I am OK with our program (retrospective; long rant)

Your talking 30 players a year and that means we would need guys to hit the portal. With coved and the extra class still trying to hang around , you have a huge number. New coach on top of that along with an expected purge and here we are. Perfect storm. There’s only three guys this year that I wish had stayed and Hopper last year. I don’t care why they don’t want to be gators but don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya. Im with the 85 and Napier.

 

Like I said it varies based on current class size and typical attrition.
There are also ways to have players stay that don’t count on scholarship roster limits. Bama has been a master at this I would think Napier knows how to play that game.

Curious which 3 this year?

 

Bama has been kicking out the back door and getting new ones for decades.

 

I know White, Tarquin, and Johnson from this year. Any others? I would have liked to keep White.

I don’t remember all of last years exits. I know Diabate, Hopper, Mincey, Gamble. I don’t remember if all of them started for us, but I know they all played, and all started at other schools this year. I would have really liked to keep Hopper and Mincey. Any you would have liked to keep? Any idea who you would have removed from the incoming class to trade them for?

I’m certainly not pushing the narrative that they were all bad seeds or didn’t like the Napier standard. I don’t think that was necessarily directed towards me specifically, but wanted to be clear on that just in case.

I’m with you on numbers. 30ish is where I’d like to see us. You probably knew where I was headed with that question. It was to try to take some of the sting out of the big number of transfers that everyone is so concerned about. In order to sign those 30ish players this year, we needed 20ish to leave via the portal. We only had 10ish leaving due to exhausting their eligibility or declaring early for the draft. Unfortunately we don’t get to pick exactly who stays and goes. It’s a ton of tough conversations. Some are being told they won’t really have a future here. Some have their minds made up that they’re leaving no matter what anyone says. We’re going to lose some we wanted to keep, and some that may have wanted to stay are going to kind of have to leave anyway. It’s just part of it. I don’t get too wrapped up on any individual and just hope we can fill all the spots up with someone who will make an equal or greater impact in the future. That isn’t always going to happen either though. Again, it’s just part of it.

 

Like wanne said, bama has been cutting deadweight from their rosters like it’s nothing for a long time. Before transferring was made so easy, they were known for putting kids on hardship schollys. Removes them from their rosters, but lets them keep their scholly. They send their fair share to the portal now, and don’t have to do that as much anymore. They lose one every now and then they’d like to keep too.

I’m not sure what you mean about getting players to stay but not count. Grey shirts? That’s not really as common as it’s made out to be, and couldn’t be used for the transfers we’re talking about. If you’re talking about something else, please explain. I’m intrigued.

 

We could pwo kids with cash now if we really wanted them. 105 is that number I think. We’ve had a handful take that route lately.

 

Certainly possibly, but rather difficult to arrange, I’d imagine. Any examples of this happening?

 

We’ve had a handful of pwo’s this year. I think financials are private information though.

 

He’s talking about ways to keep our transfers from leaving. I think that would be hard to arrange.

You think we’re giving our pwo’s full benefits?

 

I was referring to keeping over 85 if we had more coming in and needed the extra roster spots.

 

I guess that’s kinda the same and possibly what he meant too.

The problem with that is there are a lot of restrictions on pwo’s. Like official visits, coaching visits, etc. I think it would be difficult to lure the kind of kids we need without being able to put on the same show other schools will put on for them and get them to agree to go the pwo route. We are already getting some of the lower ranked players to take pwo’s, but don’t think that’s a sustainable model to try to bring in top talent and work around scholly numbers.

 

Not as the preferred method recruiting but some know where they what to go and don’t have to date for months.

 

No doubt. It’s plausible. Set it up! Lol

 

@ETGator They're at it again

 

The rest of your post was great. You might also be correct here, but how on Earth can you make any such predictions, not knowing much about our own team, let alone our opponents? 6 - 6 as a best case? Again, maybe that will come true, but I don't understand how one could reach such a conclusion with countless moving parts.

 

Thanks. I've also thanked @gatorpower and @paidinfull for their excellent discussion while deleting the last 2 posts. Any more back-and-forth will result in a thread ban. C'mon guys . . . why not just agree to disagree and move on? Thanks!

 

They’re at it again…….hilarious

 

You lied, you know you lied. I didn’t, and I know I didn’t.

Now I don’t care who you are, that’s funny!

 

I can tell you - the discipline and accountability is at an extreme level over there. And the attitude problems were at an all time high. I’m not going to get into detail but I was around the players in the off-season and 2 out of the 40 that were involved were accountable and pleasant. There was a ton of bad attitudes and i thought then “there’s no way this flies with Billy”. The lack of buy in off the field HAD to play a part in - alignment, technique and assignments on the field. And Billy is not a guy who is going to mask issues with scheme or quick fixes. Now, you can argue whether he should have/ should he have masked issues on offense by running 5 wide and having a quick game? Should he have schemed up better calls to take advantage of what AR did well? Idk? It’s debatable. Clearly AR didn’t even really want to do what he did well/ so if you call more read option and he doesn’t keep it to protect himself for NFL, what do you do? If you install a quick pass game and he throws 100mph fastballs off Shorters face, what do you do? I think Billy has a plan for winning here 3-5 years from now that allows us to compete at a high level for decades and part of that plan is getting rid of anyone that’s not 100% bought in, taking kids that want to be here rather than pay kids … and then when he has his foundation in place- maybe they do play the NIL game for high level kids or take fliers on some kids because that won’t ruin the culture or locker room. I think it’s a better long term plan than the quick fix Miami and A&M route. So I’m not alarmed at lack of urgency in the portal or sone whiffs on 5 star kids. There’s no reason to pay a bunch of money when we are not competing for titles this year anyway. So I’m fine with these kids leaving and taking our lumps.
Having said that- . I’m concerned with/ How does Billy convince kids here to buy in, and convince kids to come in 24-25 if we’ve had 2 straight losing seasons? If I’m a 18 year old 5 star/ do I want to come play in a pistol offense and sone heavy defense in a rebuild for a guy who has just gone 6-7 back to back with the promise of competing for titles in 24-25? It’s a hard sell when Brian Kelly, Heupel, TCU, Georgia, Michigan, etc are already winning. It’s a tough spot for Billy to be in. His plan of patience and discipline may never get a chance to play out because of perception that we are heading in the wrong direction. Gator fans can understand on deeper levels what is at play. We can fault Billy for game management, we can fault Toney for being a young DC BUT we can objectively Understand the talent gap, AR defencies etc. But the national narrative is gonna be “Billy is a D+ hire who hadn’t gotten it done while his counterpart at LSU in year 2 and Heupel on Year 3 ARE getting it done”. That’s what the overall narrative will be and he’ll have to overcome that on the recruiting trail.

 

The quarterback is the most important position on the team and, yes, it's way too early, but, next year doesn't look good. Mertz or Miller appear to be the starting quarterback, and they are average. Nevertheless, the quarterback and OL are relatively new to each other. The defense has a lot of question marks, too. I look at the opposing team and ask who has the better team, better quarterback, and better defense. Most of our opponents next fall are better. Granted, things could change between now and then, and I certainly hope so. However, realistically at the moment, I am not super-excited about our chances to have a great record. Look at the schedule next year and tell me which games we will win.