I hated seeing Graves “stepping up” to make room for Tricky Dickey. I was leery of Dickey from the get go and when Graves Gators beat his Vols in 1969 Gator Bowl in the battle of lame duck coaches I was convinced he was not going to be a big success. When conversations of great Florida coaches take place Graves is usually left out but, he was by far the greatest in Gator history up to his time and IMO brought us to true respectability in the college football world. AND, had he not been our coach we most likely would not have landed Steve Spurrier in Gainesville.
Either that or he stubbornly decided to keep doing what got them there - what they do best - and hope to break one loose. Solid job by our defense shutting that down. Recall that their running game is all anyone here wanted to talk about leading up to the game
Loved watching Don Gaffney run the option. #8 — he’d roll out with the ball and just as he got hammered the ball would come out to the pitch man. If that moron of a coach had any idea what he was doing we might have had a good team in the 70s
I guess we are far enough from the Muschamp days that this looks weird to us again. I guess thats a good thing at least.
I am absolutely not a Doug Dickey fan, as much for his vendetta against UF after he went back to UTk as an Athletic Director as his below average coaching job at UF. That said at the time of his hiring (at UF) the move probably made sense to the powers that be. Dickey grew up in Gainesville, graduated from P.K. Yonge, walked on at UF and became our starting QB. His coach at UF was Bob Woodruff, who later became the Athletic Director at Tennessee. It was Woodruff who hired him at UTk. Dickey was successful at a Tennessee program that had fallen off considerably, and seemed to be an up and coming coach. In hindsight it was a terrible hire for UF. Not only did we lose a coach in Ray Graves that seemed to have us on the verge of our potential, but we had to tolerate a sanctimonious horse’s behind that did not deliver anywhere near the promises made. Dickey did assemble a lot of talent at UF especially at first but it never quite transferred to sustained on the field success. He may have a better percentage record than Napier has had, but he seemed an arrogant fool to most UF fans. Billy may not be up to the task, but he is infinitely more likeable than Doug Dickey was. I won’t even get into the hypocrisy of the stripping of our first SEC title that was lead by Dooley and Dickey, but suffice it to say older Gator fans hatred of UTk and Doug Dickey is well founded.
You are too kind to Napier. Who has beaten Saban more than any other coach? Trick question - 2 coaches have beaten Saban 3 times and Malzahn is one of them. Napier has one win against the better teams in the SEC and that's it.
Big deal, Ron Zook beat Saban in a year that Saban's team won the national championship. Head to head Gus lost to Billy. Let that sink in.
I think that decision was made before the "super sophs" showed up (Reaves to Alvarez) to make that last season for Graves a good one. I guess those decision makers couldn't tell Dickey "Never mind" and keep Graves as coach.
Badger and Dike VERY good. Tank has some flash. Hanson and Boardingham developing. Burke available? Frazier had snaps last game. I love Mizell and Wilson but we’ve got other weapons,, including a loaded RB room and an experienced QB who shows up ready and a generational freshman QB that is progressing beautifully. If defense shows last week’s effort was movement in right direction and not an anomaly, we might fulfill Doering’s prophecy “this team is going to surprise some people”. We can beat Tennessee if we are at our best.
Well the "former UToothless coach" was also a former UF QB that had done something for UT that UF had never done. WIn a SEC championship. Did not turn out well though.
With due credit the SoCo I was drinking on Saturday for that one. I already blamed it for most of what I said that day, can't have it both ways.
