For all you naysayers, who berated our coaching staff most of the year:

Yes, especially given we dropped 5 of 5 backside of schedule past two seasons. Much better optics for us.

 

You're not a real Gator unless you virtue signal

 

That crappy start with the meat of the schedule coming up, no wonder the knives were out. He coached himself out of a firing. I'd rather he get things going than to have to start all over yet AGAIN.

 

Besides the trolls who are allowed to bash at will

 

You use the best recruiting team over the last 5 years as our standard? The Team that has won 2 of the last 3 national titles?
And I will add that even with all that #1 recruiting they were lucky just to sneak into the SECCG this season because they are not unbeatable, and had some bad games like getting blown out by Ole miss.

Luckily another recruiting juggernaut, Alabama had worse games losing to Vandy, OK. And Tenn.

One Can only put so much into recruiting rankings when you start talking about the difference between the top 10 classes.
Even more so considering this next seasons success will usually be determined by a teams previous 2 or 3 classes and how they've come together as a unit.
Rarely will a seasons success be determined solely on a incoming true freshman class, of course there will be catalyst like DJ who can certainly contribute heavily but he's not doing it alone.

As far as the depth at QB you mentioned, UGA has depth at QB (for now) but not WR. Yet they are still an outlier, texas has a True Freshman as their third string who is from Texas, has 11 offers, 8 from Texas schools,
Rice
Uconn
Stephen F Austin
University of Texas San Antonio
Texas tech
Houston
Baylor
Wazzou
Tulsa

If UT lost Ewers and Manning right before they played two of the best teams over all and defensively in the nation back to back, how do you think he would have fared?

Ole miss just gave more examples to recruits of why having 3 aspiring starting QBs on the roster isn't beneficial to the QB's with the portal and transfer rules these days. Former 5 star Howard is transferring again since Simmons reclassified up a class and took his spot. I'd imagine Jaden Rashada will be transferring again as well.

Its just hard to go 3 deep these days with both experience and skill, seems like now you can either have avg talent but experienced depth or skilled but inexperienced freshman.

 

Meh. There aren’t that many.

 

I’m a bigger fan than you are.

 

Well said, antny. I think there a lot of us Gators faithful who feel the same way. I know I do. I’m very encouraged right now but it’s guarded.

 

I just looked at it as NO ONE expected us to lose 3 games or less hell, losing only 4 games was a stretch, and MANY looked at 5 losses as a success vs. This schedule. So , to me, I seen no reason to start to worry until we dropped below what many thought to be a failed season. We weren't there yet, and even then the teams we lost to were all ranked top 10 at one point in the CFP rankings with exception of A&M who was still top 25 and one win from playing in the SECCG. Aside from UM and A&M, I felt we could have won those games as underdogs had we been mostly healthy.

Its No small feat Playing UGA and UT with a healthy team let alone one that is down to its 3rd stringers at key spots. And after watching LSU and Ole Miss uneven play this season i thought we could take those games being in the swamp.

 

I like Napier, I've always said he seems like a good man, father and mentor to these young men. I like where we are right now... I like Napier.

 

I agree but what if that 1 player who ranked 1-30 was a QB who is coming in to sit behind the starter for 2 years (ie: like a arch Manning, or Ty Simpson at bama who was a 5 star #26 but hasn't played since he signed for the 22 class and fans already calling for the Washington transfer to play. How did their top #30 rank improve that Classes' impact on the following season or 2 if they never play until year 3 or if at all till they portal out. In that case shouldn't the trajectory and success of a team be evaluated after 3 or 4 seasons? Especially if those elite players are sitting behind others at first? That's often how i look at it.

 

With the exception of a few years (receiving Corp in 2022...yikes) we have had skill players that could compete with the best. We have generally been stacked at RB, WR, CB and Occasionally had a QB like Trask that was elite.

There is a lot more nuance than just absolute records.

Also, there were several so daunted by the schedule that it incited a heated debate that 6 and 6 might be acceptable while others said no more than 3 to 4 losses. For the record my take was that 2 to 4 losses should have been within reasonable expectation if in fact we had improved. We had a returning qb for the first time in years, improved skill position players and an offensive line and defense the coach raved about. Schedule is never going to be easy and at some point you have to win your games. I always throw in the injury caveat and while I don't think we should be expected to have a stud at 3rd string qb, one would hope we have one that could throw a forward pass. That said, I don't blame coach for our horrid injury luck at all.

 

Actually I pointed out that five of 6 sec schools were at least one full point in front of us, I said those two were the more extreme examples.
And over time, in the vast majority of cases, recruiting rankings win out. Every time we under recruit we hear how it’s overrated or we are closer to our rivals than it seems, and we inevitably end up canning that coach because he doesn’t win enough. There are certainly exceptions nationally in performance, like Washington last year (who had 21 starting seniors), and the other way like A$M doing jack squat with one of the best classes ever, but there’s a
strong correlation between recruiting and wins. We didn’t recruit badly this cycle at all, it’s how those we are competing with recruited that makes it a tall climb. And side note, late years class actually had the average ranking per recruit we need, which is why they all look so good comparatively, but that needs to happen every year. Once every few years isn’t enough to win titles.
But I’ve made my point, folks are free to disagree. On to other things.

 

I feel like we have had plenty of starting talent at times...2018-2020 as well as 2024 but we don't have the depth of talent that the top sex schools have. I've mentioned before but we had to play Dexter a ridiculous amount of snaps for example. When greenard got hurt there was a decisive shift in the defensive performance. Same with Reese and same with ventrell Miller. We shouldn't tank when we lose one or two players. To be fair, this year we lost a crap ton and got better somehow.

 

You probably also never referred to him as "Basement Billy" or "Sunbelt Billy," as did so many of our loyal "fans."

 

Did we get a backup QB? Maybe it's better to get a more experienced player from the portal.

 

I get where you're coming from your not wrong bit it's not the absolute path to success any more.

To be clear , recruiting is the most important aspect to success, I just question differentiating between top 10 classes as it gets a little murky considering all the different ways that class got its rank. Like I said. Was it because of a top rated QB who doesn't play for 2 years or until he portals out or was it because of a top WR, Like a J. Smith who makes a huge impact day 1? I can't look at those two situations as the same.

Our per player avg goes down because we signed the best longsnapper, kicker and punter out there, yet I would bet that trio will win more games for us than most of the players signed in the class. And if you gonoff of score, that trio is never heavily weighted on the score. And if you take that trio out we have 20 commits, 3 less than any team in the 247 top 10 aside from Oregons 21 (they had a hell of a class).

If we had filled those 3 schollys with 4 star depth pieces we would inch up those rankings more but that doesn't help us as much as those 3 special teams players will.

And now with the 12 team playoff, you know how many teams ranked above us? 5 teams.

Oregon
Texas
UGA
OSU
Tenn

That means we ranked higher in recruiting in more than half the teams competing including ND, Clemson, penn state,Indiana, SMU, ASU and Boise state. etc. And not far off some ahead of us like Tenn.

I think i probably am overly optimistic too much but I don't set expectations so disappointment never comes back to bite me in the ass. I've learned to just enjoy this game as it is... a game.

 

Respectfully disagree with this. I think the wins against LSU/MS were very much about who we competed against. Heck, many on here were salivating over the coach the Billy's team beat. I don't believe next season's success is all predicated on DJ. The improvement along both lines of scrimmage was a huge factor in the Gators turning things around this season.