Is the 2023 Roster Still Better than What Billy Inherited?

My Gator brethren, sometime in the next 40 years and well within your lifetime, we will win a championship. Write it on the wall

 

IMO, I can't base what i think of CBN basis Chump, the Swamp Donkey, and Mullen (who checked out). This is a multi year rebuild in all facets and it may be more like a Dabo scenario (who didn't have on field success until year 4). I suspect that if he keeps upgrading the roster, building recruiting, and keep improving most of the metrics for success, will show on field improvement in year 3 going forward. Mullen came in with promise, but his refusal to elevate recruiting and his obvious 'want' to get out did him in. But better to talk about the future after year 2

 

Vilify is the wrong word,. They weren’t villains, they were failures. Nothing any of them have done since leaving UF suggests any differently.

 

Doubt I make forty more years

 

It's always going to be hard to know if you're just cycling through wrong coaches (Nebraska, Texas) or setting the expectations and cycling until you hit the right one (Bama post-Saban, LSU post-Miles).

I don't have an answer, but I think there's risk of becoming Nebraska if you're willing to ride with a guy who peaks at 10-wins when you were a former powerhouse. LSU dumped Miles despite being a top tier coach for this very reason.

Once fans start accepting 6-6 to 8-4 with an occasional 10+ win season, we start sliding back to pre-Spurrier days.

 

Bama and Georgia are recruiting talent like no team in history have done before, this true. But SOS had ton of hall of fame coaches and legit competition . There were at least ten teams it seems that had a shot at the title every year in the 90’s.

 

That's essentially where we've been for the last decade or so.

Hopefully, a ground up rebuilding will elevate the floor. It will take many years
of consistently top notch recruiting to challenge again, though.

 

After 3+ years. 10 wins needs to be attainable every year. 8-9 should be the floor and not happen often. If we are having 8 win seasons every other year, we either have the wrong coach or our recruiting isn’t being funded properly. Mullen definitely was not a hard worker on the recruiting trail but I also suspect he didn’t have the cash behind recruiting to entertain the top players. Sabans blast against A&M and dumbo got Bamas boosters to get the check books out. It doesn’t come down to dumbo or Saban rec prowess, they got the bags straightened out. I also think A&M has had enough of dumbo and the boosters have tightened up on him. Players leaving and not the same level of recruiting this year. They want dumbo gone.

 

Is it? In the last 10 years we've been in 1st 4 times and 2nd 3 more times and now it's "beyond unrealistic" to win the east again?

It's not a good sign if fan expectations have fallen that badly.

 

It takes 2-4 years for the majority of high school kids to contribute at the next level. So recruiting will take that long to make a difference. Maybe these portal guys can address our biggest weaknesses and make next year less painful.

 

That's probably what it feels like, but as I noted above we've had the best or second best record in the East 6 of the last 10 years. We've had 9+ wins (adjusting for 2020) the same amount.

 

Right, if you're recruiting elite then you should expect some wins on the margin in ~ 2 years.

Quick turnarounds happen in this league.

 

I agree with this. And I don't expect this kind of record should just "fall from the sky." I think it should be the result of resources going to get the best coaches available who work their tails off to win games. That's what happens at the top. The question is: do we want to be at the top again?

I can't speak for the rest of you, but I do.

I hope Napier is that guy. We can't keep doing this. But we also can't accept 6-win or worse seasons for 5 years. We'll only slip further behind.

Next year will be tough. I care less about the record next year than signs of positive progress.

 

Those times we backed in because there weren’t any good teams in the east have passed. Getting to the sec game is much harder the last few years and unless Kirby somehow disappears, beating them would mean we are most likely going to be at least playing Bama for the right to trash someone in the national championship. The two a decade ago were freebie trips where we got boat raced because we really didn’t have a worthy east representative. Making in now makes us pretty legit. We could consistently be a top five team for a decade and never even play in tge sec championship. We could get a rematch in the expanded playoff though.

 

Two years if your talking about next year is on that tiny sophomore class from last year. Too few to have much of an impact. It’s not happening next year. Our ceiling is being a big surprise and having a shot at Tennessee, LsU, and FSU. We might not be as good as the next four teams down our schedule. We may just not have the talent yet. I see this class being our first sign of life and it’ll be 2-4 years until we realize this classes value.

 

The East is harder, but UGA was pretty consistently good with Richt and we still managed to get in. I think looking at the landscape as insurmountable is the kind of defeatism that puts a program in a happy mediocre stasis.

UGA didn't accept Richt, who had consistent success but couldn't make it any farther. The turnaround took 2 years. Kelly took LSU from the same record (and a worse team) the last two years to a very formidable team in year one. It can happen. I know because it does happen.

 

Essentially, if we win the East, we are a Top 5 team or better.

That doesn't happen by magic or quickly either. Kirby is going nowhere, nor are his #1 recruiting classes.

 

I've consistently been talking about year 3 here. Next year is about growing as a team & program, year 3 is about wins.

If we don't demand that of our program then we're accepting being has-beens. I'm not ready to do that.

 

Who won the west last year? I don't think it was the team that out-recruited Georgia almost every year. Shouldn't that - at least according to your logic - not be possible?

 

LSU and Georgia always recruited better than us the last decade. Getting past Richt and getting by what Kirby has assembled is two vastly different things. The days of beating Georgia with Treon at qb are long gained. Trask and Pitts is necessary at this point unless we string together 4/5 top 1-5 classes in a row.