Was Princely Expected to Enter the Portal?

Most Sports fans live for their Sports. Gamblers gotta gamble. Wealthy will still attend because they can. There might be a small drop in the old school fan who actually has ties to the schools but Sports fans are fanatical. It's just us and a few others who may end up tuning out altogether. I haven't watched the college playoffs for the past several years already. I don't set my calendar to Gator games anymore. Cheering for guys like Ruggs, Jalen Carter, hugh freeze, jimbo etc has illustrated how little people care about anything other than winning. Before it was sort of hidden from daylight. Now it's transparent and yet these people suffer hardly any consequences. That's at least a part of it for me. The transfer portal and the uneven money game is the nail in the coffin for me.

I'm aware that this is probably more a result of me refusing to evolve than it is the sport dying off though.

 

Forcing athletes to play amateur sports for any amount of time by freezing them out of professional sports in order to force them to develop in the minor leagues for free is how this mess started . I guess it’s somewhat against the law now but should be illegal at any level. You should be able to go to the nba at twelve if they are willing to draft and pay you. We have to go to the free minor league and do schoolwork in order to play a game professionally. Sign the kids to three or four year contracts in college if you want but it works both ways. The whole system is a mess but think of it as a job and rights that both employers and employees should have in a legally run business in the country. Sports is no different than any other business in that we have the same rights and opportunity. The nfl has been using college as a free minor league and college gives free room and board and the opportunity for an education which is very valuable to some and worthless to others. They should give the kids the choice if it’s a business. How about give the athlete the choice of school giving the kid his tuition in a check if he chooses not to go to class. If you offer a worthless education to Mongo, why can’t he just play football. The school doesn’t really care if Mongo becomes a surgeon anyway. It’s kinda silly to think they need to be scholars to play a sport. Does it make the nerds feel some kinship to Mongo if they make him go to class? It just a weird system to begin with.

 

I feel much the same way and had to read it twice to make sure. “ wealthy still attend. Hidden from the light, fan who actually has ties,.” Then there’s the cheating and corruption. From a young age, I rember Bear Bryant and thought he was the man. Nope, he was exactly what is coming to light right now. People are finally seeing college football for what it has always been, cheating and corruption. Hidden in the shadows is how many order it is all. My lone employee is an Alabama fan who has never seen the campus and went to school in Pcola. He agrees that Bama cheats better than the rest and says catch up and quit crying. Those tv deals aren’t driven by a bunch of elite sets with degrees, they are the common fanatic that drives the tv check. I don’t think I’ve ever met a Cane fan that went to school there. The boosters all fit on one side of a stadium with the alumni and casual fans. A select few boosters do the heavy lifting and the enormous fanbase supports the rest. My entire family love the gators and only my little brother has a UF degree. It’s never been what people thought it was, at least not in the last 50 years. I’ve always seen it as what it is now but the portal and full blown cheating with no mitigation at all has destroyed the competitive balance far more than ever before. Players jumping ship or being kicked into the portal is all just too much.

 

Yikes. Feels like indictment on the whole program. Him, his parents and agent evaluated the season..looked at the changes/non changes being made and at the 2024 schedule and NIL money and decided to take their gifts somewhere else. No bueno!

 

I wonder if all the other schools are thinking that kind of bs. Every team is losing valuable starters.

 

The selective enforcement of some rules for some programs while others get praised is where I started to really back off. Of course that coincided with our decline and I know that played a part for me but I was guilty of being willfully ignorant before Saban came along and was allowed to run an NFL operation minus the salary cap.

 

Instead of blaming a generation for "following the money" you are better off blaming the system that has perpetuated its growth over the last twenty years. I'm a little tired of football fans whining about the state of the game. We should have spoken with out pocket books years ago, but we just passed it on down and we've eventually arrived at the current state of the game. It's our fault, not the people who have to deal with the result.

 

An indictment on the whole program? There you go again. Come on man.

 

All players want to move up to varsity

 

Haven't we also lost some significant recruits?

Nasir Johnson 4*DL>Georgia
Wardell Mack 4*CB>Texas
Jamonta Waller 4*EDGE>Auburn

Even if those players never see a down, it still hurts our depth.

 

Well, at least it's not my Spurs.

 

Thought Princely's play throughout the season was lacking so may as well say it. As a loyal Gator player, I'd have never said that publicly. However, when Princely says he has to do what is best for him, truth in return is cathartic and door closing. More direct, he looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane.

 

Disagree, winning can be done in all sports. Your example using Ohio State is inaccurate. The bucknuts finish high on the Director's Cup list every year and play terrific football.

UF can do and has done well in all sports, finishes in the top 5/10 of the Director's Cup every year even when football and basketball aren't up to championship standards.

I hope CBN comes to the realization that he is no SOS in play calling. Urban Meyer had an offensive coordinator. If not, everything thing else can be right yet the results do not improve enough to satisfy Gator Nation.

Speculation Alert:

The D results were so embarrassingly bad that Billy may have privately been given no choice about making the D coaching changes. If so, I hope Billy has also been told to hire an offensive coordinator. Like everyone here, I don't want to see another hot seat head coach at UF forced out at the end of the 2024 season. Another season like the last two is historically unacceptable.

 

OK. Indictment on the "process" ...better?

 

Why is it most of the other Gator athletic teams are very competitive and usually ranked and the football and basketball programs are mediocre at best?

 

Your premise is inaccurate. UF has been good a lot of the time in football and basketball. Historical data doesn't support your premise that UF is "mediocre at best" in football or basketball, but a better case can be made against basketball before Billy Donovan.

What is true is many Gator fans are spoiled and have a warped perceptions of the histories of UF football and basketball.

Not calling you personally spoiled or with warped views, but again your premise is inaccurate. However, if you think you can build the case of "mediocrity at best" for football, leave basketball to the NBN board, I'll be more than happy to take the rebuttal position.

 

And yet he was the only Gator player on either side of the ball to be named All-SEC, except for our punter who made one of the teams. And he posted a Twitter response saying money has nothing to do with his decision. Having watched all the games this year, I don't think he lived up to his pre-season hype and was surprised he was named to the All-SEC teams, but there you go.

 

Can you translate that into english?

 

I laughed. UF is a feeder school

 

I did look up season stats and Princely led the Gators in tackles for loss with 11.5. Second on the team was Shemar James with 5.5 TFL. Princely, also, led the Gators in sacks with 7. Second was Derek Wingo with 2.5. Princely had 17 QB hits, second on the team was Scooby Williams with 5. He was, at least statistically, the best player on a bad defense.