Post-Game Discussion: FLORIDA at Kentucky

Tackling was sad. It’s like after James took that hit from Davis, they didn’t want to experience contact. I’ve seen this too often from gator teams. Kentucky, otoh, was blowing us up over and over again. Unfortunately I don’t think physicality can be corrected mid season. That’s more of an off season thing.

 

I thought he was just being silly so I was being silly because I am silly and I find poor grammar and spelling to be humorous.
I think GatorDavis posts are well written, cerebral, and raise good points; in fact, his posts are among the best composed I’ve seen on this forum. Ino way was I making fun of that post.

 

I don't think it's the loss that bothers most as we mostly expected a ceiling of 7-5 type season but how we lost. In year two you expect to see some improvement even with the youth, you don't exepect to see a team come out and get abused and not look ready to play.

Just my $.02

 

I didn’t feel they were afraid of contact. What I saw was guys over pursuing and running themselves out of the play leaving for one on one situations where our one couldn’t make the tackle.

 

And next we are coming for their Academic Ranking!

 

Yeah, just finished watching Shane’s video. It was interesting to hear Shane mention a lot of good passing over the summer and he thinks UF should be pass first and thinks Mertz and the receivers are good enough for it. He also thinks UF is going to mid-pack for the foreseeable future (which I agree). Edgar was hot.

 

...

 

Back on the misery index: ouch
"That’s a problem for Florida, and specifically for coach Billy Napier, who fell to 0-2 against the Wildcats after a 33-14 loss in Lexington,” Wolken wrote. “You can’t normalize this if you’re the Gators, but the reality is Kentucky has won 4 of the last 6 meetings in this series. That means Kentucky, for now, is just a better program than Florida.”

 

One thing mentioned in these videos is that Billy tried to “out-Kentucky Kentucky” and it failed misserably. In other words he tried to match phisicality with a more physical team. We can all gripe and moan about the fact that Kentucky has surpassed Florida in physicality but we have three, potentially four failed football hires to thank for that.

How is that relevant? It seems to me Billy is so focused on “the process” and doing things in such a specific way that it blinds him to a lot of others. His playcalling reflects this. But also he cannot adjust anything to either fit our current talent or to fit a certain oponent in order to create matchups in our favor. We saw Urban adjust to Chris Leak and have success. Why can’t Billy adjust to our talent?

I know some diehards will repeat Billy’s words and say “we must not deviate from the process” but that is just words. What is the process? If the process is to have nothing but 5 stars in the trenches otherwise we can’t win, but we can’t get those players unless we start winning, we are never gonna make any progress. If that is Billy’s ultimate goal he is going to have to find other ways to win. Zook, Champ, and McYellowHorseTeeth were stubborn. They did not want to see what was wrong. Billy I believe to be inflexible. I believe he knows what our areas of defficiency are but he says big deal, sticking with the process.

 

I think Shannon was saying Kingsley’s ankle is like 60%, but still the best option.

That sucks for Kingsley and OR recruiting and portal work.

 

17 pts? Is this over two games?

 

This is a thoughtful, well-tempered post, and worthy of discussion.

This all depends on what your idea of a "bad season" is? Is it 2-10, like a Vandy bad season, or is it simply a losing record? I say "simply" in context, of course, because since 2010, teams with such a W/L record occasionally have losing seasons, particularly when there are question marks at several key positions. One can be emotionally invested in the Gators without being overoptimistic. As General Colin Powell said, "Hope is neither an expectation nor a planning factor."

This, of course, is spot on, and existed for as long as I have been a Gator, and probably far longer. You may say they are EXTREMELY invested emotionally in the Gators, and anything less than SOS/Meyer at their best is considered a dismal failure.

Well, seeing Georgia and FSU, our biggest rivals, succeed while we wallow around in mediocrity is certainly frustrating, just as it was frustrating for the Noles for several years after Aging Bobby years, and the Dawgs during the Goff years, particularly when we were winning big. As for Kentucky, however, we cannot look at the name of a team and saying "It is a disgrace to lose to _____" when that team has a good year. Last year and 2018, the 'Cats were no worse than we were. In 2021, they were a 10-win team while we finished with a losing record. This year, they may win 8-10 games, while we may finish with a losing record.

Put another way, from the 20s through the 50s, Alabama was a national powerhouse, but from 1955 through 1957, the "Mighty Tide" was 4-24-2 under "Ears" Whitworth, among the worst football teams that ever played major college football. In 1958, teams that lost to Alabama during their 5-4-1 season under Coach Bryant probably said, "My Gawd, how could have we lost to a bottom feeder like Alabama?" By 1960, they weren't squawking much anymore - and neither were the fans -- until after Bryant died, and those Paul Bunyon shoes were filled by a succession of coaches like Perkins and Curry, who did well for most football teams, but were "awful" for Bama fans who grew up dominating with Bryant. Zook was treated very badly by many in the Gator Nation, but he never had a brick thrown through his window, as Curry did in 1988, a year he finished 9-3.

But great post!

 

Someone asked me this today, I was at a loss to come up with an answer other than to say NO, never thought I would ever see that. I was left smh..

“Forget about the 3 losses in a row now to UK, did you ever think you would see a Florida team (football) that was not even competitive, in a game against Kentucky??”

 

It was always a possibility that moribund Kentucky could improve.

Kentucky certainly improved as a program. But they didn’t improve past the Gator teams of old. They are still a middle of the road SEC program.

UF plummeted to the bottom of the conference. This isn’t Napier’s fault, but he is doing little to address or improve this. We have not improved from last season as a whole. Some areas better, some worse, but the overall product looks the same as the Kentucky game last season.

 

Spurrier changed it all.

 

Absolutely...I remember laughing my ass off at how bad Burrow looked in September and thinking I would be so happy when we light up LSU cause their QB sucks (note: I cant stand LSU). The guy was sub 55% and the team couldn't get out of its own way. Then the change to spread/read option and the freaking light went on for that whole team. Hats off to coach O for not being afraid to rip the bandaid off early season and do a 180 from normal LSU ground and pound. Not sure what our team could do but running it up the middle the first two plays for 3 yards and then a receiver screen behind the line doesn't instill fear in the opposing defense. I just hope he doesn't want to continue this archaic philosophy in a new offensive coordinator...if he does I guess he could bring in Doug Nussmeyer to run that series over and over. We need innovation and some time to implement that new system before bring in a fine well oiled Ferrari like Lagway.

 

Throw out the COVID year and Harbaugh has never won less than 8 games at Michigan. His teams would consistently lose to Ohio State, struggle against Michigan State (but still beat them on occasion), and would lose to one of Penn State, Iowa, or Wisconsin in any given year. Michigan was 5-7 in Hoke's last year. Harbaugh had them at 10-3 the next year and 10-3 the year after that. The last two years have been exceptional for Michigan but what rebuild?

I'm not saying we shouldn't be patient with Napier but I don't get why people think Harbaugh is a good comparison when preaching patience.

Edit: Looks like this was already addressed in this thread so sorry for the repetition.

 

We would be 5 - 0 if we played Michigan's schedule. We might be 5 - 0 playing Georgia's. I get the disappointment with last week's game but as we get further into the week it's getting old. We are an extremely young team with true freshmen at key positions losing their composure and confidence on the road. They are the ones that made a lot of the mistakes last week. Im pretty sure most teams don't play anywhere near this amount of true freshmen. There's the explanation that is plausible - it may not turn out to be true but geez - time to calm down. If we lose to Vandy at home, I'll join everyone on the ledge.

 

Vandy will be the most important game for BN yet.