see what we all saw for the past three seasons. The UGA game was not just a lost on season record. It was also the lost of Shemar James for the rest of the season. The Gator Defense was not the same after he went down. Another big lose was Mertz going down with a broken collar bone in the Missouri game. In the FSU game you have to give the Freshman QB Max Brown an A+ for the way he stepped up. If Mertz had not gone down, the Gators may of won the FSU game. Have a good weekend!
The answer for a much better season includes all the TP guys on defense, but I'm huge on the offense too, with the addition of Dike and Badger too. The WR unit, I thought, before the addition of Badger, might be the weak link on offense. OMG, with Wilson, Dike, and Badger on the field at the same time, opposing defenses can not just focus on shutting Trey down at WR. And I don't mean to take anything away from other receiver's on the Gators roster. Do I really even need to say that the three receiver's, mentioned above, will make the other receiver's perform and shine better on the field as well. No doubt GN is aware of prognosticators saying, prior to Badger's commitment, that the addition of Badger could increase the Gators win total by two wins. By adding Badger, I am REALLY PUMPED!!! Imagine how Graham Mertz is feeling? He has an arsenal of weapons to distribute the ball, and I will be shocked if he doesn't easily surpass his yardage of 2900 yards in 2023!
Yes, absolutely agree with you. At times, it so embarrassing to watch! We have two ST coordinators, and it's time for this stupid sheet to end!!! Another issue that is incomprehensible, is the offense runs out of clock time, and a timeout gets wasted or delay of game is called; neither should happen! Additionally, and I saw this with Grantham too, some defensive players are unsure of the defensive set. This didn't happen as much in 2023, but why should it happen at all? Maybe all teams have players who look lost on a play, and I am paying more attention to the Gator defense. Anyone else notice this problem on the Gator defense? Perhaps 2023 was more about the youth of our defense?
You have to take some of that Miami success with a grain of salt. They had many highly, highly rated recruits from their first 2 classes under Mario transferring out to places like Massachusetts and McNeese state. Ladson, Citizen, Wayne, Skinner, Young, Kelly, Brown, Parrish, and Moss are gone, hollowing out those classes that were also full of 3 stars. Only a couple of those are going to respectable places. These classes were chasing the star numbers but not the talent identification. Our top guys otoh are staying put and looking like they will make a difference.
I agree with your post in general. To answer your questions. Yes, at the least most of us saw the problem. 2023 was more about a lot of new moving parts on this defense. We had a new Defensive Coordinator, a lot of first year Gators: 6 incoming portal players, 18 true Freshmen, and 7 Redshirt Freshmen, and 7 Sophomores. This is a total of 38 defensive players who had zero to 2 years of experience at UF.
I was an IT geek in my working years. Software design, construction, data analyst, and project/application lead.
Yeah, I regret saying that and NorthGaGator took me to the woodshed (and rightly so!) Frankly, I don't know WTF I was thinking! BTW, great stuff!
This article makes the point I was making but says it even better than I did! I heard, before his commitment that Badger passed his physical with UF. I also heard a rumor awhile back that he didn't pass his physical with Washington (probably inaccurate). Anyway, Badger and Wilson on the field together should be fun to watch! Elijhah Badger is going to be just what Florida football's offense needs
Do not be too hard on yourself! I still have a few moments every now and then; where I hear my father yelling at me, "What the F were you thinking?" Then he would say, "Neither mind, you were not thinking". In retrospect, that lovable SOB was right!
In certain Gator games, I have yelled the same thing at my TV. BTW, you just reminded me of that post I screwed up. I was quite distracted by something at the time, and I was not doing my best thinking. Anyway, thanks for your kind words. I'm retired in Western NC. Whereabouts in N GA are you?
