Not all bowl games are meaningless: Florida Gators football

How many of you remember the anticipation of the 2016 Florida Gators football season back in mid-August? How many of you were starting to believe that maybe this was a team capable of a truly special season going into the Arkansas game? Now, how many of you found it difficult to even get excited about watching the same Gator team play Alabama in the SECCG? Well, I’m right there with you folks. It’s time to take the next step.

There have been bright moments this season and really a fair number of them. But in the end this has been pretty much 2015 all over again. That said, I would gladly take our season over that of Georgia or Tennessee or South Carolina. And there is still one act to see on the stage. That one remaining act will determine if this Gator season is a drama, a comedy or a tragedy.

For most teams not in the playoff, the bowl game is next to meaningless. For the Florida Gators the Outback Bowl is anything but. Florida cannot afford the type of lifeless, listless effort the Gators put out against Michigan in last year’s bowl. The majority of Florida’s main rivals are riding good momentum and exciting recruiting class. Meanwhile, the Gator program seems to be a lifeboat floating lazily in a calm that nobody seems to know how to disturb. Florida needs a tailwind and they need it now.

The Outback Bowl can provide just the change in atmospheric pressure to cause a breeze to stir. A win over Iowa would mean at least some momentum. A victory along with some semblance of effective offense might be just the push that the Florida staff needs to close out was has been a lackluster recruiting class to this point. Recruits need to see some excitement around the team. A bowl win would certainly help.

The Gators need to close strong with this recruiting class. I won’t get into the endless and tiresome argument about prospect ratings and stars. But I will say this, I don’t care how good a staff is a sorting through the lesser ranked prospects and seeing talent, there is a reason why teams like Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson are in the playoff almost every year and it’s not because they signed the right 3-star recruits. Elite teams are elite recruiters. Any other argument is futile.

The thing about recruiting classes though is that what the class looks like the first week in January is not nearly as important as what the class looks like the end of the first week in February. Jim McElwain and his staff have over a month to fill out the 2017 class and at least deal with the most important need areas. It should be enough to just fill major needs in this class and then coach Mac needs to field an explosive offense next season to set up the elite class in 2018 that he will need to remain at Florida long term.

In my opinion, he has already corrected one of the two most desperate deficiencies, the offensive line. There should be enough talent and experience along the line to allow the staff to finally use their entire offensive playbook next season. The other big deficiency is clearly quarterback. Unfortunately, I fail to see where McElwain has come out of 2016 with any real solution at quarterback for 2017. Maybe Luke Del Rio is adequate when healthy but that is by no means a definite. Maybe one of the two redshirt freshmen will step up and take the job but no coach wants his pivotal third season riding on a freshman. It is possible that the transfer rules will be sorted out to allow Florida to take another grad transfer at the position but I doubt anyone is real excited about yet another transfer by a guy who couldn’t make it work where he was previously.

Clearly there is a lot of work ahead for the Gators and this coaching staff before Florida can hope to be at the level of Alabama, FSU and Ohio State again. It begins with recruiting and that needs momentum. Momentum begins with the Outback Bowl and showing recruits that the Gators are here to stay. So Monday when you settle in to watch the game do not look at it as just another meaningless bowl game. This game is as important to the Florida Gators as any bowl game is to any team not playing for the title. Hopefully, the players grasp this and take the field determined to build the foundation for the future.

Mark Miller
Mark Miller's bravery knows no limits. He's a Gator living deep in the heart of Georgia. Mark's weekly columns appear in the Coosa Valley News in Rome, Georgia, where Gators are few and Bulldogs are many. His updates about football and life among the heathens will appear in Gator Country on a weekly basis.