Predict the score: U.C.F. at Florida, Sat. at 7:45pm on SECN

Sorry, but if you stop posting for a week, I'm not going to notice your absence. It is unfathomable to me that we are +2.5 dogs to UCF at the Swamp.

 

If we had Mertz last year vs the Noles we steam roll them

Plain and simple.

 

Yep. But this is where we are.

Trust the process.

 

That would be nothing short of a miracle. I think his fate has been determined as the trajectory of the program is not ascending.

 

Would it make you feel any better knowing we're paying UCF $800,000 for this game?

 

Hmm $800,000 for a chance to get the head coach fired? What the heck! I’m in!

 

Just a dose of reality for a second. We have a directional school, which has never sniffed a top-20 recruiting class, coming into our house, after being blown out by a not-very-good Colorado team, with Florida coming off a bye week … yet said directional school is favored by a field goal. And you want to bat around the idea of six wins? Hilarious.

Napier is not coaching to still be here in 2025. He is coaching to still be here against Tennessee.

 

UF 34
UCF 30

 

My heart: Napier has used the last two weeks to inspire this team, and they come out swinging. Gators do a fair job of stopping the run and get ahead by two TDs early, forcing Central Fla. (because they hate being called that) to pass. Gators full out a decent win 31-17, and coupled with a win against Kentucky, Napier is allowed to finish the season and his time as a head coach at Florida with some dignity.

My head: Napier has made no changes, wasting the bye week with the same level of enthusiasm he wasted the offseason. Central Fla. starts pounding the ball up the middle early and scores TDs on its first three drives. The offense never manages to keep up. Final score 42-24 and final game as head coach at Florida (or any top-tier school ever again) for Billy Napier.

 

I hope you are right. At one time it would have been inconceivable that it would come down to this.

 

So you’re backing off your prediction of a UCF win?

 

The dose of reality is that they will not fire BN the next day after either losses. It is to early in the season and they do not have a qualified takeover for the rest of the season.

And if you think Florida has no chance verse UCF you are delusional.

 

Agree on both.

There are fans here who want him fired even if there's not a better replacement. It's become emotional. They're angry, they want something done.

Bill Clinton had a saying: People prefer strong and wrong to weak and right. Do what's needed to get the right replacement, not the quick one.

 

I did not say I thought we would win 6 games, it would indeed be a miracle.

 

Whatever you got out of my words, I never meant to imply that Florida has no chance. Florida should win this game. With the talent disparity between these two teams, Florida should control this game comfortably by the middle of the second quarter. What I rightly have is a lack of faith in what Napier is capable of leading this team to do. But, no, I would not be surprised by a win at all, and I would be very pleased to have one.

Where we just aren’t going to agree is what happens to Napier if he blows this one. This game against directional Central Fla. is one of four must-win, no-excuse games that Napier fully understood was in front of him coming into this season. Two of them he has already won, and the fourth is against Kentucky at home in two weeks. Losses to any of them mean the sword falls that same day. It does not necessarily mean he does not get to finish the season for the reasons you stated.

 

31-28

 

That is significantly less that the $1.4 million Notre Dame paid the directional school from Illinois (NIU) a few weeks ago.

Just trying to look on the bright side of the economics.

 

35-10, ucf.

 

ouch

 

Indeed. The lack of faith is the worst I’ve seen in my lifetime. Even in the darkest years of Darnell, Zook, Muschamp, and McElwain, I don’t recall there ever being such a sense of dread about some directional school with perpetual sub-top-30 classes coming into our house (after we’ve just had a bye week). If Napier wants a future in this profession (never mind at this university), then he had better find a hidden gear here today.