The last time that I checked the game of football has 4 quarters. The 4th quarter was not in UF's favor. Also, the LSU defense is far from the top tier SEC defense. LSU defeated the Gators on big plays. Go look at the stats. UF won the battle of time of possession. However LSU won the battle of: Points on the scoreboard, 3rd down conversions (actually they had less third and fourth downs than UF), total yards rushing, total yards passing, yards per plays, 1 punt per UF's 4 punts. Please note that 3rd quarter lead was against a bottom tier SEC defense and DIV 1 defense.
There is no mental help for the few here that want an instant fix to our football program. Yes, the auto-crap strikes again.
The glass half empty or full is the same glass right so it’s not being a realist, it’s just perspective.. next year they will be a year older is all we can hope for.
If you are gonna use an asterisk then include on for the gator offense having to shoulder the load of a defense ranked worse than LSU making the accomplishment of leading at all an achievement albeit a small one
Also don’t discount the fact that if we are assembling a crew of proud competitive players they will leverage the experience of this season. Exacting some retribution in the future when they are better developed physically
Verbal commits are just that, non-binding. I don’t get too carried away by rankings, but I do see a positive trend in us competing against the current powers of college football for these athletes. Not too long ago, we were very happy to steal guys from the likes of Louisville and Michigan State. Let’s wait until ESD before we go full on with the sky is falling bit.
I agree that football is a team sport. It is not just the offense and defense that has to carry their share. The special teams and the substitutes have to carry their share too. We also have to include the coaches. They need to do a better job on sending the right players onto the field at the right time (to many illegal substitution penalties) and dialing up the right plays (offense and defense). Of course the coaches can only call the plays that their players are able to execute.
The frustrating thing is that we had that great goal line stand and the sack on the other 4th down play. Just don't know what to say. If we don't wrap up on Travis, FSU is gonna be a long game. Oh and here's a hint...he's gonna throw to the tall kid at WR.
They didn’t gash us between the tackles, we were just unable to contain the qb when he dropped back. Way to slow up front and gave him lanes.
It’s the same glass getting passed around. You are correct it’s just the perspective with which you see it. I see concern when I look at the glass is all
Of course stars don't matter. Tell that to Bama and Ga. I think all those 4 and 5 stars are doing pretty good.
Who says stars don’t matter? I think most of us trust Napier’s evaluations at this time based on what we are seeing with guys he’s brought in regardless of stars or accolades (Mertz, Johnson, Pearsall, O’Cyrus, etc.).
You hit the nail on the head. Like the old saying says, you can’t make a silk purse out of the sows ear. We just don’t have the talented players on this team right now. All the coaching in the world can’t fix that. Billy’s got to raid the portal with a vengeance to turn this thing around.
He likely has to get the administration to approve raiding the portal as well as aggressively pursuing NIL in addition to developing the PWO program. Lots of work to do as alumni with persuading the administration to get their heads out of the sand.
It is not clear how much of this thread is sarcastic but I will throw in my two cents. 1. The "not having the horses" argument makes some sense when you view the team through the lens of competing for an SEC East title (for example). Clearly we are not there yet. However, I find it very difficult to believe we do not have the horses to be a .500 team. We almost certainly lose the next two games and end this season 5-7 with last year regular season (6-6). So we will be 11-13 with our only decent SEC win against an overvalued UT team. Just shooting from the hip you are saying we don't have the horses to rank higher than 73rd in total defense? Buffalo (not that one the college one) has more horses than us I guess. As does Wake and Michigan State obviously. 101st in 3rd down conversion? 45th in total offense, 51st in scoring offense? Too few horses to keep LSU from putting 700 yards of offense on us? So pitiful in terms of talent and depth that Oregon State just dominates us in our bowl game and we beat Charlotte by a mere fifteen? I do not believe it. There is ample evidence to suggest that this team, while lacking talent, is playing well under their potential and that is the issue with the cowboys and not the horses. It is the coaching and leadership. 2. Personal feelings aside I believe CBN has a roughly 52M contract over seven years. He also gets 85% of this if he is fired without cause (and being a bad coach doesn't count - he would have to do something scandalous to be fired for cause). So, if we prorate the contract now we will have paid him roughly 15M after the end of this year leaving 37M over the next five years. We would have to pay him almost 32M to simply go away. No idea if he gets that as a lump sum or not but either way we would owe 32M plus whatever we need to sign someone new. This assumes we even have someone to hire which we currently do not. Thus, it seems very obvious that as of now the best move of all the bad moves we have is to ride it out and hope he gets it together. 3. We eventually have to start looking at who is hiring these guys though. I do not follow it closely enough to know if it is the same AD over the years but if I recall the coaches it was Mullen, McElwain, and Muschamp in the post Urban era. Not a good run. Anyway, my uneducated opinion is that the real issue is CBN and staff. Of course we are not national champ material but we are wildly underperforming every week. It is inconsistent from every unit, big plays against us are rampant, tons of special teams errors, and generally bad stats up and down the board. I feel we have no choice to give him a year three but I'm not optimistic given how far off we seem to be.
