Article: Florida’s 2024 Season Will Be Defined By A Coach and A Quarterback

Correct. Now, if the line blocks well and he continues to check down to short passes because they are safer, then that is the QB and coaching. But this year has the X factor: Lagway and changing up the plays. If THAT falls flat then that is going to be on the coach. It is what it is.

 

In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Empath", Captain Kirk says, "The best defense is a good offense, and I intend to start offending right now."

The best defense is a good offense - Wikipedia

Let's hope our offense can move the chains effectively this season so we aren't totally dependent on our defense to be the last bastion of W's and L's.....

 

Offense has to move the chains....get first downs on 1st or 2nd down.....those 3rd and long plays will absolutely lose you games!!!

 

Wunderlich is head and shoulders above many of the Gator writers out there, GC or otherwise. Another fine article.

Reading some of y’all’s comments, it does seem like the point is missed. The article’s main point IMO is that both of these guys have something to prove, but they will have to get out of their comfort zone similar to Urban and Leak.

 

Totally agree!!! I believe many will be surprised by how well we do.

 

Wunderlich is a very cerebral writer, and that's what I appreciate about his style!

 

Thanks ET, I probably would have missed this article if you had not shared. I had a total knee replacement and have been out of commission.

 

I hope that's going well for you, I'm probably not far from one myself. GG! Beat Miami!

 

I think we already know the answer to one of your questions. That laser he threw to Pearsall that saved us another L at SC last year was a NFL level throw. Of course, longer throws are more risky so his INT level will increase, but the tradeoff may be worth it. The real questions are will his OL allow him the time to hit deeper routes and will the coaching allow more aggressive downfield shots.

 

I can see that, but I can see the amazing job Mertz and the skill players did with the offense considering we had an often injured and depleted O-line last year.

And, with a less than ideal O-line, Mertz still did pretty good. So... if we get a healthy O-line with good experienced depth... Mertz and the offense will shine even brighter.

It was Mertz and the skill players on offense that kept us from totally falling apart last year... with a beat-up O-line.

Just think what the Gators can achieve when the offense is clicking on all cylinders. And that's just on offense.

Napier and Mertz have all the ingredients to open up the offense... and I can't wait to see it.

We can talk about the defense and the special teams in another thread... they have nowhere to go but up.

 

Thanks! Rehab is going exceptionally well. The most important aspect of a TKR is the surgeon. TKR is frequently done as same day surgery. That's insane!!! TKR is a brutal procedure. My surgeon wanted to observe me overnight, and I had a suction drain placed after surgery. That was Yuge!

 

Do we have a special teams coach yet?

 

In one of Napier's pressers, he mentioned that we now have two more coaches eligible to be hands-on, which means we now have two more coaches on the field working with the ST. That new rule change made life easier for Napier and the special teams.


The Division I Council has approved a proposal to remove the cap on how many of a program’s staffers can do on-field football coaching, while still limiting off-campus recruiting activities to 10 assistants (or 12 in the FCS) plus the head coach. This means hundreds of analysts and quality control coaches around the country will finally be permitted to coach in practice, bringing a monumental change to the profession.

College football's new era of unlimited coaches: What you need to know

 

I guess that your under the impression that:

• That Naper has three straight loosing seasons. To correct you, Mullen had one of those losing seasons.
• Naper inheirted a team that had a ton of experienced players. Prior to Naper, the Gators were loosing players to the Portal and Mullen was not doing a good job in keeping them here. Naper inherited a team that was not deep in talent and in players that played at least two years together.
• The state colleges in Florida were not under a handicap (state law that made using the Transfer Portal impossible) up to early in 2023. In the last year, Naper has done well in the Transfer Portal.
• That any coach can come into a complete train wreck and win seven or more games per season in the first two seasons.
• The Gators did not have injuries to key players in the last half of last season. Here is the reality: They had at least two key injuries in the last four games.
• That the Gators were not very competitive in most of their game last season. Here is the reality: They were competitive and damn near won two of those games. They just did not have the enough healthy and skilled players to pull out those games in the last two minutes.
• That after last seaon, Naper did not make some big improvement in the coaching staff, getting good players via the portal, and he had a poor recruiting year last season. The reality is that, Naper made some big coaching and staff changes, killed it in the transfer portal (keeping and getting players), and the recruiting class for 2-23 was a solid 13th in the nation. with one 5 star player and 18 4 start players.

 

Excellent post with awareness and maturity.

 

I never said that "Naper" had three losing seasons. I merely pointed out that Florida had three losing seasons. If you want detail, I could mention that "Naper" has shown essentially no improvement over Mullen's mediocre final season at UF (no one cares about one win difference in a losing season), and no improvement in his second season at UF. He went 6-7 in his first season and lost a bowl game to Las Vegas, which is totally unacceptable. Then he went 5-7 in his second season and was not eligible for a bowl game in his second season, which is even more unacceptable. (Has anyone told him that he is coaching at the flagship university in the state with the most football talent in the country?) There are some differences between "Naper" and Mullen. For one, Mullen proved himself in the SEC by coaching a Heisman-level QB to the SEC championship game after coaching lowly Mississippi State to several competitive seasons ("Naper" has yet to prove himself as a head coach in the SEC.) Mullen was coaching with one hand tied behind his back because Florida's A.D. was too tight-fisted with a dollar to let Mullen compete with the rest of the SEC, and he finally cut loose the purse strings for "Naper". So what excuse can "Naper" come up with to explain his mediocrity? The good coaches at UF never had to wait until season #3 to come up with a break-even record (and that is certainly not guaranteed with "Naper").

How did Mullen do when he took over from Muschamp, you ask? Good question. Let's see. Muschamp's last two seasons at UF were 4-8 and 6-5. Pretty bad, especially with the SEC East being weak (no Georgia powerhouse yet). Mullen's first two seasons were 10-3 and 11-2. Hmmm. How can that be? You are only supposed to get one more win than your predecessor after a train-wreck season, right? Should Florida have given Mullen another year to see if he could put the team back on a winning track AND provide SEC-level spending on assistants and the football program in general? (Not just the $85 million building? Because "the building" has yet to produce a winning season, even though it opened for "Naper" in 2022.) Should we tear down the hapless hopeless building and give "Naper" a new ten-year contract? Because once we get rid of the cursed building, we should start winning, right?

 

If it were my team, I would make the players work out in the old facilities (or anywhere but the new facilities) until such time as they earn it on the field. That's the kind of thing an Urban Meyer might do, but it might wake them up to the reality of playing football in the SEC. It would hammer home the point that they are a mediocre football team, and they have a lot of work to do before they become the kind of first class team that gets to practice in first class facilities. If it causes some of them to quit, then we probably didn't want them anyway. Urban booted off 11 players from his first Florida team before they even played a game for him. Urban, in case you were wondering, did not have a losing second season record (hint: it was 13-1, with some letters after it).

 

Here is an interesting argument. Napier came from the Sun-Belt, where you can probably win a conference championship with 40th- and 50th-ranked recruiting classes. I don't think any team has won an SEC-championship with 40th or 50th-ranked recruiting classes. Certainly nowadays, it's just not possible. Recruiting at the highest level is a very difficult thing to do. You need relationships with high school coaches, players, their families, etc. And you have to stay on top of it all the time. You have to present a personality that is borderline arrogant, without being over the line, and you have to make the player think that he is the only one that your coaching staff cares about. We currently compete with FIU and FAU for quite a few of our players. Is it a coincidence that Napier cannot put together a winning season in the SEC?

We have had a few coaches that defer to what they did in the past that made them successful and ignore what they needed to do in their current job to make them successful. Zook relied too much on recruiting, and not enough on player development and team cohesion. Muschamp acted like he was still a defensive coordinator, and refused to learn anything about calling plays for an offense (remember two yards and a cloud of dust?) or recruit offensive players in sufficient numbers or quality. Napier may be doing the same thing.