1. DJ Lagway wasn’t gonna play Saturday; Napier had no plans to play him at all. Only reason why he played was because of Mertz injury. Nothing scripted like we ALLLLL assumed would be the case. The perfect time to bring him in was right after the James int. Mojo would have been through the ROOF. 2. Year 3 and here’s a question that’s not being asked enough….what is our team identity when we take the field? What are we suppose to be “known” for? Like I literally don’t know what to watch for and to expect AT THE VERY LEAST when we play 3. While Napier is not the guy for the job….how many guys on the staff was/are highly sought after? Who’s the ace recruiter? The ace developer? The guy we have to keep other colleges away from yearly from getting plucked? The guy that we know it’s just a matter of time before he’s an HC/OC/DC somewhere else? Under Meyer we knew Charlie Strong and Mullen were HC’s in waiting. Under Muschamp same with Durkin and Quinn. 4. Why does it seem like we are constantly rotating guys in and out defensively? I love a certain 5th year LB and what he’s shown as far as being a great team guy/leader/etc but he does not need to ever be in over Pup Howard who I thought played solid. I think we also need to accept that our our most two tenured DE’s are JAG’s (just a guy) and that Searcy and James (who i think both had solid games all things considering) and McCray should see the snaps at the DE spots. Our DT’s got shoved and/or neutralized and the only one who popped off my screen was true freshmen Michai Boireau 5. It’s Napier and not the talent. We’ve had staff shakeups at every position (except RB I believe) since he’s been here and we look just like the team that barely beat USF in 2022. There has been NO player development. Has anyone looked NOTICEABLY better?? 6. here’s the hamster wheel situation….Napier doesn’t wanna give up play calling but we need Lagway to play and play good/great but then if/when that happens it’ll give Napier even more reason to STAY as the OC. Lagway may carry the offense like AR (as inconsistent as he was in 2022) and Billy will feel vindicated in remaining the OC
Year 3 and our best case is having a true freshman QB bail us out of a team wide catastrophe...great job Billy!
Number four, you said you watch on your screen. You should’ve been there at the game and watched Desmond and Cam. It looked like their feet were glued to the freaking ground.
I'm neither disturbed nor surprised. It's been obvious for two years that BN is an uninspiring BS-artist: "process, evaluate, culture, love-that-guy, package of plays, etc-etc, blah-blah, woof- woof, right." Those who so fervently hoped that the emperor wasn't naked are now up in arms. Me? I'm just apathetic. What currently is, is what always was.
LT I share your sentiment. Sadly, my Saturdays are free to do other things and wait for basketball. IMO SS and BN have ruined UF football. It is clear as day BN was a colossal mistake. The only hope most have is not if but when he will be let go. Listen, I have no doubt he is giving it his all, he wants to win, but the fact is he is not a big league coach period. I have to think SS knows this but is conflicted for to fire him means he has made a huge mistake and sets himself up on the chopping block but if he allows him to stay empty seats will follow. I've gone from anger to simply apathy. This is not Florida football.
To your second point, we are known for loosing, special teams follies, and bad defense. That is our identity under Napier.
The biggest mistake was not clipping his wings last year. In coaching after two years you have not improved one positions performance on the entire team do you really need to see more? Losing recruits...well that happens every time you change coaches unless you make that superstar hire. I couldn't see a reason to bring him back after losing 5 in a row to end the season but we are where we are...The only way we right this ship to Gator standards quickly is opening the checkbook, canning everyone who can't coach (there are a bunch) and making the offer so sweet we get a big name like Urban or Kiffin. The season...uggh...its going to be very very ugly.
What I saw Saturday was exactly what I expected to see in many ways. I expected to see a faster, stronger version of the same set of problems with slightly better defense and we didn’t even get that. More than anything I was afraid that the team would be just improved enough to continue to slog along in this lifeless, shambolic, disorganized pergatory that would enable the powers that be to give good old, likeable Sunbelt Billy another year.
Yeah, I didn't see any overall improvement in Ron Robert's defense. None whatsoever. Overall that is, but the linebackers had moments, better at tackling... all the rest, not so much.
Absolutely. The number of snaps Moten and Wingo got were astounding. Pup can rest in the offseason. We have 1 OT, so all we can do is try to scheme around it. Might as well get Kearney training at OT, as he is only guy with explosiveness on the OL. The musical chairs of cycling in OL was laughable. We had 2 players in the secondary, and now that's down to one with the injury. There is no fixing that, and the portal transfers won't help. DT would stalemate Mario's favored running between guards and then the rb and Miami's OL would push the pile ahead for 5 yards or the rb would bounce out for a gain. No aggression or gang tackling.
I have said before the great coaches always show big improvement in year two. Saban and Kirby did. There are a dozen others like that. When this team crashed and burned last year I was hoping I was wrong this time. Turns out I wasn't.
Let's look at the bright side. We should look like champs against Samford, which UF is paying $525,000 to come make us look good. However, I wouldn't be surprised if Samford double-crosses us and makes us look bad. I mean, how hard is that?
Add #2 and #3 here and you get #5. I expected us to at least be competitive for the first half, but Napier’s team still has no identity, coaches don’t seem to have any answers, and it looks nearly certain that we’ll be conducting our 5th pass the hat/collect the millions + head coaching search since 2010.
I said point #1 in another thread and that was the most mind blowing considering I saw multiple opportunities where he could have come in on short yardage but again what are we doing or trying to do who really knows at this point.
