Florida Transfer Portal 2022 & NFL Declared (Live List Post #3)

Boselli tampered....Tarquin dates his daughter

 

No kidding. Wow.

 

I’ve repeated this so many times that I finally just gave up. Some just have trouble connecting the dots.

 

What's interesting is that each and every time over the years when we've heard Negative Nellies...it's always the same thing:
They're moan and gripe about the state of Florida Football... their negativity is over the top.
(They come back and say that they're just being realists.)
However when it comes out in time that their terrible crevasses of doom and gloom doesn't happen... then they slink away....NEVER stepping up to take credit for their negativity.
And then we hear,
"I thought this was a discusion board where we can have an open dialogue?"
Crickets....

 

To be fair we’ve been awful for two years and basically been a dead program for over a decade. Hard to say it hasn’t materialized

 

Agree 100%. And it is how we’ve lost and who we’ve lost to. UCF dominated us and ORegon State demolished us. That says something and leaves a very sour taste in mouth. No one cares if we were missing 3 starters. We have much more talent than teams beating us. I got it w Dan at the end but never thought I’d see the performance we saw against OSU. Not with Billy leading our program.

 

12-14 the last two years. I’ll gladly eat my words. Even though we haven’t replaced several guys that left to go into the portal and we still are missing at least one wide receiver from the portal I believe we can win seven or eight next year with that schedule. Have to beat Vandy and one rival.

 

For me it was the play versus USF and Vandy last year. USF fired their coach during the season. Their offense dominated our D. We were fortunate to win that game. Vandy spanked us Two you have to win each year. no excuses

 

And when negative things do happen the Sunshine pumpers eventually come slinking back making sure to let everyone know that they "predicted" the bad thing that actually did happen. I would have to say that these type of posts reached their zenith during the Muschamp era and slowly dwindled to a drip when it became painfully obvious that he wasn't a good coach and was going to get fired.

 

this goes both ways tbh.

 

Bobby.... very true...
But one has to be convinced that opposing schools and coaches all use this to show to perspective recruits how the Gators like to eat their young.
Right now...what is more convincing... FSU's board or ours?
I don't mind being a realist... but I can't stand hanging around a negative person.

 

Agreed with this. I'll tell you one thing, I was one of THEE biggest, if not THEE biggest, one in this sub forum that was on Mullen's head about his recruiting and coaching staff following the 2019 year and that approach I took has made me more mellowed out and patient with CBN. I can't complain about Mullen's recruiting and then be on CBN's head for his first year result on the field. It's going to take time and unless we absolutely bottom out this year with 3 or less wins, he's not going anywhere so i'm on board with him and I believe he will get it turned around. It's really not THAT hard what he has to do, he just needs time because he's trying to do it:

1. improve roster culture
2. recruit better fits and recruit better overall
3. improve the internal infostructure

He had/has to tear it down and build it back up and that's what he's doing.

 

Very good points.

You could see what he was doing through the year. He gave a realistic opportunity to veterans to prove their worth and keep the locker room early Then he showed a real meritocracy, and he gave much more opportunity to freshmen to show their worth. Then at the end of the season he gave his exit interviews to let them know if they could get UF where it needs to go. Unsurprisingly he showed this was going to be a complete roster flip and that takes time. A solid first year of recruiting quality players did not surprise me. How his whole first year of recruits held together did surprise me. That shows buy in. I don't expect a meteoric rise, but I expect improved play from veterans and first years that will build a foundation. I choose to be patient because I have seen what building something without a strong base gets you from the past three coaches, and it flames out too quickly.

 

Exactly how I see it. You saw he was strategic with who he brought over in the portal and everyone outside of Waites and Jack Miller (who weren't brought in to be immediate starters) ended up starting and contributed in a huge way. His top 5 rated recruits from the 2022 class all played and contributed positively and then you had Caleb Douglas and Miguel Mitchell getting starts and experience as well. Basically everyone he and his staff brought in via HS and the portal all did exactly what you hoped for them to do as far as contributions. The HS recruits who didn't play this year are ALL guys you didn't expect year 1 contributions from and that shows EXCELLENT evaluations from the staff.

The point you mentioned too about how he treated the current players depth chart wise this past season was so underrated too. You could see from the Utah game that NW5 was not RB1 but he let it play out until it was unavoidable and rightfully demoted him to RB3. Same with getting Big Dez and McClellon more snaps later in the season. Little things like that.

If we can land Damieon George out the portal, I honestly won't have ANY worries about the starters along the OL as you return basically 4 starters in Barber, Kingsley, George, Leonard, and the Baylor transfer. I think defensively on experience alone the D will be better in 2023 and they have an influx of freshmen who will be solid at the very least.

I can see this being a 6-8 win squad this upcoming season if Mertz is solid, but I wouldn't be surprised if we take huge lumps this year and win 4-6 games. I'll wait until post spring and when that transfer portal window to close after kids move around after the spring game to really get a feeling of how 2023 could go.

He just needs time and I hope he gets it

 

Solid assessment.

I do think most are prematurely dismissing Mertz. He was getting hammered behind that OL and has really good touch on his throws. I don’t think this is Austin Appleby 2.0, as some have suggested.

 

i didn’t realize George was on an official to UF this weekend. Nor did I know he played in 12 games two years ago. I am now a fan.

 

This is one of the most sensible posts I’ve ever read on these boards.

 

and Mullen deserved every bit of it....What was Stricklin thinking bringing him in....In retrospect, AD SS had no clue how to run an athletic program at the scale of UF.

 

a few of us have been saying it for some years now, go call Mark Pantoni at OSU, and make him an offer he can’t refuse to come back to his alma mater to be the AD at UF