How critical is the Miami game?

I'm not sure, but, yes, I believe it means he is here at least one more year and likely two. With the turnover we have had that makes us look like what Tennessee has for the past 2 decades, we cannot afford to dissuade good coach candidates by only giving every head coach 3 years and out on their rear. I think we have to give him the 2nd year of his qb starting unless he shows himself incapable of winning records with a normal schedule or loses the locker room or loses his recruiting touch.

 

Well, it’s been argued on here ad naseum, and I don’t want to be Tennessee either, but they were right to fire their coaches when they did, if not earlier (Lyle Jones got a year he probably shouldn’t have). I’m not any kind of decision maker on this, but a third losing season, particularly if we look as dysfunctional as we did the last two seasons, probably would mean we need to cut bait and move on. And everyone out there would understand perfectly. So I say again let’s hope it does not come to that.

 

Hilarious. You really can’t help yourself can you?

 

I get that we’ve had 3 straight losing seasons, but the lack of faith here is over the top. Losing is not an option, period.

Ask our players and coaches what they think. Mertz was asked this and he said as a competitor, you go into the game with the mindset of winning. I get the detractors will say he’s not won anything of significance, but so hasn’t 95% of the players out there.

You play to win the game. Let’s not lose it before we even start.

 

I was respectfully responding to another poster’s thoughts on the matter. Is that okay with you, or should I send you a PM first to get your permission?

 

Hey knock yourself out pal. I don’t know why you think you would need my permission but please don’t PM me. Earlier I predicted this thread would be a magnet for the same old negativity you’ve been hammering away with for the past 10 months — you didn’t let me down.

Again, please don’t PM me

 

It’s obvious we have some on here who just cannot come across as anything besides what they are. Sucks to be them.

Go Gators

 

I'm not sure I agree with that in that I've seen enough college message boards to conclude that pretty much any SEC team not named Vandy, Miss St, or KY would have a large component of posters that lacked faith in their team/staff if their situations were similar. Similarly I definitely understand the lack of faith. We've seen some good signs and some bad signs for this administration, but what we haven't seen is any REAL on-field proof that the Gators are improving *yet*.

Lastly, I find it somewhat amusing that some here feel that faith or lack of among posters on this board amount to more than a hill of beans regarding the success of the team on the field.

 

I guess by Tennessee I didn't mean needing to fire, I meant the limited head coaching options they had. All of them never should have been considered as an option for such a big programs, even Heupel. Napier and Mullen, and at the time Muschamp looked like better hires than any of the bums after Fulmer looked at the time.

 

Dooley and Lyle were successful coaches at a lower level similar to Napier. Heupel and Kiffin had some modicum of success similar to perhaps Mullen and McElwain at a higher level. For some reason they hired a career coordinator in Pruitt similar to Muschamp. I see a pretty similar trajectory with them except for at this juncture Heupel has done slightly better than Napier.

 

You nailed it... Ron Roberts is the key... and a close second is the talented portal influx we acquired this off season.

Depth and coaching on defense killed us last year, and Napier has addressed that this off season.

 

We need to give him a very special welcome to The Swamp.

 

I hope you are right. This time last year we thought we had acquired a couple of stud OLinemen, Safety, DLinemen, and LB's and it turned out that only 1 Dlineman was an impact player. We also thought we had hired a D-coordinator that would turn the ship around. We'll just have to wait and see how they do against our competition and see if they are as studly as we hope they are.

 

To be clear, I am only referring to the last two losing seasons. Agree with it or not, the coaching staff in place was held accountable for 2021. When I discussed a “third losing season,” I was referring strictly to the undesired hypothetical for 2024. Bringing it back to the point of this thread, I believe our best chances for a winning season are nested within beating Miami decisively here in a few weeks.

 

The DC was being undermined by the older clowns (position coaches on defense) that are no longer part of the team. And... we got the DC's "daddy," Ron, to help us on defense this year.

 

I hope that is right. The only reason that I hesitant to jump in with both feet on Roberts is that I've seen a full career's worth of "blame the last guy that left" for all the problems that have suddenly been discovered (and I'm not talking football, either).

 

Well, that phrase is overused, but we did have an obviously dysfunctional group of coaches on the defense side of the ball in particular. One of the worst coached defenses I can remember coaching the Orange and Blue.

There is NO statistical way these new coaches can be worse than those that left. Lol. I see how they have coached so far, and they are far better than that last group. It's not even a stretch to say our defense will be FAR better than last year's defense.

 

I certainly agree with this sentence. Although it doesn't guarantee a winning or losing season, it would be a win for Napier and the team against a hated rival and kick the season off in a positive way.

My only worry about the team if we beat UM is that we have a team full of youngun's that might let it go to their head. That could potentially spell playing a ragged game against Samford, and perhaps laying an egg against TA&M, State, or UCF. Hopefully we have enough Srs. and leaders this time around to keep the young players focused and working to improve to avoid a repeat of the 2022 season.

 

Please don't jinx us in this manner!!! I said a similar thing prior to the 2022 and 2023 seasons: specifically, "how can they possibly be worse." Unfortunately, I found out.

 

Get over your misplaced fears. Trust your own eyes.