Talent alone doesn't explain Florida Football's struggles over the past decade

Yes.

 

Were those losses due to bad recruitment or bad coaching?

 

Both Spurrier and Urban inherited winning record programs. Georgia was nothing, neither was Tennessee, neither was Ole Miss, neither was Kentucy. We did not have TAMU and schools like Oregon, Washington, and Clemson weren’t pilfering talent out of Florida like they and so many other teams are now.

 

Pretty much but Tennessee was really good in the 90’s

 

Spot on. Ole Miss was #3 in win totals. Auburn was 3rd from bottom.

But Ole Miss was as close to Auburn as they were to #2.

LSU was #4. It seems like we're way behind. But we're actually 1.25 wins per year behind.

Point is: after Bama, the gap seems bigger than it is when you just list them. We seem way far back. But we're way far back from #2.

 

That’s exactly the point I think of when I’m thinking of six and six or nine and three. There really isn’t that much difference in the SEC because all those teams are shoulder to shoulder. Getting in the top three I would say with Texas Georgia and Alabama there is a vast Difference of the programs. Getting to be as good as Ole Miss or LSU not that much improvement. It looks better on paper for sure and as much more enjoyable on game day, but Ole Miss found out they were not even close to the level of Georgia last year.

 

Kentucky has passed us in terms of head to head. We now lose many of the close games. We can’t get off the field on 3rd down. We trade 7 points for 3, as red zone offense has been suspect. Offense does not blow out teams. Not a lot of explosive plays and quick TDs. Time consuming drives for most part. Hired coaches without a lot of Florida connectivity on staffs. Fired coaches quickly without time to develop connections with kids and families from 9th to 10th grade forward. Lot of reasons why. Some poor hires. Some talent evaluation or recruiting challenges. Some poor coaching decisions. Lot of bad recruiters on staffs. Some bad luck with starting QB failing steroid tests. Some falling behind on facilities. Lagway is the first QB in the Tebow and Leak HS can’t miss QB class of players. SEC has gotten tougher as a league but we are in the Missouri, South Carolina level now. Not a Bama, UGA or LSU program. Ole Miss and others have clearly passed us by.

 

Not against us.

 

That was the best stretch in gator history, and not many teams were good against us

 

Kentucky may of moved ahead of the Gator program, however, I am sure that the Gators are a large object in their rear view mirror.

I aree with your points. However, these are the results of a program that was in Four Alarm Dumpster fire. Having to fire three head coaches in ten years supplied a lot of fuel for that fire.

I agree with you on most of the above paragraph. I do differ with you on the firing of coaches to quickly.

The three previous hires (before Napier) did not do well enough to be retained. They all had faults that gave the UAA more than enough reason to not retain them. Basically, their actions and the results of their last seasons gave the UAA just reason to show them the door. Sticking with them would of made the factors/results you listed much worse.

In my opinion it is way too easy to totally blame the results of the past ten years on the current coach and the previous three coaches. Some of that blame needs to be put on the UAA for making those hires. I can understand one or two bad hires. But not all three hires. At this time, they have an 0 and 3 records in hires. Let us all hope that Napier will prove out to be a good hire.

I agree with you that UF does have some good talent now. I also agree with you that as this season begins, the Gators are at the bottom looking up. The Gators have a murderous schedule this year. Hopefully this year, Napier and the Gators will start their climb back to the top of the SEC.

 

Shout out to theCAW

 

Wait, wait, wait. That's not exactly a fair assessment. Meyer won using Zook's recruits not because of the quality of Zook's recruits but because of how he changed his offensive scheme around them. He won 9 games without his offense in place. It's like Bear Bryant inheriting a spread option offense and getting 9 wins by using the spread, not his preferred wishbone. Same with Saban. Rare is it that a new regime comes in wins the national championship on the 1st try.

 

I don't agree with that. Meyer won because he knew how to motivate and was meticulously detailed at every level. If he left the offense alone he would have beaten lsu easily that year and likely south caroina as well. He forced a square peg in a round hole with leak as well as our offensive line with his new scheme. Now if he hadn't sacrificed 2005 he may not have landed Percy or Tebow and then who knows what would have happened but he won in 2005 with zooks talent in spite of the offense he brought. He won 9 games with an anemic offense in 2005 before his offense became a strength.

 

He was actually so frustrated by the OL's difficulty mastering his new blocking schemes after the LSU loss that he switched the offense in the off-week before Georgia back to one that had a FB (Latsko). I don't think UGa has figured it out yet.

 

I will check but I recall something like forcing 4 turnovers for lsu yet we still couldn't put up enough points to win.

 

Sounds right....I don't think I've seen many coaches look so clearly exasperated in the post-game presser than Urbs after that game. They gave us every chance to win that game and we wouldn't take it.

 

The only game we lost handily was to Alabama that year and while our defense couldn't cover prothro, we might have made a game out of it if our offense could have settled in which of course it couldn't. Mmmmmaybe the prior years offense makes that a game

 

Yes.

Recruiting and hiring competent recruiters is a function of coaching if you're the leader.