Welcome home, fellow Gator.

The Gator Nation's oldest and most active insider community
Join today!

Was Princely Expected to Enter the Portal?

Discussion in 'RayGator's Swamp Gas' started by ufg8r3283, Dec 6, 2023.

  1. pd_gator

    pd_gator GC Hall of Fame

    1,812
    698
    2,063
    Oct 6, 2013
    Florida
    Every job has their hiring requirements though. We can't just walk into say McDonald's and apply to be a CEO w/o working for it. You can't be in a trade w/o working towards it. Just look at the nba, it's honestly unwatchable. You have a bunch of skinny kids shooting 100 3pts each team a game while traveling 100miles. If you look at the nba, the dominant players aren't American anymore. But now the lids of Pandoras box these kids that are now allowed to do whatever they want are going to buck on a contract system. Just wait, I believe in about 10yrs pro contracts will be gone as well.
     
  2. Bazza

    Bazza Moderator

    37,643
    14,571
    3,803
    Jan 2, 2009
    New Smyrna Beach
    Oh......OK......thanks, Brother Rick! ;)
     
    • Funny Funny x 1
  3. gatorwalrus

    gatorwalrus GC Hall of Fame

    3,126
    827
    1,873
    Sep 24, 2022
    UF has actually won something worth a damn in my lifetime ;). Ange seems to be on top of things though.
     
  4. shane4three

    shane4three GC Hall of Fame

    8,573
    2,777
    2,768
    Dec 24, 2014
    Yep, makes no sense at all.
     
  5. ocalaman

    ocalaman GC Hall of Fame

    7,646
    3,030
    1,998
    Jun 30, 2018
    I remember last year when Josh Braun entered the transfer portal, many on these boards said he wasn't that much of a loss, as they tend to do when any of our players leave. Well, he ended up at Arkansas and was just named to the AP All-SEC team. Considering how bad our O-line was this year, I'd say he was a big loss. Of course, he might have gotten better at Arky due to better coaching, but they weren't very good this year either.
     
  6. Tito22

    Tito22 GC Hall of Fame

    4,165
    438
    378
    May 13, 2007
    Only thing I can think of is they are coaches who are prepping for high profile bowl games. Otherwise it doesn't seem like a plan was in place since the decisions to fire Chaos and Raymond were made weeks before the season ended.
     
  7. paidinfull

    paidinfull GC Hall of Fame

    5,957
    1,449
    2,038
    Feb 22, 2017
    I think what more people said about Josh was that he quit on the team halfway through the season, and prior to that he was losing snaps to the guy coming up behind him. Both of those things were true.

    Nobody has been super happy about losing any of those OL the last couple years, but all of them except for White were losing PT and White hasn’t played a down of football since he left. Everyone would have liked to keep them for depth, and they all would have played (except for White, obviously)significant snaps this year because of all the injuries. They chose to leave. You can’t make them stay.
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2023
    • Agree Agree x 2
  8. ocalaman

    ocalaman GC Hall of Fame

    7,646
    3,030
    1,998
    Jun 30, 2018
    I agree with this, but why are they choosing to leave? He's losing playing time at UF, who has one of the worst O-lines in the SEC, then goes to Arkansas where's he's an All-SEC player. Lack of development, failure to recognize talent, communication issues? Something ain't right, no matter how us Gators want to spin it.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
    • Winner Winner x 1
  9. ocalaman

    ocalaman GC Hall of Fame

    7,646
    3,030
    1,998
    Jun 30, 2018
    I've seen no one post that about Etienne. But the tendency is that whenever any of our athletes in any sport decide to transfer out they get minimized and talked about like they weren't that good anyway. We can't rationalize that position with Etienne, for sure, and probably not with Princely or Caleb Douglas either, although I've already read posts that tried with the last 2. Something ain't right in our football program and to me it's not only Napier, but it's AD Stricklin that is at the root of the problem.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  10. paidinfull

    paidinfull GC Hall of Fame

    5,957
    1,449
    2,038
    Feb 22, 2017
    The grass is always greener.

    Kids are leaving teams all over the country for all kinds of different reasons. Even starters and other guys with lots of pt at the top programs. It sucks, but we’re not the only one having this particular issue. I’d like to tell you I have a perfect quick fix for all this, but I don’t.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  11. ocalaman

    ocalaman GC Hall of Fame

    7,646
    3,030
    1,998
    Jun 30, 2018
    Yet Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Michigan and others stay in the Top 10 or close every year and teams like Texas, Oregon, Washington, etc. get better. Florida has regressed the last few years and there is no doubt about that. Other teams stay great and even others are getting better. Why is our program getting worse through all of the changes? My answer is leadership and it starts at the top with the AD and a head football coach who is over his head, IMO.
     
  12. INGATORSWETRUST

    INGATORSWETRUST GC Hall of Fame

    16,760
    1,083
    1,328
    Apr 8, 2007
    Florida
  13. paidinfull

    paidinfull GC Hall of Fame

    5,957
    1,449
    2,038
    Feb 22, 2017
    Most of those programs were in decent shape when the NIL and free agency stuff kicked off. Our program was declining and our coach was not taking care of business on the recruiting trail. Billy stepped into a shit show. We had a few nice individual pieces, but no depth anywhere, a dysfunctional locker room, a donor network that was unstable and also unsure of how it wanted to wade into this new territory, state laws that were stricter than other states were having to deal with. It was a mess.

    Its been a perfect storm of shit luck, and we’re spinning our wheels. I mean, two of the top guys we have leaving right now had individual opportunities to win us two different games this year, and they came up short. The coaches put them in the right place, and they failed. Thats two game losses that continued us in our downward spiral. Then entering the portal to leave us on top of that is two more huge negative things to throw on the pile and continue the downward spin. Two more wins wouldn’t make us playoff contenders, but it would have drastically changed the optics, especially if we eeked out a bowl win on top of that. FTR, I’m not blaming either of those guys for the losses, just saying that they individually had a chance to win those games. Instead of two or three big positives, we ended up with another 4 big negatives. Maybe we don’t lose those commits. Things could be a lot different if just a couple of small things had gone our way.

    You can call for the ad and the coaches if you want. At some point, you just have to win, and we simply aren’t doing that. I just feel like we’re snake bit, and I don’t know if Kirby or Nick and their ad’s could pull us out of this hole we’re in, in a timeframe that anyone would accept.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  14. ocalaman

    ocalaman GC Hall of Fame

    7,646
    3,030
    1,998
    Jun 30, 2018
    All good points. Two years ago we beat FSU and were pretty much on par with their program. Now there's a wide gap between us. And Mike Norvell isn't that great a coach either. But they sure are doing things better than us - by a long shot.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  15. CHFG8R

    CHFG8R GC Hall of Fame

    5,507
    480
    363
    Apr 24, 2007
    St. Augustine, FL
    Like him, but as you saw yesterday, it's a process.
     
  16. chuikov

    chuikov VIP Member

    1,407
    294
    1,643
    Jan 2, 2021
    Bro, he was 1st team SEC, best Edge grade In Conference…More than likely A&M he is from Texas
     
  17. Wanne15

    Wanne15 GC Hall of Fame

    16,200
    4,148
    3,088
    Jan 18, 2015
    Arky wasn’t as bad as their record leads folks to believe. They hung in there very close to some very good teams.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  18. paidinfull

    paidinfull GC Hall of Fame

    5,957
    1,449
    2,038
    Feb 22, 2017
    We don’t have the luxury of their schedule to help us get our feet back under us. I wouldn’t necessarily say we were in the same shape either. We were going in opposite directions. Mullen was winning some games, but he was also not recruiting and was destroying our locker room. He took us to a few ny6 bowls and things looked ok on the outside, but he was tearing us down from within. FSU wasn’t winning a bunch of games, but they were building their program and locker room back up. Most FSU fans wanted Norvell fired two years in too.
     
  19. Crusher

    Crusher GC Hall of Fame

    5,863
    1,349
    2,143
    Apr 19, 2007
    I'll be curious to see where he lands on the coaches team.
     
  20. Crusher

    Crusher GC Hall of Fame

    5,863
    1,349
    2,143
    Apr 19, 2007
    And got absolutely skull-drug by some bad ones.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1