**Buzz Buzz Buzz** - Scott Strickenbaum's finest hour?

The season predictions, gambling odds and the talking heads made that expectation well before the season ever began. And it's important to mention he took over a losing team, unlike Smart who was fortunate to have taken over a team that was 12-2, 8-5, 10-3, & 10-3 from the 4 years prior.

Not sure if it does to you but the team to me looks improved over the last few years.

 

Not gonna lie, yall lost me with this whole governor thing. Didn't know the Governor had anything to do with our football operations.

 

The team looks improved but it did last year as well and with our backs against the wall and playing for bowl eligibility we couldn't beat Arkansas at home.

I'll say that the difference in this year's perceived improvement is that the defense has seemed to have turned a corner. Gates is attacking the ball which is almost bizarre to see since it had been so long since we have seen anyone in the secondary breaking on plays instead of back peddling or reacting. Linebacker talent is up as well and run defense is much improved after an abysmal start to the year. The big problem is why did it take until now?

Any lack of expectations for beating Miami, aTm or Tennessee in year 3 is solely because of the lack of confidence in Napier to field a winning team. Period. It's why the odds makers had us sitting at 4.5 wins this year which I thought was absurd at the time because I gave Napier the benefit of doubt for the first two years and then believed his own preseason hype this year. Wasn't the expectation going into the season that Mertz in his second year at Florida along with a senior runningback, reportedly greatly improved offensive line and more experienced receiving Corp would be a significant strength? Didn't Napier brag about defensive improvement for the 2nd year in a row? Why should that team be underdogs against miami at home? Why was Mario able to prepare his team in year 3? Elko in year 1?

2 years in a row we had all offseason to prepare and came out woefully undisciplined and embarrassed.

We have him now and my opinion doesn't matter but I see more excuses next year when we lose Badger, Dike, defensive tackle depth, a viable backup qb and still have glaring weaknesses a fading recruiting class won't fix.

 

So I guess I thought the governor signs off on university hires. I just read the governor approved a law where candidates don’t have to be known. Sasse was the only candidate. Still not intended to be political. I thought the governor had a say and stand corrected.

DeSantis administration calls for investigation into former UF President Ben Sasse’s ‘exorbitant spending’ - The Independent Florida Alligator

Report: After DeSantis intervened, a state college scrapped its search for a new president and will hand the job to a politician

 

Data to back that theory please.

 

Of course a new hire may not work.

The standard to make a move is whether you think a new coach will produce better results over the current coach over the next few years.

So a new coach doesn’t have to be perfect because Napier is nowhere near perfect.

Are you going to take full responsibility for Napier?

 

The low expectations going into this year is 100% on Napier. He doesn’t get to tank expectations to a Vandy level and get a high five for meeting them

 

Hey, don't you start talking down about pimp walk vandy lol

 

The guys paying are. Its their 26 mil if they figure its time.. depends on who they can get. The way tge team has progressed this year, i kinda wish they had put money towards a better class. If tgey cant bring in a great hire, we may get neither.

 

My point was the players we had the past 2-3 years were not as bad as the results on field have shown. I think coaching/schemes has had more of an impact on results than the players. We have lost to teams with better rated rosters and lost to teams with lower rated rosters. To this point, I have not seen this staff consistently coach at the level required to get us to where we need to be.

 

Is Cig even interested? I have no reason to believe one way or the other. If he is, that a conversation worth having.

 

Ta

Talent level is better this year than the last two in my opinion. Defense and oline seems better of late to me.

 

Thats the thing, who knows if he even has interest . Does Kiffy? Many coaches just use it to better gheir contracts. Kelly went from ND to Lsu but those kind of lateral moves rarely happen. Now if Cignetti beats OSU and some how were to win the Big Ten or even win a playoff game, his stock will go way up. At this point he hasnt even beaten a decent team. Zook wasnt great but even he beat some top teams. Kiffen hasnt gotten that signature win either, not even one. To me, there isnt anyone out there that is super attractive. Theres several that would probably get us a couple more wins a year but is that worth all the money . The next guy to win big is what we are looking for, not 9-3 as a peak.

 

Hell , ill take responsibility if all it is is ire. Somebody has to pay 26 mil. That's the beginning of the responsibility. Then they have to hire a new staff and probably pay a large buyout.i wonder what the entire one year tally would be after nil. Will the school take that sec check at the end of the year and help or is it all on the boosters. Thing is, we have no idea who is even interested in the job. Its a mess as theres no owners like the nfl where a guy with the cash just makes a decidion. The boosters are probably just as split as us fans but must act collectively with their wallets.

 

It’s how the UT loss happened that is so disappointing. We dominated the first half of that game with multiple chances to score and open a can on UT, and we ended the half with 3 points. Some of those play calls were head-scratchers. He had his RB trucking defenders for an entire series to get a first and goal at the one yard line, and he ran a QB sneak. He had a questionable spot on another series that he didn’t challenge and the drive ended on downs. He burned his last TO after a dead ball play and lost 3 points. Those are just a few decisions that were head scratching, including targeting the best UT DB multiple times instead of trying to target a weaker DB.

Not going for 2 at the end of the game and playing for overtime when the defense was gassed is another concern I have. The players, especially the defense, have been playing inspired. I think at this point coaching is the weak link for us, and I don’t know if Napier is able to make the changes necessary to take the next step.

 

Only thing i dont really agree with is we didnt really look improved to me last year. Mertz may have looked slightly better than AR. Our entire defense was putrid and the right side of our oline didnt even look sec worthy. I thought we were equally as bad as year one. We looked good in the first half of Tenn and had a winning drive against sc and other than that was crap. We played hard against an fsu team without their qb but it still looked bad. The Tennessee and Georgia games this year are the first games that have given me hope. We played solid defense and ran the ball against good dlines. Our qb was making plays downfield. We actually looked like we belonged on the field with Georgia.

My biggest convern if they keep Napier will always be playcalling and decisions. I just dont think hes good at it. Thats a natural skill that not many are good at and very few are elite.Everyone knows what the textbook calls are but that's predictable. He should have gave up that part of the job last year. I have to wonder if he still thinks hes good at it.

 

Like forcing Mullen to fire Hevesy and Grantham just to fire Mullen a couple weeks later anyways lol

 

Yeah I don't disagree. I guess there was a point people started to believe our offense started clicking but yes, the defense sucked from beginning to the end. Still though, people believed we would beat Arkansas at home to earn bowl eligibility and we should have. Then they put up 35 points in a loss to lsu and then nearly beat mizzou and then of course we lost Mertz. People expected the offense to hit the gates running this season building off of last year but of course we know we didnt.

Lastly, there is still the issue of Florida losing the 3rd quarter in almost every game we play. To me that is a symptom of a rigid coach relying on analytics that can't adjust his gameplan. It's been a problem every season so far.

 

Had we played well against Mismi and A&M, the case could be made that we improved all year by beating Lsu or ole miss or both. 6-6 or 7-5 with this schedule isnt horrible and with Lagway as a true freshman . Still not where we want to be but the outlook for next year could be much brighter. Thing is, Lagway will be back at some point and i expect him to get much better the next couple years. Half the defense is out now too so tomorrow is probably going to get ugly. The school needs a president and fast. It must not be as dire for academics as it is for sports.

 

Insane indeed. I’m curious if the OC thing will happen and who would come or he just promotes one of the 80 he already has. I mean do we ever really know who is actually calling the plays on offense or defense.