We're finally getting off probation!

[rserina]

Originally Posted by gatordee

Urban without TT in the SEC was 17-8 winning , while Urban with TT was 48-7. Saban was 60-12

Take away the one terrible final season with Brantley and Meyer was 13-3 in the SEC without Tebow, including a 5-3 first season that was better than Saban's first year. Also kind of funny that some assume Tebow as a second string quarterback should somehow get the credit for Meyer's success with the 2006 team. By that token, Brantley would get credit for the two 13-win seasons preceding his starting tour.

[SECund2nun]

Meyer is a great coach, recruiter, but he is not that good in roster management.

[demosthenes]

Originally Posted by SECund2nun

Meyer is a great coach, recruiter, but he is not that good in roster management.

He probably will be better now as he's an extremely smart guy and learns. Keep in mind, Florida was Urban's first sustained job. His prior two were two-year rebuild jobs and move on.

[1984Gator]

Originally Posted by corpgator

The problem was we intentionally wouldn't sign guys like Brandon James, who was only signed by Meyer after a lot of convincing, because they were lesser players. What's wrong with filling out the roster with guys who might or might not pan out?

That's basically what has kept us from having sustained success like Bama and led to some ugly seasons. Football takes a toll. It was extremely apparent during the second half of the season until guys got health again for FSU.

We're Florida. We'll always get the elite guys. It's how we fill out the roster that determines how we sustain success. And roster management is a huge part of any sport.

Things have changed for Florida over the years. before Spurrier, we would go after marginal players and oversign knowing full well that students would fail to qualify and/or flunk out. During Spurrier's era, things changed at Florida. We've rarely reached for the academically incompetent athlete since then and truth be told, we've avoided the problems that come with. Look no further than FSU to see what I mean. I fault Meyer to an extent for ending up well less than 85 players. Some of his recruits were reaches. In fact, we tended to burn through roughly 30% of 5 star recruits that either couldn't go to class or couldn't stay out of jail. I some time think he wasn't as good at sifting through the stars to find the real talent. I suppose this isn't surprising since he never played the game. Muschamp on the other hand has proven to have a real eye for talent and gets young players more involved with valuable playing time. At any rate when Meyer left we suffered no less than 10 transfers. In retrospect, that was Muschamp cleaning house.

[1984Gator]

Originally Posted by rserina

Take away the one terrible final season with Brantley and Meyer was 13-3 in the SEC without Tebow, including a 5-3 first season that was better than Saban's first year. Also kind of funny that some assume Tebow as a second string quarterback should somehow get the credit for Meyer's success with the 2006 team. By that token, Brantley would get credit for the two 13-win seasons preceding his starting tour.

I think Meyer's assistants had a lot to do with his success. They've been successful; elsewhere. When they left, the quality of product on the field went to crap. hard to believe meyer had Brantley in front of Newton on the depth chart!

[1984Gator]

Originally Posted by SECund2nun

Meyer is a great coach, recruiter, but he is not that good in roster management.

I'm not even sure that is true. We certinly wasted a large number of spots on 5 star rcruits that didn't pan out. The B1G was pitiful this year and while Meyer went undefeated, that team was more like a 7th place team in the SEC.

[thedyc09]

Originally Posted by SECund2nun

Meyer is a great coach, recruiter, but he is not that good in roster management.

An overstatement. Some of the whiffs we ended up having with Meyer that led to (relatively) boom or bust classes had something to do with recruiting some of the most sought-after and wide-open recruits. I have a feeling that, largely due to OSU's recruiting footprint dominance, Urban isn't going to have to walk the razor thin margins he had to here at Florida. Instead of having 18 commits and looking to nail 6 on NSD, he can be sitting at 22 and waiting on 3 while still sticking to his "Wait 'til next year" philosophy.

[rserina]

Originally Posted by 1984Gator

I think Meyer's assistants had a lot to do with his success. They've been successful; elsewhere. When they left, the quality of product on the field went to crap. hard to believe meyer had Brantley in front of Newton on the depth chart!

That's ridiculous. Of course you need a good staff to be an elite program (unless you are Nick Saban, who micromanages everything in his program and probably hasn't eaten at home with his family for two decades). But outside of Mattison, all of those guys were riding Meyer's coattails, like Brandon at BGSU and Whittingham at Utah did before them. Mullen (who was vilified repeatedly around here), Gonzales, Addazio, Heater all fit very well with the staff, but they were anonymous before Meyer. Strong was mocked as a terrible hire when Meyer retained him because of the 2004 defense.

It is laughable too that one season represents "the quality of the product" going to crap. What happened when Mattison and Holliday left? Did the "quality of the product" go to crap then? Seems like we were immensely improved on defense in 2008 and won a national title. We lost massive quantities of outstanding players to the NFL in 2010 who represented not only our best talent, but our most experienced players and best leaders, to go along with overhaul of the defensive staff after Strong and Bedford left. That takes a toll.

Whatever. I hardly even show up on these stupid "bash Meyer" threads anymore because I am past defending the guy. Only the Florida fanbase belittles the accomplishments of a coach who won two national titles in six years on the job and made us the dominant national recruiting power we were. If you can't see how good of a coach and recruiter he was (whatever your personal opinions about his "character" or roster management or media relations or whatever other reason these boards see fit to get their granny panties bent out of shape over), then there is no reasoning with you.

[socraticsilence]

Originally Posted by corpgator

After years of self imposed probation, we're finally going to be playing at the full 85 scholarship level. I'm pretty sure we were below it every year under Meyer and were this year as well.

Imagine what this team is going to look like once we have the depth of a full roster?

Scout shows 79 for 2012
72 for 2011
80 for 2010
78 for 2009
79 for 2008
71 for 2007
79 for 2006
81 for 2005
2004 shows 87, meaning 2 or more transferred before the season started.

It makes what we've accomplished that much more impressive, but our last coach's recruiting philosophy was bunk. In years we had far superior talent, we could win, but when we didn't, we didn't have the depth to survive.

His recruiting philosophy worked pretty well, but for 2 big misses (Brantley on talent and Cam on character) we're a title contending team every year but 2: his first (2005) and his 3rd (2007 when we lost basically our entire team), as is we won 2 titles and were in position to play for another, we had only one truly down year (2010) and with a good QB that doesn't happen (we win 10 games with just a healthy Sturgis). It was admittedly more of a top heavy Saban/Carroll approach whereas Boom clearly prefers the Mack Brown offer a ton of lower star players early philosophy.

Additionally, the numbers for the last 2 years aren't entirely on Meyer as a decent amount of top talent left when it became clear that Muschamp was moving from an offense interested in scoring points to one primarily concerned with ToP and field position.

[socraticsilence]

Originally Posted by corpgator

The problem was we intentionally wouldn't sign guys like Brandon James, who was only signed by Meyer after a lot of convincing, because they were lesser players. What's wrong with filling out the roster with guys who might or might not pan out?

That's basically what has kept us from having sustained success like Bama and led to some ugly seasons. Football takes a toll. It was extremely apparent during the second half of the season until guys got health again for FSU.

We're Florida. We'll always get the elite guys. It's how we fill out the roster that determines how we sustain success. And roster management is a huge part of any sport.

We were the only top school to even offer Brandon, and Boom wouldn't even consider it as he doesn't offer people who don't fit certain benchmarks, a 5'7" 3rd down back/ return specialist? What on earth makes you think Boom looks twice at that guy-- this is a man who only offered this year's Heisman winner at safety.

[elrongator]

I'm sick of all the Meyer apologists around here making every thread an open forum to argue how great he was for us. The bottom line is he's gone and he crapped on our kitchen floor before he left. He's now actively trying to raid our kitchen supply line.
F Urban Meyer.
We should strive yearly to maintain 85 active players on our roster and there is absolutley no excuse for failing to make that number even if you finish the roster with Schollies awarded to valued walk-ons.
I for one am happy we now have a coach who can count all the way to 85.

By the way...did I mention that we should all say F Urban Meyer?!!!?
He's not our coach, he's recruiting and coaching against us.
Wake up people!!

[socraticsilence]

Originally Posted by 1984Gator

Things have changed for Florida over the years. before Spurrier, we would go after marginal players and oversign knowing full well that students would fail to qualify and/or flunk out. During Spurrier's era, things changed at Florida. We've rarely reached for the academically incompetent athlete since then and truth be told, we've avoided the problems that come with. Look no further than FSU to see what I mean. I fault Meyer to an extent for ending up well less than 85 players. Some of his recruits were reaches. In fact, we tended to burn through roughly 30% of 5 star recruits that either couldn't go to class or couldn't stay out of jail. I some time think he wasn't as good at sifting through the stars to find the real talent. I suppose this isn't surprising since he never played the game. Muschamp on the other hand has proven to have a real eye for talent and gets young players more involved with valuable playing time. At any rate when Meyer left we suffered no less than 10 transfers. In retrospect, that was Muschamp cleaning house.

Where does this "Meyer unwilling to play young guys" thing come from? I remember Percy as a true frosh lighting it up, Jenkins, Haden, Wright, James all saw significant time as freshman, Tim won the Heisman as a true soph, Demps and Rainey were primary backs as underclassmen, Hernandez saw the field quite a bit early, as with virtually every other criticism of Urban this is hindsight stuff which doesn't hold up too well under scrutiny. Honestly on offense Meyer seems to have been far more willing to play young guys than Boom (Matt Jones and Driskel are the only underclassmen skill position players with significant offensive contributions), while defensively they're similar in terms of allowing young guys to see the field.

[socraticsilence]

Originally Posted by 1984Gator

I'm not even sure that is true. We certinly wasted a large number of spots on 5 star rcruits that didn't pan out. The B1G was pitiful this year and while Meyer went undefeated, that team was more like a 7th place team in the SEC.

The guys been arguably the best coach in school history at every stop he's made, i just don't get the way some people can't admit he was good for us, he made a mistake letting a legacy recruit who didn't fit his approach take up a scholarship and in promoting the Dazzler (though given our offense the last two seasons I think we may have been overly harsh to the man) but he also won 2 titles was up for a 3rd recruited 2 Heisman winners (one who left because he couldn't keep his nose clean). I swear a lot of posters on here honestly seem to think Meyer is an average to slightly above average coach who lucked into Tebow and Harvin and captured lightning in a bottle- like he's Gene Chizik or something.

[rserina]

Originally Posted by socraticsilence

this is a man who only offered this year's Heisman winner at safety.

This is other side of the spectrum: someone who takes an offhand joke by Muschamp as truth, then uses it to ridicule him. You do realize Muschamp evaluated players for defense, not offense at Texas, and that he never "offered" Manziel as a safety, either, right? The guy never even had an offer from Texas, just like he didn't get an offer from Tech or Okie State or Oklahoma at quarterback, safety, or any other position.

But keep trotting it out to belittle Muschamp, just like your buddies do to Meyer.

[socraticsilence]

Originally Posted by rserina

This is other side of the spectrum: someone who takes an offhand joke by Muschamp as truth, then uses it to ridicule him. You do realize Muschamp evaluated players for defense, not offense at Texas, and that he never "offered" Manziel as a safety, either, right? The guy never even had an offer from Texas, just like he didn't get an offer from Tech or Okie State or Oklahoma at quarterback, safety, or any other position.

But keep trotting it out to belittle Muschamp, just like your buddies do to Meyer.

Fair point, I meant what i said more to counter the "Meyer wouldn't offer players who didn't fit the mold while Boom did" thing, whereas I think the opposite is true if anything Meyer offered to many marginal/project players, Boom has a narrower band- not as many truly dominant talents but also not as many question marks.

[Gatorrick22]

Originally Posted by Dreamliner

I'm going to say it: Urban Meyer!

*runs away*

And he's actively trying to poach our commits!!!