Cris Collinsworth - Culture

Actually no. You have no idea who I am. My life is great. I'm content, long time marriage, great kids and grandkids, lots of friends, spiritually fine, sleep well at night. How about your life? I love the Gators and have since the early 60's. I'm just a realist, my friend. I've been with the Gators through all the trials and tribulations, ups and downs. But it doesn't dictate my life - nor does it alter my opinions based on 60+ years of following sports and my observations of Florida football. I'm a passionate fan, but it has nothing to do with my LIFE! Three straight losing seasons and people like you have still bought into "the process" and are blaming previous coaches, culture, NIL and everything else under the sun. Excuses vs. results. Meanwhile, other programs hired coaches 3 years ago who have completely turned things around for their schools. I want every Gator coach and every player to succeed all the time, always. But I also recognize when things aren't working out and refuse to drink the Kool-Aid and pretend it's all OK when it clearly isn't. Sucks to be you living in Fantasyland and by this time next year, you'll understand - or maybe not. If we have another losing season, will you still be a believer?

 

If

 

and very small rocks

 

Honestly — it’s like these guys are almost trying to will us to have another losing season. It’s like an obsession — their whole focus is when do we fire our coach. That’s kinda sick — pretty shitty fans in my book

 

I was a freshman at UF in 1963. History tends to repeat itself. The pessimism versus optimism and reactions thereto is nothing new.

 

Since the last championship we're on our second AD and fourth HBC. That's our culture.

Looks like just firing people isn't the solution. So, I guess we'll belly up to the craps table again shortly since there's no proven way apparently to find that one winner. The administration could always task themselves to make what we have work better by not accepting the coach is the excuse.

Just keep in mind that whomever gets a job offer would want to leave where they are doing well to be another cog in the UF culture and all of the gratitude that follows henceforth.

 

The culture seems to be poor past hiring decisions that led to the decline of everything.

 

They better stick with Napier long enough for other coaches to see they will get a fair shot at getting the wheels rolling and stack enough talent for the next coach to win games. Hopefully Napier has us above 509 soon . Tge talent pool is definitely looking better than when he got here. It’s not elite but good enough to start being ranked at the end of the season.

 

I just looked up that interview. Cris was smiling the whole time he asked that question. I think it was a set up question knowing how Kobe would answer. I think it was true at that time that there were people in this country who felt that way, but I don’t think it showed that Cris thought that way, especially when you listen to what he said after the end of the interview about how well the Olympians were representing the USA.

Just my thoughts.

 

"Sucks" is a subjective opinion. I think Jesse is one of the best, precisely BECAUSE he is not a drooling Gator homer. If I want that, I'll turn on the Gator network.

 

I think this is a good, reasonable post, but it's important to point out that Dan Campbell going from 3 wins in his first season (after the Lions traded away their franchise QB) to 9 in his second was a very demonstrable improvement in the on field product. If Napier's second year trajectory had looked anything like Campbell's, we wouldn't be having these discussions.

I like Billy and I really hope he succeeds here, but like you said, he has a lot to improve on - we've all heard the sunshiney reports of his culture building at UF, and I agree that you can't win consistently without a great culture. But ultimately Napier's being paid a huge amount of money to make his culture deliver on-field success, and given the lack of improvement from Y1 to Y2 and continued gameday disorganization under his leadership so far, I can't blame Gator fans for getting restless, even though I think it's premature to start calling for his job just yet.

I fully expect us to win 7-8 games this season and reach a bowl game and will be rooting hard for Napier and the Gators all year. If he can't show something at least close to that, though (I'd actually settle for looking consistently strong on both sides of the ball, eliminating all the ST and procedural mistakes and showing definitive improvement game 1 to 12), then it's understandably going to be really hard for the vast majority of Gator Nation to continue buying the narrative that we're on the right track here.