Let BN do his job...

I think our new President is going to be more engaged when it comes to our athletic program.

Hopefully, our days as an egghead school are numbered.

 

No reason why we cannot maintain our Top 5 public academic standing while bringing our football program back to prominence.

 

what could possibly give you the delusion that Billy will hire an OC or a QB Coach? all available evidence, including his own words, point to exactly the opposite conclusion

 

This is exactly what I am afraid of.

In many ways Billy seems like the complete opposite of Mullen. We all knew Mullen’s obtuse personality, lack of effort in recruiting, and blind loyalty to his friends were his downfall. We certainly got out-talented in several losses, but other than LSU in 2020 I don’t recall thinking Mullen’s Xs and Os were defficient. He knew his Football. Clock management was for the most part good, some personnel decisions like the use of Pierce were bad, but that may have just been blind trust in his friend Knox.

Mullen failed because of his personality, plain and simple.

So Billy comes in and sings a completely different song. What a breath of fresh air. When the losses started piling up and it is clear his Xs and Os are defficient, he becomes defensive.

Billy is a smart guy. He knows what the expectations are in this pressure cooker of a job. He knows losing to Vanderbilt is unacceptable. He knows that losses to all of our rivals doesn’t sit well with Gator fans. And to top it all off he says after SC “the culture is finally changing around here” only to lose the next 2 games. His tune has changed and he is becoming defensive. Our last 3 coaches became standoffish and defensive when they had rough seasons.

 

I'm a bit torn on the offense. Imagine a consistent QB hitting guys like Eugene Wilson and Aiden Mizell along with Pearsall. With an inconsistent QB and an injury plagued mediocre WR room we still managed to consistently put up points. The problem seems to be timing of playcalls more often than the playcalls themselves with the exception of those horrific screens we run. Add a RB option more to the passing game and I think our offense looks fairly balanced and tough to stop.

I'm not one to claim we lost games from talent discrepancies but a more even QB with some infusion of WR talent we are getting could make this a pretty good offense.

 

Bringing in a wholesale scheme change on offense was probably the single worst thing Foley did to the football program by bringing in muschamp and following it up with Mac. That along with the neglect of the facilities of course.

 

Foley fell into the trap of believing our brand was strong enough to keep us at the top.

Then, we stopped doing the work and spending the money and got passed by.

 

No doubt about that but as far as the offense goes it took 2 years to convert Meyer's offense into an efficient high powered offense. 07 through 09 had the system running as designed and then we uprooted the whole thing 2 years late and tried to revert to a Bama offense. Then Saban adapts and starts slinging the ball through the air and we were still trying to force an outdated scheme.

 

You do realize it's the UNIVERSITY of Florida right?

 

I think the real problem is that we obviously need both; and offense and a defense. We've had one or the other for more than a decade now because we keep swinging the pendulum back with each new hire to try to compensate for the previous coach's weak side. We hire Muschamp because we need a defense (and he sure did build one), but then hire McElwain because we need an offense. Mac did well at first because he still had remnants of Muschamp's defense... until that faded. Mullen comes and goes because he doesn't recruit, and we hire a guy that can. I really think Napier might be the right guy, but, we need to keep the outlook that we need the most whole and complete coach who can manage offense and defense and also be a diplomatic CEO and public affairs officer at the same time. I think Napier has the ability to grow into that complete coach, even if he's not quite there yet. I'm all in to show Napier some patience.

 

Yes, but cheaping out on our athletic program in the futile attempt to become the Yale of the South has put us in this position.

 

In all kinds of weather, all kinds…IT’S GREAT TO BE A FLORIDA GATOR.

Always and forever!

Recruiting has been great.
Adjustments will happen.
Have faith.

 

Nobody gets to the position of head coach without an abundance of self confidence.

So far it looks like Napier is an excellent recruiter. I think it most likely he will discount the deficient Xs and Os as due to lack of quality personnel, and will tell himself things will be different next year when he has better pieces on the chessboard. And, to some extent he will almost certainly be right.

My concern is that it could end up being just good enough to mask those deficiencies. Because if they remain an underlying issue then we could be looking at multiple years of people asking "why can't Napier win the big ones?"

But who knows? You also do not get that far up the ladder without an ability to learn and adapt.

Fact is, barring some black swan disaster, he is here for another three years minimum and we will all just have to watch and learn.

 

This is simply factually incorrect. Foley and the AAU erred in letting football facilities slide. Foley focused on supporting non-revenue sports way more than our sec brethren, and we have infinite all-sec titles. That is a legitimate place for disagreeing as to athletic focus. But those are uaa decisions, anlmost entirely unrelated to (different budgets) university academic spending.

The 50,000 students being smarter today, the $1billion in research dollars, and the $100M supercomputer impacts the 85 football players how? Would you tell donors/research Funders not to donate what they want/choose/have to support? And the fact that we hired bad coaches the last 3 times was not a major cause of our football failings?

Many of us are incredibly proud of UF’s enhanced academic status as it attracts the best and brightest to our state. Funny how if you want to be the best in football that is great but being the best academically causes concern (or is elitist).

It is a tired trope that academic success has harmed football and belies the real causes. By the way, the university of Michigan is ranked higher than UF, and they are doing ok…

 

As long as he builds a strong foundation by recruiting at the highest level, we'll be in
a much better place if the other aspects of his coaching don't progress.

Kind of like what Zook did for Meyer, which was a springboard to one national championship.

I think his ceiling is much higher than Zook though.

 

Bringing football program back to prominence is much easier said than done. Gators have had 10 head football coaches in the last 62 years and only two have had dominant programs. The odds are not in our favor.

 

Cannot agree more. I remember exactly where I was when I heard Zook got the position. I also remember saying to my wife that he was not going to work out. Never had that sense at the announcement for Napier.

 

After having a couple-few days to savor our loss to Florida State and reflect on our season, I'll serve up a few thoughts. None that haven't already been tossed out in the forum. And none the sports writer's haven't addressed...

• I love the head coach. Organizationally he is really putting things into place nicely.
• His recruiting acumen can't be ignored.
• It's too early to tell if any position coaches need to be jettisoned-or if our talent might really be the culprit despite all the pissing and moaning fans.
• I don't hate the idea of hiring a OC. For the most part- Napier is a decent play-caller. But it's the 'other parts' that concern me. Games are won and lost when you turn to passing when running is working. Sometimes coaches get cute and use reverse psychology to throw off the other teams. Usually, this throws off your own team, you lose valuable snaps and give the other team opportunities. A lot of coaches do this. It rarely works.
• Inconsistency plagued the team all year. From AR and from other players and coaches.
• Napier and his coaches need to do some things very differently.
• We have an amazing class coming in that will make a tremendous difference.
• Even with the current class we have on the field we gave away a few games that we should have won.That was hard to watch!
• A confluence of issues caused those losses. Multiple parties complicit.
• Musk lost a lot of rockets trying to create reusable boosters. Failure allowed him to refine his technology and learn, in no uncertain terms, what not to do again.
• Let's hope that same relative strateegery is used by Napier to make the necessary changes to increase the probability of next years success.
• It is the first year in a new complete overhaul. And LSU and other teams examples are not germain. We're depleted; fact. Still, much work to be done.
• I'll never forget Zook being asked some questions regarding his game strategy. "No, no that's how we do it here!" we all know what happened to him.

Just reflecting. Kids being paid, coaches salaries, the competition, etc...no one is immune from criticism, nor should they be. I am a very grateful Gator, but I would be remiss if I didn't share my two cents. Particularly while I'm not emotionally jacked up! Here's to our corch, staff, current players, the new recruits and portal kids future success!!

It's always great to-be a Florida Gator! And, the future looks very exciting.

Go Gators.