The future..

That’s fair, except Spurrier, Meyer, and not even Zook went 6-6.

 

We need a 5-4-5 alignment to have an effective defense.

 

That wasn't what I said, I said with the talent we have. In other words if you took either Spurrier or Urban and put them in charge of last years team and this years team do you really believe they would have the same record? I don't.

 

Spurrier would go 8-4, maybe 7-5 with this team. Meyer would go 6-6 or 7-5. He would probably have had esophageal spasms by now. Spurrier went 8-4 in 92 with a team similar to this one as far as talent and gaps. He had a young OL and a young defense. He had a bull like Rhett in the backfield that could go 20 carries/game and wear people out and several really good receivers. So when other teams had to stack the box for the inside run game, that gave Shane just enough time in most games to find a receiver. We were abused that year by UT, MSU, and FSU.

In 07, we went 9-4 and lost to every good team we played.

I believe you need to take another look at your data, logic and comparisons. You cherry picked two of the three winningest coaches of the last 40 years and you still know we wouldn’t be a 9 or 10 win team with them coaching.

As much as I want this turned around quicker I do realize that what I want doesn’t change reality. We currently have no players outside of maybe Wilson who actually scare opposing coaches and force them to adjust around them. We are making progress in that area offensively as Wilson and Boardingham come along. Pearsall is great but when Wilson wasn’t in defenses could cover him fairly well.

As our young players on both sides mature and stronger they will also be more consistent at executing their assignments and be in the right place at the right time. To expect a team as young as this to beat Top Ten teams like Georgia and Utah is ridiculous.

Have you ever coached or started an organization from scratch?

 

Agree completely. Galen Hall and Ron Zook didn’t win enough games for our liking but both were excellent recruiters who instilled preparation, effort and winning as cornerstones of their programs.

Dan Mullen was none of those. He didn’t recruit well (obvious). He didn’t prepare well (S&C). He didn’t really care about “relentless effort” otherwise Grantham would have been gone by 2019.

 

Both of those coaches had schemes that were unique to their time. Nobody in the SEC was slinging it around will-nilly in 1990 and no one in the SEC was running the spread in 2006. The league wasn't that good in 1990. Spurrier (and $$$) revolutionized it. Both Spurrier and UM also inherited experienced teams. Napier did not.

Napier seems to be a lot like Pell. He doesn't run any kind of unique offense or defense, so the Gators are going to have to out-talent and out-work other teams. Right now the best talent on the team is Fr or Soph. You don't take Fr or Soph. and win in the SEC unless you are doing something novel. Lets hope that the trend continues to go up in both aspects.

 

Please give us the list of Hall of Fame coaches that were begging Stricklin for an interview.

It truly is fan expectations such as this that make our program unattractive to established top tier coaches. Go back to late 1978. Our record was bad but Charley Pell and Lou Holtz interviewed for the job. What top coach expressed interest before the Muschamp, McElwain, Mullen, or Napier hires?

 

Excellent post! Thank you.

 

Not cherry picking, they just happen to be our two best coaches over the past 30+ years. I 100% disagree that Urban would be 6-6, that guy had his teams ready to play and both Urban and Spurrier would find a way to exploit the other team and both were very good in game coaches which we lack right now. Just take a look at the scripted drives vs the after scripted drives. We lack that experience on the side lines which is why we need an OC desperately and one that has experience.

I don't think anyone really thought we were going to beat GA but there was some hope that we would show up and be competitive and keep it to a 2 score game at max.

 

No clue because none of us were involved in that and I wasn't even watching football in '78.

 

Again that wasn't my question.

 

Okay I'll answer more simply: No, I doubt they would have been more than 1 game better running their offenses with the current personnel in 2023. Potentially they could have had worse records.

IF you could take the current team back to 1990 and give them to Spurrier or 2005 and give them to Urban, then yes I think they would go better than 6-6 just because of the scheme, schedule, and the league at that time.

It doesn't do any good to play the "oh, how good would we be if Spurrier or Urbs was coaching this team" game....its pure speculation and neither are walking through that door.

 

Well then you should educate yourself. Pell and Lou Holtz were both in that top tier of younger, successful head coaches of the day. Pell had turned Clemson into a beast as Holtz had done at Arkansas. Holt’s shared an NC there back in the days of polls determining. Clemson won an NC a couple of years after Pell left with many of his recruits. Both were top tier candidates and I believe there was another excellent candidate that was interested as well before UF narrowed down to Pell and Holtz.

 

Would that be the 05-08 meyer or the 09-10 meyer? Just asking.

as for keeping it to 2 scores did the reasonable fans see the UK game and then what uga did to UK and still held out hope for 2 scores, enough said

 

The Gator Football future is not bright.

You can put away the shades.

 

it’s flickering and that’s tough to admit. A lot of fans are so concerned with catching UGA/Bama that we need to be more worried about getting back to separating ourselves from the middle of the SEC pack first. We have Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, South Carolina problems to tend to first

 

Yes there was Don James out of UW

 

That’s right. Thank you.

James was one of Nick Saban and Gary Pinkel’s mentors for those among us who think history doesn’t matter.

 

You're speculating. Spurrier didn't win big at USCe until 2011. You can't say they didn't have talent, either, because they did. They struck gold from 2011-3, especially on defense, but when the gold ran out, the 'Cocks returned to .500 land. Spurrier lost interest and "fired himself" in 2015 when his team was 2-4. With the talent flux, it is hard to say WHAT either SOS or Meyer would have done. I think Meyer MIGHT have done great things last year with Richardson (another Tim/Cam type of QB), while I think SOS MIGHT have done much better with Mertz. But we really don't know...

 

Spurrier's offense looked a lot different at S. Carolina than at Florida (and a lot more like what Napier runs). I get your point about Napier not being as innovative as Spurrier or Myer, though. I think that Napier's offense might be more like Larry Coker's (who was called the best OC in football before running the 'Canes into the ground) in he sense that he communicates it very well, it does not unbalance the game plan and protects the defense (unlike, say, an air raid), but it takes elite talent to make it really explosive.