It’s a shame that we have to put up with his crap and a well deserved kick in the nuts is edited out.
Has Billy had a top 10 class before? I’m not a big recruitnik but I don’t think so. Where we are: 1. Billy was able to get this team achieve at a very high level the second half of season. 2. This momentum has started to pay dividends in terms of recruiting “flips” and commits. That doesn’t mean anything til they’ve signed. 3. Overall a very positive view on UF football nationally for the first time in about 5 years. With a very special QB getting a lot of attention and helping precruit. 4. It appears from a distance anyway that NIL seems to be kicking in nicely. So seems like the program is on an overall upswing. Proof will be in the pudding of the next few seasons obviously. At this point you can either look forward to what is coming. Or continue to bitch about what’s gone wrong for the last few years. It’s the glass is half full or glass is half empty question.
**Thread Title Update** It's time to have a honest discussion about how good a month this has somehow become for Scott Strickenbaum. If the seas calm irt Todd Golden, then he has literally survived the unsurvivable. A top 10 recruiting class and a possible 8 win season for his beleaguered football coach, and an undefeated #13 ranked hoops program that frankly may be a Final Four contender. It's insane. When the Golden news broke, while the football team was losing and recruiting sucked he couldnt have dreamed a month later, we would be here.
With the size of Napier's football staff, a collective sigh of relief inside the Heavener Football Complex recently shook the building and registered as a small quake on the Richter scale.
After the team finished the alma mater/fight song with the band Saturday night a bunch of guys grabbed flags and were headed back to the Nole logo at midfield. Napier was still doing interviews on the field, SS formed a one man wall and shut those guys down in their tracks. It was hilarious
I bet you get invited to every cookout! I mean what's a BBQ without a little Doom and Gloom.... and total yards.
There's enough content to write a book with all the stupid stuff the troll named after the lake posted.
That was probably me . . . I've messed-up and edited a couple posts more early on while getting used to leaving this thread for Tilly to handle his way.
All the existing evidence indicates something significant has changed since the end of September. Uneven, ups & downs still but a very strong positive trend in football, and thus-far unalloyed success in hoops. Sellout crowds, massive vocal support for the teams, no boo-birds. Empirical data analysis indicates zero public personnel changes with the UF athletic department, staff coaches or players to explain the improvement. Same coaches that had been selected by the same AD coaching the same teams. Very little 'drama' involving boosters, etc. To withhold credit from the AD and coaches for the results we see today when it was the same people inspiring such histrionics from certain segments of the teams fan base when it wasn't going well seems like pettiness and confirmation bias. I don't know what, or if, anything was done behind the doors of the athletic staff doors, but the same people should be credited with the success if they were just as saddled with the blame.
I guess it's pretty obvious that the people in control don't pay very much attention or at least not enough.
Allow me to preface this with I am not looking for reasons to rip the team. I am simply offering what I consider to be constructive criticisms. I am not satisfied with mediocrity. I am not satisfied with our biggest rivalry game being relegated to two goofball announcers we've never heard or seen before. And lastly, I hope to be proven wrong, as I was admittedly proven wrong for the LSU and Ole Miss games. With that said... #13 class in 2023, #13 class in 2024 per 247sports. For perspective, the current 2025 class rankings have 15 SEC teams in the Top 31 classes in America. A Top 10 class in this conference isn't anything to boast about. He's pretty much done the same the past two years. The issue is while we land these Top 15 classes, we finish well below #15 in the AP. I'll compromise and call this statement highly subjective, because by just about every metric, we did not "achieve at a very high level" the second half of the season. We beat one currently ranked team who gave us the ball back... often. Good point. Obviously, our class ranking has shot up like a cannon. I'm guessing it can recede a bit as well. We'll end up somewhere between #8 - #12 most likely. Which again, is a mediocre class in the SEC. Again, the superlatives don't align with reality. An overall very positive view means ESPN gives us the the time of day with their C-level announcers, not their L-level announcers. An overall very positive view moves us up in the rankings instead of staying dormant at #33. In fact, I think other than the usual garb we hear from the talking heads, most people are still skeptical. The entire discussion would be moot if we didn't have strong NIL support. Actually agree here with pretty much all of this. The stats tell us we have more hard times ahead, but things can change and did change some this season. I think if you took a poll before Napier was hired and told everybody here Napier would have 19 losses in his first 3 years, he'd get about 0% of our support. You could have used this logic with Muschamp, Mcelwain and Mullen and they would have been more deserving of the grace. Muschamp had an 11 win season. Mcelwain had a 10 win season. Mullen had a 10 win and an 11 win season. You can't ignore the past or you'll be doomed to repeat the mistakes in the future. Now, watch the usual suspects lose their minds simply because I posted a bunch of facts. Look, I'm as big a Gator fan as you'll ever meet. I've been following this team for a long time. It is very difficult to win consistently in the SEC. As a program, you really have to be firing on all cylinders. You have to be exceptional. This recruiting class isn't exceptional. It's good, but it's nothing special for an SEC school. Which still begs the question of how did we ever get down into the 50s in the rankings? I personally don't think you'll ever see Napier put together an exceptional recruiting class here at Florida. You realize Will Muschamp brought in two #3 recruiting classes back to back? That's why I'm not fawning over this class. We should be in or very near the Top 5 at all times with our inherent recruiting advantages. That's not bitching. That's just reality.