How Does Billy Save His Job?

5 wins even with this schedule is such a low bar. I mean... that's Vandy level expectations there.

 

Vandy would never win five games with our schedule

 

Not saying that... 5 wins is Vandy level.

One more thing, the schedule has NEVER MATTERED TO US BEFORE, and it should not now matter.

 

But the schedule does matter. If we had FSU schedule, we would need eight or 10 wins to have any semblance of being decent.

 

Rick, I agree with you, but what are the Gators' expectations for a head football coach? What is the minimum standard?

 

It didn't matter when we were a top tier program. Things have changed.

 

We never complain about the schedule. But yeah, it is unfair that some teams just slide into the big end of season games because Strength of Schedule means nothing to the committee...

I mean that there's nothing we can do to change it, so we may as well embrace it. And every time we won it all in the past, we had a top 5 to top 10 schedule.


That's why I keep saying bring back the Harris, computers and any metric that measures strength of schedule.

 

Agree, I definitely can't know that for a certainty. Based on the way I've heard him talk about Napier, I would bet on the probability, though. Sure, a quick high-quality replacement might change his mind, but, I don't like our chances. QB goes, and the classes around him collapse, too. Then, another five-year rebuild commences. I hope he can turn the ship around quickly (i.e., now) and start winning more than he loses. If he can't, he's obviously not gonna make it here.

 

Competing for championships every year.

 

Too tier teams don’t talk about how hard their schedule is.

 

Scheduling Miami for the first game of the year is kind of stupid also and that is scheduling.

 

Every year? Who does that in the SEC? How many Florida coaches did that?

 

There are two parts to that. The scheduling we (our AD makes) make, and the SEC's scheduling. I would NOT put that crap-hole team on our schedule, but once found out that they were there, I NEVER CRIED ABOUT IT, like many others here have... and still are.

Another reason why some here want our AD to part ways with our program too.

 

After one game, there’s been a few that still had that championship in mind. If all hope is lost game one, how many had a job for long.

 

Many teams need the strength of schedule added. We don’t need Miami, UCF, and FSU two make our schedule legit. Our schedule is legit on its own. I do like the better games like that as a fan to watch and feel like all schools should have to schedule only top echelon Power five schools if they want to be in the playoffs.

 

I strongly agree. But again, which coach in our past competed for championships every year as the expectation?

Pell, after 1979
Spurrier
Meyer until after 2009

Are they the minimum standard?

 

Of course they are. If you aren’t striving for that, you’re settling for less. No top program settles for less.

 

Bama, UGA, LSU and now Texas.

Every Gator coach since Spurrrier has been competing for championships. McElwain appeared in the SEC Championship twice, Mullen appeared in it once. Even Muschamp and Zook were tied for Division titles but tiebreaker rules left us out of the title game. Napier is the only one post Spurrier to not have us competing for championships up to this point.

 

I think that simple answer "win games" is the only foreseeable solution. I've previously wondered if the bye weeks wouldn't come into play, acting as midseason benchmarks and, if necessary, time to change over to an interim. Again, none of us would have expected a midseason firing even possible just a few weeks ago, but the blowout loss to Miami and looking the way we did has really put everything up for grabs.

So if the bye weeks could become the check in times to "save" his job, we start with UM, Samford, A&M, and MSU. We're currently 1-1. Obviously going 3-1 keeps things going. Does 2-2? I think it may be what the second loss looks like--close and hard fought or overmatched and filled with errors? If we go 1-3, losing the next two weeks in a row, is that sufficient to make a change? Again, I think it may come down to what the losses look like.

But I expect the next stretch of three games before the pre-UGA bye to be a more likely determining factor: UCF, UT, UK. UT will probably be heavily favored, though stranger things have happened to our benefit in that series. UCF and UK may be favored still, but UK definitely looked beatable against the Gamecocks. 2-1 in this stretch seems like more than enough momentum to keep going. 1-2 gets back to the question of how the losses looked and who they were against. Maybe a big win against a highly ranked UT balances out tight losses to UCF and MSU. Maybe a UCF loss of any sort is enough to end things. I think it's hard to justify more games if we go 0-3 here leading into the second bye and the worst part of the schedule. But again, our record heading into UCF couldn't be overlooked. If we play them already 1-3, any downturn in the game could cause the wheels to come off. And losing the team, as unthinkable as the idea may have been over the summer, would effectively end any talk of saving a job, no matter when it would happen.

 

Competing for a sec championship every year. Sure we can go 8-4 and not get a sniff but you can’t go into a season without those expectations. Competing, not necessarily winning.