Florida #33 in AP poll

Pretty ridiculous. Don't think many of the 32 ahead of us would be too interested in playing us right now.

 

That is correct.
Others receiving votes: Kansas State 98, Memphis 46, Syracuse 37, Louisville 24, Washington State 10, Duke 6, Louisiana 5, Florida 4, LSU 2, Georgia Tech 2

Speaking of which....love to see us play Ga Tech in a bowl to settle some score.

 

Yeah i said it before, because of who our losses came against, all being ranked top 15-ish and at some point CFP bound it's truly hard to get a read on just where we really fit in the standings. Our 5 losses put us back but the teams that gave us 5 losses have a combined 9 losses total. So we're not top 10 (but have beaten a top10) were not ranked but feel we could easily match up well with anybody 15-25.

 

O, I was straight pissed we weren’t ranked. Illinois lost first to #9 Penn State by several TDs early on like game 3 or so after beating a only “quality” win over #23 Kansas State by 4 points (that’s their season), everyone else was garbage and beat only non-pretenders even. They got creamed by #1 Oregon. Lost to unranked Minnesota. Beat #24 Michigan. Beat 19 Nebraska. And you know where some of these ranked teams are now. We beat ranked KY, Ranked LSU, Ranked Ole Miss (ranked 11, and 9)

I picked a random top 20 team but even Army (no disrespect to our vets) who got blown out by the one ranked team they played and we could almost definitely have beat at any point every team they beat and ND who they lost to. We are playing objectively better. Just one or two of those top 12 teams we played. At one point we were about to play 6 teams in the top 10! It was insane and we were still trying to find ourselves. The idea of Army staying within 3 TDs of us is laughable and we have 4 votes. I’m very happy that the cfp group for future uses a more basketball approach with quality wins and bad losses and all.

Sorry for messy post but I was sure we would be the team with the most losses and ranked 22-25, not 4 votes. Not to mention we could and should have beat UT. And without injury even Georgia. We are not even nearly as bad as our ranking and nobody can convince me otherwise. Not in the second half of season.

GO GATORS!

 

I shouldn’t have done my last post. This is much more concise and eloquent. Well said.

 

I said before the season that we could go 7-5, be a decent team, and not even be ranked. Here we are but i didnt see fsu being a speedbump.

 

Indiana is 10-1 but if we played on a neutral site right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if we were favored.

 

Our schedule while tough was never an excuse for me. I claimed before the season started that we were either improved or we weren't. I only thought Georgia and Texas might be considered expected losses and I still feel the same. If anything Georgia was not nearly as good as I expected and Miami while better than expected on offense has still struggled to squeak by in multiple games against lesser competition.

Despite what a few here claim, there aren't many people defending how we started the season and while I see the current improvement, Napier won't have total trust until he can start a season with a competent team, not the mess we've seen the last two seasons.

 

25 in ESPN's FPI (Football Power Index)

 

Well obviously the "either" part of your statement is incorrect. We had the pieces to be better, but at the start of the season we weren't. Had we started the season (like we used to in the old days) with a patsy, we would have had a few games to work out the kinks. You weren't alone in your thinking because when we were 1-2 the odds on us making a bowl game were miniscule. What has happened with this turnaround is, IMO, amazing..

 

I was in full support of Napier until the Miami game. Then the aTm game was the nail in the coffin. Obviously everything has changed for now but while it makes perfect sense to keep Napier, there is still a great deal of uncertainty going forward until he puts together a complete and competent year of results.

I disagree with the notion that playing cupcakes to start out would have changed things for a few reasons.

Miami in a similar position didn't need a cupcake to get off to a good start and they were on the road with a new qb. They parallel our situation with a 3rd year coach rebuilding a fallen program.

We didn't sort things out much better against aTm, also at home against a first year coach and a backup qb.

The profuse praise by Napier pre-season indicates he liked what he saw and believed he had a good product. What was he thinking especially regarding certain personnel choices and I don't mean Mertz over lagway which I think was the obvious call.

Had we started out playing competent defense we are at least competitive with Miami and may beat aTm. Remember we gave up 300 yards rushing to a miss state team that averaged 100 yards a game. It was unfathomable how bad the defense was.

We as fans don't know what happened in the bye week but it seems it took some drastic change to make a difference. In year 1 or 2 I understand it. Year 3? Not as much.

In any event, the improvement is undeniable despite what a couple quacks here think. What's not certain is whether we regress in the offseason or continue the improvement. Let's hope it's the latter.

 

i'm certainly not making excuses for what happened at the start of the season, just saying when you start with patsies sometimes this problem is avoided.. We weren't ready and something changed during the year. In this day and age, the initial goal has to be getting in the playoffs and giving yourself a chance. We demonstrated with our wins, if we improve next year, we are capable of getting in advancing.
I believe recruiting and the portal this year will also take off dramatically, with the wins over LSU and Ole Miss. In this day and age, all the old metrics are out the window. Just look at Bama this year. I was doubting too but i think i share some of the commentators opinion, which is it's very rare for a team to start out like we did, and have a coach who was described as "dead man walking" for the players to play so hard of that coach. And make no mistake about it, the team is a different team with Lagway in, however they are playing hard for CBN. It seems that team loves billy and he is a sincere guy. I think if things go the way i think in the future, we will be very happy we didn't pull the plug early on him.

 

This part can't be understated. Ever since we beat KY (Texas not withstanding) the defense has played light years better than it had been so something must have happened to them. And that is with a bunch of injuries in the secondary. That includes losses to UGAG and TN. I think with a little more experienced DJ, we beat TN and a non injured DJ, we beat UGAG.

 

Where did you say that?

 

Not only that, we could all lock arms and sing "To Hell with Georgia" after the third quarter.

 

Would love to play them in a bowl. Maybe they’ll lose to Purdue

 

I hope we play one of those teams in a bowl. By then we might get a bunch of guys back from the injury list. Finishing 8-5 with wins over 3 Top 25 teams in a four game winning streak to finish the season would be phenomenal.

 

Finishing strong should help on the recruiting front too but I would like to hear from Billy (or whoever) what has changed. Even if he is just speculating. Usually you don't see going from laying an absolute egg (miami and aTm) to beating Ole Miss in a season. If we looked somewhat competitive early on then I can see it.