God bless Pell, but.... ...he 'recruited' most of those players according to the cheat'n ways of Bear Bryant, and several other BB disciples, though without the Suth'n mafioso cover that those corrupt AF institutions seemed to enjoy (Hence Clemson and UF both got kicked in the nuts, while Bammer, UGA, et. al., continued their skank practices with impuity). Again, all of this adds to Spurrier's mythology--under the strictest of scrutiny, in the the still corrupt AF environment, SOS dominated, without having to go all NIL before NIL was legal. ....just say'n.....
We are lagging somewhat in the NIL area and not knocking it out of the park in the transfer portal(so far). But let’s not forget that the state has lagged in HS coaching(and teacher pay in general) for a long time. HS football factories in Ga. and Al. are much more sophisticated even at the younger ages. A promising athlete in Florida may even move out of state or at least go to IMG(etc.) to better prepare for the college game. Would help explain some of the recent troubles. Sad state of pay: Florida high school coaches earn little compared to others
The effects of probation really started to hurt us in the 86 season. We had no depth and when the injuries hit, our season went south. We still finished 6-5 and beat Auburn and Georgia back to back (only SEC wins that year, btw). We also struggled in 88 and 89. I think the probation ended prior to 89 and Galen was able to have a full class. That class is the one that Spurrier gives credit it for his fast start in 1990 and 1991. Looking back, Georgia really didn't benefit from our probation. I think they were going through a transition from the Dooley to Goff era. scUM was already winning National Championships. The program that benefited the most from our probation was Florida State. We had a 6 year streak against them that ended in 86. Their great classes began around then and propelled them to a huge run in the 90's and beyond.
It’s real but if kids leave for hs, I’d be surprised. We just need to make UF an equally inviting place to play college football. It’s not the geographical location drawing kids to the top schools.
One interesting event the young probably don’t know. In about 1993 and 1994, the Stadium in Jacksonville was going through a lot of reconstruction progress. So, doing those 2 years Florida-Georgia game was played in Gainesville and then Athens. Gators scored more than 50 points in each game under Coach Spurrier. After the game was over in Athens, some media guys were asking Spurrier how he felt about winning the game by over 50 points. And Spurrier gave a typical Spurrier response, “Well, we heard no one has ever scored more than 50 points against Georgia up here before and we wanted to be the first one to do that.” .
I think it was the huge class of 1987 that Emmitt was in that really kickstarted Spurrier's success. A lot of those guys red-shirted and were upperclassmen in 1990 and 91. I think that was the first year that we were able to sign a full class again after the probation years of '85 and '86. Then the rumors and reports of a new investigation of the program in the late '80's began making it tough for the coaches to sign quality players. After all who wanted to sign with a team that was either not going to get to play in a bowl, on TV or possibly be handed the death penalty....the NCAA back then actually posed a real threat and the recruits knew it. The classes of 1989 and 1990 weren't very high quality, which I think is why Spurrier told those that hired him that the 1992 year could be a year where the team struggled a bit.
I like this post but it was Tennessee who initiated the effort to strip us of our first SEC Championship in 84. And it was LSU who benefited most from it (and voted against us, including Ga, Ky, Vandy, Ole Miss, and of course Tennessee). Our only allies in the vote were Bama, Auburn, and MSU.
Good post, but Kirby is NOT “the equivalent “ of SOS. Spurrier was a hero as our QB, winning UF’s first Heisman and then donating it to his alma mater. Kirby played for UGa but that’s it. If it was Herschel Walker coaching Ga right now, then that would be “the equivalent” of SOS.
Of course they were convinced we would never win the title on the field, so they waited until after the season to "vacate" the title, after we had won it. Dick move.
FTR, Pell was in his first year as HC in 1979 - Dickey was canned after the '78 season after having driven the program into an abyss. Incidentally, the turn-around in 1980 was the biggest single season improvement in total number of wins (from 0 to 8) in the history of CFB to that point in time. The rest of your post is spot on.
We played FSU, OSU, and Oklahoma to win our NCs. UGA gets to play TCU which would win four games a year in the SEC. This is just their time to get blessings in football. Hopefully ours will come again in our lifetimes.
I expected Michigan to steamroll TCU last weekend, so you never know. I also recall a Sugar Bowl back in 1992 when #3 ranked 10-1 Florida was matched up against #18 ranked 9-3 Notre Dame. We were all pissed that we got such a shitty matchup . . . . . . . . #3 against #18?. . . . . . So, you never know
Yep, Kirby is not even close in terms of accomplishments for uga as SOS was for UF. That said, he has the same mindset vs us as SOS had for uga. He wants to beat us often and as badly as he can.
