Recruiting Thoughts

I think a win over Georgia may fire up boosters to pump money into NIL. In this day and age, $ will be what gets some guys in the portal and or out of high school.

 

Florida has offered 3* Arizona comitt Robert McDaniel. Looked great at elite 11.

 

I hope you are right but we have to get the win first. Also, we are not even in the picture for any remaining high profile recruits. We are going to have to come out of nowhere for some of these guys.

 

Interesting post, given how you rely on "tradition" to support your assertions.

Your assertion that Stricklin doesn't know our "traditions", and that had we hired a Gator as AD who understood our "traditions" we would have never scheduled Miami.

LOL.

Gator "tradition" was that we DID play Miami every year, for decades. It was a great rivalry, with a lot of history and tradition. Over those decades, many loyal Gators who understood "tradition" participated in scheduling that game.

In fact, many long time loyal Gators who well understand our "traditions" have lobbied for putting that game back on the schedule rather than play a patsy, long before Stricklin came on board. Many, many Gator fans were of the same mind.

On what basis do you conclude that Stricklin has not learned our "traditions"? And on what basis do you conclude that had our AD been a Gator grad, he wouldn't have scheduled the game? You have no basis for either conclusion.

With regard to our SEC schedule, yep it's tough. It's also true that the conference just expanded and made things tougher. Our AD had no control over that.

But I am sure your post will be much appreciated by the Cocanes who will most assuredly post it up under such titles as "Crybaby Gators".

Good job!!

There was only one thing wrong with the Miami game: we showed up with no defense for the third season in a row and got our asses handed to us. Had we won, I'm guessing you would be pretty ok with the game.

 

Whe you AD is unaware of our first game home winning streek game, then yeah, something is wrong.

To a few old geezers, pre-steve Spurrier, yeah, that game seemed to be played when Miami was a national powerhouse. They are NO LONGER A NATIONAL POWERHOUSE.

Our schedule is hard enough, and we play in the SEC... On top of that, the strength of schedule do NOT matter to these prognosticators anymore... so why add an unnecessary layer of difficulty for no reason?

However, if the SOS did matter, Sagarin (computer ranking that does count strength of schedule) had us ranked at 21 or something like that recently.

There is no more need to play them. End of story.

 

The end of your story.

The SEC expanded-again- after we had already scheduled this Miami game.

Apparently in your world, there is no reason to play any out of conference opponent other than a patsy. As for the tradition of the rivalry, most of the time Miami WASN'T a national powerhouse. And if they aren't now, why are you afraid to play them?

I like the game, and the in-state rivalry.

 

If you are talking about putting them on the schedule every year that leaves us only two games to schedule outside of conference and FSU/Miami every year. And if the SEC
goes to a 9 game conference schedule in the near future (a very real possibility) it reduces our games we can schedule to one. Not the worst thing that could happen, I suppose, but certainly not ideal.
I remember the old days when we played Miami. I recall Andy Gustafson as their coach. Maybe I’m wrong, but even playing them every year I don’t remember the rivalry being as intense as our conference games or the FSU rivalry which of course was later. I think if we add Miami it should be on a rotation with FSU.
I will add that IMO there is nothing wrong with 2 “cupcake” games a season: One at the first to get the kinks out, and one before our final game with FSU to rest a few starters and at the same time reward some players who have busted their behinds all year in practice but, haven’t been able to get on the field in a game.

 

I'm not personally opposed to cupcakes, but there are many who are. With our current SEC slate, we need some relief.

But still, doing a home and home with Miami every 4-6 years adds a bit of spice a cupcake doesn't, and I can't find any reason not to do it.

As for the Miami rivalry not being that big, I have to disagree. Georgia and FSU were always the biggest, but after those two, Miami was neck and neck with anyone else we played, including the Vols and Aubarn. Remember the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1983 when we beat Miami: "Here come the Peace Corps"? It was a huge game.

That changed when Spurrier and Fulmer were dooking it out, but Miami wasn't on our schedule. And prior to Spurrier, the Vols weren't on our schedule every year either.

 

You make your points very well and I don’t strongly disagree with anything you say. It is my recollection that Auburn was a huge rival until that annual game ended in 2002. Seemed bigger than Miami game to me. If I’m not mistaken, when Spurrier took the head coaching job at UF he said he wanted two things: replace the artificial turf with real grsss and put Miami back on the schedule. I think he backed off that when the conference expanded and split into two divisions.
This year’s schedule has soured me on scheduling just one cupcake game. We have put ourselves at a disadvantage, with the help of course, from the SEC. Bama plays 3, if you count USF. Arkansas and Auburn play 3 each and … you get the idea. And almost all of the SEC teams get a breather type game 1 or 2 games immediately prior to their finale which is in most cases their biggest rivalry game. We get murders row 4 games in succession before FSU and BTW they have a bye week and Charleston Southern the two weeks prior to our game. Not to mention our two byes are both before the 7th game of the season. The SEC has done us a disservice and we have got to watch out for ourselves on the schedule. It’s obvious they aren’t.
In rereading my post I sound like the biggest whiner on GatorCountry, and normally that’s not me. But darn…..

 

I didn't like playing Miami in the 80s and I don't like it now. Selfish reason, though. Has nothing to do with tradition. I just can't stand their fans in our stadium. Also, a home-and-home series takes away one non-conference home game from our schedule and I only go to home games.

 

That school and fan base suck, and they are NOT worthy to put on our schedule..

Yes, END OF THE STORY...

 

It would be better if other teams had any integrity and we all scheduled good games but tgat will never be the case. Bowden ran to tge ACC where he could schedule a tray of cupcakes. With the pkayoff expansion, i dont think scheduling Miami hurt us much. Pkaying bad hurt us. Cupcakes may make a 1 seed more likely but a toughschedule and just getting in is fine with me. Id like a cupcake to start the season( preseason), then a lesser sec team to work it out. Then play ten good games in a row with the off weeks towards the back of tge scedule where they belong.

 

Integrity has lost value in this day and age,IMO. As you suggested, showing integrity in scheduling will never happen among the majority of teams. The terms integrity and FSU should never be used on the same sentence.
Normally, I think, we only get one open date in a season. Depends on how the calendar falls. In years where there are two or even one it certainly makes sense to me to have an open date in the early or middle second half of season.
Most teams used to open the season with a cupcake but, TV pushed to have a few big matchups to open season. I don’t mind that once in a while but not ideal. Having it as second game is something I can live with but you have to be ready in game one if this is the case. Not much I can recall deflated Gator Nation like our opening day performance this season.

 

This got a little off track but I'll contribute.
Think how different this season would look if we opened w/ a patsy instead of Miami.
We'd be 5-2 now and while there would be rumbles of discontent, things would look far different.

I don't care about Miami's fans or their program- I'd feel the same way if we opened w/ Clemson or Ohio State.
8 SEC games plus FSU is a hard enough schedule.
Until we get back to where 10-2 or 11-1 is normal again- and we are a long way from that.

 

Interesting back and forth about Miami. My personal preference is to play them. Having posted that, it seems to me, this year, given the youth of the UF football team, and of course considering the matter in retrospect, it was not a good opening opponent.
While it's almost laughable to look at Miami's schedule (perhaps the weakest in power 4) they were clearly head and shoulders
better prepared than UF to start the season.

 

My father, who was a tenured UF professor and good friends with Ray Graves when he was both HC then AD, used to tell me that his Bull Gator Club booster buddies would say our true state rival is fsu, who is a public institution like us, and we are obligated to play them each year. But Miami is a private school. We don't have to play them every year. They should be happy we choose to schedule them every season.

 

That's reasonable. We had a lot longer standing series that we let go in Auburn that some considered more important than Miami. I see the series with FSU as equivalent with Bama and Auburn. Texas and aTm never should have stopped playing each other.