Was Toney forced to leave?

Ill just say our season ended in late November...unless you want to count the bowl game disaster for some reason to maintain him for another month. He coached up the WORST defense in the history of Gator football so Im not sure why Napier didn't cut bait right in November..or at least one second after the bowl disaster. However in late February 2-3 months later he is still a coach and recruiting for the Gators. I will absolutely give him credit for hiring AA...so far spectacular but Ill also leave you with this nice little going away present when Toney was "displaced" which sounded like he was happy with what he was doing. Doesnt sound like he was encouraged to look elsewhere publicly to me. Here is Napiers quote and the whole article if you want to say I cherry picked.


"I think, ultimately very professional. Patrick, I’ve been around a number of years and absolutely one of the best coaches I’ve ever been on staff with, and I’ve been around some of the elite coaches. He had a lot to do with our defensive turnaround at our previous stop. So he’s doing what he does. He’s extremely bright and he’s evaluating things objectively, technically and making the necessary adjustments.

"We’ve got good people in the building. No one is taking more pride than our players and our staff and Patrick Toney in trying to improve in some of these areas.”



https://www.si.com/college/florida/...ey-leaving-nfl-arizona-cardinals-billy-napier

 

Agreed Lizard but after last season I think what needed recognizing and correcting was painfully obvious to everyone who had better than 20:2,000,000 eyesight. Our defense was a disaster it needed immediate correction. Our special teams were even worse although Im not sure how that is actually possible. Number three the offense needed a offensive coordinator to dictate our plan to the opposing defense rather than attempting to pound a square peg in a round hole Muschamp style.

We can debate if Toney was graciously kicked in the ass or if he would have been on the team this year however I will point out we made no changes in the special teams and offensive coordinator positions and it is 100% without question something that needed and now desperately needs changed. The fact one thankfully "went away" but the other two positions were retained tells me what I suspect about Toney's departure.

 

There’s no reason for him to publicly bash the guy just to appease people like you.

The bottom line is, he’s gone, AA is here, and almost a year later you’re still bitching about whether Toney was encouraged to leave or whether he left all on his own. Something that neither you, nor I will likely ever know the true answer to.

You want to believe he left on his own because it lets you push this narrative that Billy doesn’t know what he’s doing and won’t make the tough decisions. I choose to look at the other side of that coin and say we lost three coaches last year, two of which most people were happy to see go. I can reasonably assume that some tough conversations were had that led to those positions being vacated. Those positions appear to have been upgraded. Be happy. Move on.

 

The biggest problem with the offense last year was the guy throwing the ball 10 feet over the receivers head, late, behind them, and in to the dirt. He’s gone. The guy we have now makes all of those throws consistently. Our OL has been shorthanded and banged up and we haven’t provided our qb much time to take a bunch of shots down field, but we took shot’s plenty last year. It’s not like the plays aren’t in the playbook.

 

We got a new one. He’s been pretty good so far. Sooo you know…..

 

How is the new special teams coach looking this year? At $7M a year I can assure you he couldn't care less what anyone who doesn't pay his check thinks...

 

I’ve seen vast improvements across the board on special teams since week one. You haven’t? The last game our new fg kicker did some great things. Our placekicker knocks it out of the endzone repeatedly. Our punter did a good job. We blocked a punt, unfortunately it still made its way down field. We had a few nice returns. I’d say we’re making some headway there though.

It’s not that hard to find things that don’t make you completely miserable. You have no control over any of this stuff. Maybe just try to find something about the team to actually enjoy.

 

That's the same stuff we everyone said about Toney last year. He left and we are worlds better without him. But hey...check it out, you and I are disagreeing and that's ok. No need to chime in everytime someone says anything critical. There can be a difference of opinion here.

 

It is my understanding that AA and Toney come from the same coaching tree with regard to philosophy and formations - I am in the camp that believes we would have seen a lot of improvement regardless, but the difference between AA and Toney seems to be the aggressiveness in play calling/blitzing and just straight up energy AA has. That is clearly a factor in my opinion.

 

Toney did show some aggressiveness late last year. Unfortunately, our DLine didn’t pressure anyone and our safeties took horrible angles and couldn’t tackle in space. Call it coaching or whatever, but I do agree that this year’s defense would’ve been better with or without Armstrong. What he brings though is an energy that Toney or Napier doesn’t have and it’s much needed.

 

Nice thing about Napier is that people have to speculate about why a coach left. He doesn’t throw other people under the bus because he has some respect. One poster in this thread clearly would have preferred a humiliating throw down. Hard to imagine wha makes someone so angry about a game.

 

I’m not sure if I even disagree, I said it remains to be seen meaning I’m in wait and see mode as to how much it’s just personnel.

 

But but but the Dolphins just scored 70 points on 700 yards of offense — why isn’t Napier doing this? He needs an OC

 

Boom

 

And just like that, you shift gears to something else to bitch about. You must be miserable to be around

 

That's exactly what I would expect Billy to say regardless.

 

I don’t know enough about football, technically, to assess whether a coach should be retained or not. Hopefully and one would think the head ball coach can make that determination because he is paid to win.
I do know fielding one of the worst defenses in college football at UF makes it imperative to make a change. It’s not likely going to get a lot better otherwise. I don’t care how it was done, just that it got done. Last years team, along with most of Grantham teams were the worst tackling teams I’ve ever seen; simply dreadful. You just cannot field an overall good to great team if you are unable to get the other team off the field.

 

Or maybe a troll

 

Skink we’ve both been here long enough. If anyone else were to call me miserable I’d take it with a grain of salt but coming from you I take it as quite an honor. Hoping for a blocked punt, kickoff return for a td (minus holding call) and 11players showing up on special teams every time this weekend!