OGT-Florida vs. Vanderbilt Game 29 | Feb. 25, 2023 | 6 p.m. EST ESPN2 | ESPN App

Texas used to be good academically and athletically but not so much any more.

Virginia is a suberb academic institution that has had some stelllar basketball teams.

One can have very good academics and athletics at a state school.

I think that the main @wingtee complaint is that the academics at UF are orders of magnitude higher than they once were so reasonably smart kids of alumni can't get in. That pisses off now middle aged alumni and their kids that thought that they were shoo-ins at UF. I totally understand being pissed off about that but UF was tasked with becoming a top rated public university and they did it. There is collateral damage from doing that. The primary role of the Unversity is generating research dollars, oops, the primary role is education. Athletics is not the primary goal.

We all want athletic achievement. I enjoy it. I have season basketball and baseball tickets.

And we aren't filling up our undergrad classes with out of state students like UVa and Michigan.

I was going to say that UNC was a highly regarded academic institution that has had athletic success but with fake classes for athletes I no longer consider them academically elite.

 

Florida had good academics when Spurrier was at UF, and better academics when Meyer and Donovan were at UF. They didn't seem to have problems winning.

This "we are losing because we have good academics" narrative is complete nonsense.

We have just have a run of mediocre--to say the least-- coaches. That has nothing to do with academics. Great coaches win, wherever they go.

And I'm not saying Golden is a bad coach; it's his first year.

 

IIRC the last academic shlub to win the NCB championship was UNLV in the early 90s. We were top 15/10 when we won with the 04s. Great out of several thousand schools, but have now achieved higher

 

Academics are an excuse.

Top 20 academic public power 5 schools

1. Cal: we are better than
1. UCLA: they are slightly better than us
3. Michigan: they are way better right now
3. UVA: slightly better than us (MBB title)
5. Florida
5. UNC: better than us
10. Texas: about equal
10. Wisconsin: about equal
13. Illinois: we are better than
15. GT: much better than
16. OSU: destroys us
16. UGA: destroys us
18. Purdue: better right this moment
19. FSU: equal
19. Rutgers: we are better
19. Maryland: we are better
19. Minnesota: we are better

17 schools there

Tier 1: OSU and UGA
Tier 2: Michigan
Tier 3: UVA, UNC, UCLA
Tier 4: Florida, Wisconsin, Texas, Purdue, FSU
Tier 5: Maryland, Minnesota, Illinois
Tier 6: Cal, Rutgers, GT

4 of the 5 schools equal or ahead of us academically are also superior athletically

 

Spurrier was a huge success because he changed the way college football was played. Before him it was mostly option and veer offenses and he spread the field and threw the ball all over the place. That tore up defenses built to stop option/veer offenses. The only thing comparable was West Coast teams playing short pass "pro" offenses.

Donovan got in on the ground floor for incorporating the three point shot as a major offensive weapon. Pitino was the guy that really changed things in college basketball, but BD was right on his heels and his protege.

My point is that both of these coaches were on the leading edge of a sea change in their sports and that helped them a lot. Also both styles of play being very appealing to kids didn't hurt with recruitment.

Not taking anything away from them as coaches. They were great. But they also lucked out timing wise.

 

Take that @Claygator

 

Checking into whether your account has been hacked by the infamous:

 

All of my posts aren't negative. Just because you don't agree with the post doesn't mean it's negative.

 

I think the AD has to go now.

Get someone new in place so they can make the decision about who to hire next.

Stricklin has done a decade worth of damage in a few short years. He needs to go.