PD’s Postulations: The Show So Far: Florida Gators

I usually do this column at some point in the year to recap and contextualize the Florida Gators’ football season. But this year I think it’s much more appropriate to check the dipstick on the Jim McElwain tenure. Not quite two years into the show, there have been a lot of dramatic plot twists, tons of feel-good acts and a little bit of emotional pain sprinkled in for the deepest impact. But the dialogue and the scene-to-scene action has some Gator fans changing the station and channel-surfing, in fact urging us all to turn the channel. They think that they know how this show turns out and are telling us it won’t be the happy ending we are all waiting for.

Well, I am not into predicting the future, or giving spoilers even when I think I know how it will end. What I do find worthwhile is looking at the show so far and judging how it has met our expectations for thrills, chills, spills and frills (the latter taking the form of wins and championships).

So I am going to bounce around a bit, touching on some of the good, the bad and the gravy. No need to recap specifically the wins and losses, because we were all there and saw what happened. What needs to be reviewed, what needs to be infused into our thinking when we reflect on Mac’s show so far and the rest of the show ahead of us, is what Dr. Harry Wolper calls the Big…Picture. It helps to say it in an aristocratic British accent.

 

Expectations, Expectations

Cast your mind back. Back to 2014. Back to the final days of the Muschamp era. Are you there? Getting humiliated in Tuscaloosa. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against LSU in the Swamp when yet again we put the game and the program in the brick hands of a defensive end-turned-tight end. Being blown-the-living-Hades-out at Homecoming by a SEC newcomer that one week earlier lost to Georgia 34-0. Leading South Carolina by 7, then letting our game-clinching field goal get blocked…then letting a punt get blocked just outside our own red zone with 36 seconds left…then giving up a game-tying touchdown pass with 12 seconds left…then letting the ‘Cocks walk down the field unmolested to the overtime touchdown that ended the game and terminated Muschamp’s employment with Florida (though not his paychecks). The squandering of a 9-point lead and an easy win in Tallahassee because once again a game turned on the coach’s insistence to revolve the offense around a defensive end running pass routes.

Are you there? Do you remember the mindset? Do you remember the most optimistic fans and pundits expressing their opinions that if Florida got a really good new coach – the right coach – the team might be competitive in three years? Do you remember the most pessimistic fans insisting that Muschamp set the program back at least five years, possibly more, that because of not only the decimated depth chart but also the damaged brand that we had no chance of being competitive again until at least 2019 or 2020? There were fans even more pessimistic than that, but they all jumped.

Well there we were last year, Year 1 of the McElwain era, winning the East division title and playing for the SEC championship. We were already competing for a SEC title in Year 1, a full 3 to 5 years (or more) ahead of schedule by ALL fans’ and pundits’ predictions in 2014. The pessimists shrugged it off or even scoffed, pointing to the perceived weakness of the East and the fact that it may have just been beginner’s luck (after all, even Muschamp had one year of 11 wins, though no championships). But here we are again this year, Year 2 of the McElwain era, winning the East division title and playing for the SEC championship. Again competing for a SEC title in Year 2, a full 2 to 4 years (or more) ahead of schedule. Both championships came despite losing the starting quarterback in Game 6 and Game 3 of the two seasons, respectively. Luke Del Rio tried to come back from his multiple serious injuries and managed to go 2-1 in SEC play with a huge Homecoming blowout of Missouri and a crucial dominating win over arch-rival Georgia, before further aggravating both injuries to the point where he couldn’t play anymore. Mac was left with no viable backup quarterback for 2015, and his stop-gap backup in 2016 has admirably gone 3-2 (3-1 against SEC foes) but is obviously not a great quarterback capable of beating the likes of Tennessee or FSU on the road.

But still, the pessimists persist. The meme of beginner’s luck was erased in 2016, but the oft-repeated line about the East being weak has continued to be the rallying cry for fans looking to criticize Coach Mac. But let’s take a step back and look at where we were supposed to be.

As we all remembered when we strolled down the 2014 memory lane, Gator fans – none of them – ever thought we’d come this far this soon with Coach Mac or any other coach. But fans tend to live in a bubble, so let’s review what the national media thought about it. Here are a few notable and respected college football media outlets that make heavily-anticipated preseason predictions every year. I chose them at random from the crowd (random in the sense that these were the only ones I could easily find), but as we all recall, they are representative of the total media perspective on Florida’s chances.

Here is where they projected Florida in the SEC East for the first two years of Mac’s tenure:

CBS Sports: #4 in 2015; #3 in 2016

Athlon: #3 in 2015; #3 in 2016

SEC Media: #5 in 2015; #2 in 2016

Those numbers aren’t predictions in the SEC, just the East. That’s an average of 3.3. Average prediction over the two years of third place (and a third). Never predicted by anyone to win the East. Won the East both years. Never been done before by a first-time SEC coach.

And yet some fans are unsatisfied. Unhappy. Downright angry.

Nobody thought this year’s backup Austin Appleby he was capable of going on the road and beating ranked and powerful (when healthy, as when they played) teams like LSU, Tennessee, and FSU. When Mac signed him out of Purdue, the move was roundly laughed off by many fans and even the supportive fans knew he was a very limited player, and if we had to rely on him to start in big games, we would be in trouble. Yet he actually did go out and beat LSU on the road, even with half the team in the Shands orthopedics ward. But when he played poorly in the second half of Tennessee and the whole game against FSU – and lost both games – many fans reacted as if he was in fact a great quarterback who should have beaten those teams on the road, and that somehow it was a great coaching failure that he did not.

But why? Why has the team and the head coach and even the two completely outmanned and overmatched backup quarterbacks the last two years consistently and even shockingly overachieved, and yet been met with fan reaction as if they shockingly underachieved? There has to be a reason. It can’t be just as simple as the fans needing a shiny object at which to swat their paws in order to be entertained. Right?

Well, I suppose there is no getting around the fact that most of the Mac naysayers have repeatedly complained that the problem is that the offense is boring. This would imply that if Florida had won ZERO East titles in the last two years, finished around the 6-7 win mark, but the offense was running up points left and right and losing high-scoring track meets every week, that these fans would be happy with the “progress”. I suppose there is truth to that, perhaps a lot of truth. But I think there is a far bigger factor at work here: rabid impatience.

And it is not all the fans’ fault. Had we not gotten such a dazzling taste of what the Mac offense could look like at Florida in the first half of 2015, perhaps the patience of Gator Nation would know larger bounds. But we did. We saw it. We saw Will Grier carve up Tennessee with the scintillating fourth quarter comeback in the Swamp. We saw magic. Then we saw the UF offense simply obliterate the #3 team in the nation the following week (even with the whole team apparently suffering from flu). And we saw how perfect our defense could play when allowed to rest adequately between possessions. Then it was all taken away. And we want it back. And we are not willing to wait for it.

Well, we have to wait for it. We have to wait until one of the two guys Mac signed in February is ready to take the reins. The complaining still booms that Mac should have signed a difference-making quarterback in 2015. The signing class where he had about a month of actual non-dead-period recruiting to woo a quarterback. A quarterback, a position where the elite in the country traditionally commit about a year in advance and spend all that time to recruit the rest of the class. And despite the fact that he only had a few weeks to work on long-committed signal callers, and despite the fact that Florida had two highly-touted and very young QB prospects on the roster who were going to fight it out for the starting position the next month in spring practice, he managed to get the ears of long-time committed players Lamar Jackson (2016 presumptive Heisman Trophy winner) and Deondre Francois and did not get final definitive “No’s” from either of them until signing day. And he still went out and got transfer Luke Del Rio, and the following year inked Appleby, and thank goodness he did both.

But the natives are still not satisfied. They say Mac has neglected quarterback recruiting. Despite the fact that in Mac’s second class, he signed an elite top-5 rated QB in Feleipe Franks. And he signed a guy who likely is as good as or better than many top-10, even top-5 QBs in Kyle Trask. But neither of them were plug-and-play guys like Jacob Eason and Shea Patterson, the two darlings of the 2016 quarterback litter.

And it bears mentioning that Mac got Eason to commit on his visit to Gainesville last year. Eason was committed to Georgia (7/19/14) nearly five full months before Mac was even hired at Florida (12/5). Mac pursued but Eason and his pops made it clear there was a brick wall around him. Only the firing of Mark Richt cracked the door open and Mac darn near kicked it in. His dad wanted UF and reliable sources (and several Gator players’ twitter feeds) said that Jacob Eason told UF coaches and players on his visit that he was flipping. But as an early entrant, the time was limited and once UGA got Eason back on campus for a visit, all the kids he helped recruit to UGA convinced him to stick.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know a single head coach in America who could win the East without a QB of any sort, let alone do it twice. Yet the natives are still angry. Being angry is fine, but I am confused that they are angry at the head coach because he did not do the literally impossible: do more than merely the history-making double-dip of East titles…instead of winning the SEC, the national title, sweeping all our rivals…the list of impossible demands seems limitless.

 

The Quarterback Thing

I and many others have been saying since Grier got suspended that this offense is just one good quarterback from being good, and one great quarterback from really good, maybe even being scary-good. And with a great offense, the elite status and bigger championships will follow. But since we don’t have one yet, critics have taken the opportunity to criticize everything from game day adjustments to play calling to even the way Mac talks to reporters in friendly interviews. Much of the quarterback-oriented complaints revolve around a demand to throw one of the true freshmen – Franks or Trask – into the fray, ready or not, and let them take their lumps and losses and learn on the job until they are ready to win big.

When reminded that this could physically and psychologically ruin them, or that we would be sacrificing wins now for wins that may never come later, the response always comes back to something like, “Well just look at the other true freshmen being thrown into the fray in the SEC, like Jacob Eason, Shea Patterson (Ole Miss) and Jake Bentley (South Carolina). They’re killing it.” Well, firstly they were all thrown into the fray because their teams did not have any better options. Florida did and still does, given the learning curve for Franks and Trask when they started. Even if one of them is beyond where Appleby is now, it would be foolish to burn his redshirt for one game on the off-chance a true freshman making his first start could beat Alabama on the biggest stage in college football outside the playoffs. Secondly, they are not “killing it”. Eason has been roundly criticized by the UGA beat media because he has not improved one iota since Spring, and because he has only led the team (which was a 10-win team last year and returned better personnel this year, including the QB who led them to the 10 wins) to just 7 wins – with a loss to a terrible Ole Miss team, and humiliating losses to Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech. In his debut, Patterson led a nice late comeback against a woeful Texas A&M defense and team that is in a second-half tailspin, but followed that up with two humiliating blowout losses to Vanderbilt and Mississippi State, wherein he played like he was far out of his depth, completing just 52% of his passes to go with a couple of interceptions. Bentley has been pretty good for Carolina, pulling off the upset of Tennessee (a game won primarily on UT errors and USC defense), but closed the year playing terribly against Florida and Clemson in domination losses to both, barely scratching out a single score in both games.

If that is the kind of performances we were looking for out of our true freshmen, our record would not be better than it is right now. And even for the most elite programs, you can’t just go down to the Quarterback Store and pick one from the reserve collection; you can’t log onto Amazon and order a custom-made quarterback with all the attributes you want, like Gary and Wyatt building the perfect woman in Weird Science.

Another frequent response that hits closer to home: “Yeah but Urban Meyer and Steve Spurrier would’ve played their true freshmen and won big.”

Would they?

It’s impossible to say for sure, but we do have a few examples we can examine to get a good idea. What Mac has dealt with the last two years was not perfectly duplicated in the past Spurrier and Meyer eras, but they have been approximated. Here are two such examples.

Example 1: The Case of the Missing Quarterback 

Mac won the East last year after losing his starting QB for the whole year after Game 6. He won the East this year after losing his healthy starting QB for the whole year in Game 3 (though he came back and played a couple more games with a bum leg and a throwing arm that was stapled to his shoulder).

In 1997, Spurrier was faced with replacing a legend at QB. Danny Wuerffel was gone after winning 4-straight SEC titles and a national title. Spurrier had an elite QB recruited and in theory ready to take over and carry the Danny torch. But Bobby Sabelhaus signed with a then-undiagnosed bipolar disorder that ruined his career (let’s say this was Mac being denied a top flight QB in his first year because he only had a month to recruit). Then he turned to a true freshman Doug Johnson, who was very skilled but being rushed into service a bit early. But he proved to be as good as advertized, leading the team to a 5-0 record, including a whipping of then-elite Tennessee with a seasoned senior quarterback named Peyton Manning. Then Johnson decided to go out boozing on game week and came into the LSU game with a hangover that would make the 2009 SEC title game Gators blush, and blew the game and got suspended for a number of games (this was Spurrier losing Grier, let’s say: he proved to be as good as, leading the team to a 6-0 record, including a whipping of then-elite Ole Miss and committed a very similar selfish act leading to his suspension).

Spurrier turned to the only other guy on the roster he had left, Noah Brindise. Not a good QB (this was Spurrier’s Treon Harris). But like Mac, he made the best of it. But unlike Mac, Spurs got his Starting QB back from suspension for the end of the year; Mac lost Grier for the whole year (and a healthy LDR for the whole year).

And Spurrier had the surrounding cast to help Noah that was coming off 4-straight SEC titles, 2-straight national title games and a national championship won the year before. The roster was racked and stacked with nationally elite players at every position group. Mac was coming off the worst 5-year debacle in program history since at least the early ’80s, and a roster and depth chart that was thin all over and utterly non-existent on the offensive side. Brindise got to work behind an offensive line for which Spurrier had been building and creating depth for 8-straight recruiting classes; Treon was working behind an offensive line that was left so vacant of scholarship players that Mac couldn’t even hold a spring practice game without inserting a half dozen walk-ons and guys pulled out of the student section.

Mac won the East both years, coming back from a deficit to do it last year. Spurrier did NOT win the East in 1997, blowing the East lead by losing two games after beating the eventual East champ Tennessee. Spurrier even lost a game BEFORE losing his starting QB…Mac did not lose a single game in either year before losing his starting QB, and in fact, has never lost a game when he had his starting QB healthy.

So while we can’t say for sure if Spurrier in his prime could’ve won the East at UF the last 2 years, we know for a fact that the one time he faced similar circumstances in his prime (and had a much better team with which to work), he couldn’t do it.

Example 2: The Case of the Freshman-Laden 2-Deep

When Coach Mac took over, he inherited enormous probation-like gaps and holes in the offensive depth chart. Let’s be honest, there was no offensive depth chart. And yet he won the East in his first year with a time-splitting quarterback before Game 4, and no quarterback after Game 6, only one reliable receiver (a true freshman), one running back, one tight end and a terrible starting offensive line featuring a second-year player, two first-year players and one first-year JUCO transfer who was widely ridiculed. The defense was as good as they come. Flashback to 2007. Urban Meyer inherited a very talented team from Ron Zook two years prior, but a team with very uneven recruiting that left a gaping probation-like hole in the defensive depth chart in 2007. This forced Meyer to start true freshmen at safety and cornerback, and true sophomores at cornerback, middle linebacker, outside linebacker and defensive end. The offense was as good as they come. Meyer was basically in the exact same spot Mac was last year, only the huge holes were in his defense, whereas Mac’s were in his offense. For Mac, last year was his first year coaching the team, first-year offensive scheme, first-year defensive scheme, the first year of coaches working with players, five weeks of recruiting to cover the roster holes. Mac won 10 games, went 7-1 in the SEC and won the East. For Meyer, 2007 was his third year coaching the team, third-year offensive scheme, third-year defensive scheme, a third year of coaches working with players, three years of recruiting to cover the roster holes. Urban won 9 games, went 5-3 in the SEC and did not win the East. Incidentally, both were beaten ugly by Michigan in the bowl game.

 

What Quarterback Thing?

Some fans question that we are just one great quarterback away and even claim we should be winning despite being forced by injuries to use backup quarterbacks who are severely lacking. Well, again, let’s take a look at the modern history of Florida football.

The Gators have won, since 1990, nine SEC titles. Here are the quarterbacks for those SEC titles:

1990-91: Shane Matthews – State high school player-of-the-year (POY); 2-time SEC POY; 3-time 1st Team All-SEC; Broke many UF and SEC records

1993: Terry Dean – 1993 SEC Championship Game MVP; Broke UF and SEC records in becoming Heisman Trophy leader the first half of 1994 before being benched for having a bad game against Auburn

1993-1996: Danny Wuerffel – State high school POY & #2 QB nationally; Heisman Trophy; 2-time SEC POY; 3-time 1st Team All-SEC; 1st team All-American; Broke many UF and SEC records

2000: Rex Grossman – State high school POY; SEC POY; AP College Football POY

2006: Chris Leak – National high school POY; Broke many UF and SEC records

2008: Tim Tebow – State high school POY & #1 DT QB nationally; Heisman Trophy; 2-time SEC POY; 3-time 1st Team All-SEC; 2-time 1st team All-American; AP College Football POY; Broke many UF and SEC records

Florida’s three national titles, of course, were piloted by Danny Wuerffel, Chris Leak, and Tim Tebow as well. Florida has never won a SEC title in the modern era (marked by the arrival of Spurrier) without a high school elite and a college elite player at quarterback. Even before Spurrier arrived and the benchmark for success was set, Florida only tasted first place in the SEC twice before – and both times the quarterback was SEC POY, 1st team All-SEC and annual Heisman candidate Kerwin Bell. The only difference there was that he was not an elite high school quarterback; he was a walk-on. But the world of recruiting was much different back then – and even then, it was a pretty rare thing to pull an elite college quarterback out of the anonymous high school ether.

So if Florida is going to win a SEC title and national title again, it better has a nationally elite signal caller taking the snaps. And it would help if that guy were an elite high school quarterback, as well. Florida has one of those guys taking a redshirt this year, and a possible Kerwin-esque treasure-in-the-basement player taking a redshirt as well. We will see what Mac can do with this offense and this team when he has one of these prototype program-changing type kids slinging the rock. And that show will start next year.

 

Mac’s Ranking among SEC Coaches

The same fans who are so unhappy about only winning the SEC East (or just not having an exciting offense with backup quarterbacks running the show) are split between indirectly suggesting that he be fired right now to directly demanding that he be fired after next year if our offense doesn’t score 50 points per game and win the SEC title. That would indicate that winning the East in his first two years is not getting the job done.

Well, let’s look at that. If Mac isn’t getting the job done, there must be other coaches who are getting the job done in the SEC, against which he is failing by comparison. So let’s forget the dumpster inferno that Mac inherited. Let’s forget that he’s only been at UF for two years. Let’s compare Coach McElwain to all the SEC coaches not named Nick Saban and see where he ranks or rates.

*Florida/Jim McElwain: 2 years; 2 division titles (which has never been done before in SEC history to start an SEC tenure). Average of 3.5 losses per year the best of all SEC coaches not named Saban.

*Auburn/Gus: 4 years; won SEC in 1st year, has averaged 5 losses a year in 3 years since and many boosters want him fired. Average of 4.3 losses per year overall.

*Ole Miss/Hugh Freeze: 5 years; hasn’t won anything. Averaging 5 losses per year.

*LSU/Coach O: 7 games as interim coach, lost to only 2 teams that were any good – at home; head coach in the SEC for 3 previous seasons; didn’t win anything. Averaged over 8 losses a year.

*Texas A&M/Kevin Sumlin: 5 years; hasn’t won anything. Averaging 4 losses per year.

*Arkansas/Bret Bielema: 4 years; hasn’t won anything. Averaging over 6 losses per year.

*MSU/Dan Mullen: 8 years; hasn’t won anything. Averaging over 5 losses per year.

*Tennessee/Butch Jones: 4 years; hasn’t won anything. Averaging over 5 losses per year.

*Georgia/Kirby Smart: first time, first-year head coach, turned a 10-win team into a 7-win team with better talent than last year, including embarrassing HOME losses to Vandy and Georgia Tech.

*South Carolina/TOG: first year, 6 losses; 5 years as SEC head coach, never won anything, averaging nearly 7 losses a year.

*Missouri/Odom: first time, first-year head coach, lost 8 games, including Middle Tennessee.

*Kentucky/Mark Stoops: 4 years; hasn’t won anything. Averaging over 7 losses per year.

*Vanderbilt/Derek Mason: 3 years; hasn’t won anything. Averaging nearly 8 losses per year.

So…outside of Saban, Mac has 2 division titles in 2 years, while with a combined SEC tenure of 48 seasons, the entire rest of the current SEC coaching fraternity has just 1 division title. That’s a 100% rate for Mac winning the division and a 2% rate for the other 12 non-Saban coaches. Mac has averaged the fewest losses per year, as well. For what it’s worth, Saban has been a head coach for 15 years in the SEC and won the division 8 times for a 53% rate. And for further comparison, Urban Meyer won the division 33% of the time and Steve Spurrier won the division 70% of the time. All those three have won a truckload of national titles, so there is obviously no comparison with Mac yet, but the fact of the matter is that the only way to put Mac’s division-winning success in perspective is to compare him to these national title-winning icons of the sport.

Given the roster that Mac has built in a month more than 1 recruiting cycle, what SEC program other than Bama would you rather be? I wouldn’t take a single one over Florida. Would you? Would you trade Mac for any other SEC coach besides Saban? If you blinded the names and ignored the hype and signing day fanfare associated with certain coaches, and only read the SEC resumes, which one would you pick to run your team?

I would pick Mac’s resume and it wouldn’t be close.

 

The Recruiting Angle

The another big knock on Mac is of course that he has not brought in a top-10 class and isn’t tracking to do so this year, based only on the rankings of the recruiting entertainment websites. He doesn’t sign top-10 classes; he just beats a bunch of coaches who do. But I get it. Heck, I’d love to sign all the 5-star players in the nation every year, too.

But how do you propose we do that this year (or last year, since we faced the same thing then)?

We don’t have any recruiting momentum right now because our offense is clunky at best and we are facing two bad-looking losses to finish the season. What can Mac do about that? It is not his fault that Hurricanes Matthew and Alleva pushed the LSU game to where Florida’s schedule is back-loaded with the three toughest opponents of the year in three consecutive weeks. It’s not his fault we have to face them all with a backup quarterback. It’s not his fault that over half of our starting team – and many key backups – are out or playing severely injured in these three games.

That’s our reality right now. How is Mac supposed to generate recruiting buzz with that? If anyone has an Easy Button for this, please contact the UF football offices immediately.

Many Florida fans correctly pointed out that we needed to follow up the huge LSU win with an impressive game at FSU to get the recruiting momentum back on track. Well sure it would have. So would the reincarnation of Tim Tebow appearing at QB for us this Saturday in Atlanta. But we can’t just go out on the road with a backup quarterback and play the game of the year for 3 weeks in a row with half our team in the hospital. That’s what some Gator fans are asking for…even demanding.

Some fans can’t understand why there is any excitement around the Gator program right now: no buzz, no big splash commitments, no hype. Well, I am looking around the SEC, and outside of Alabama, I don’t see a single another program with any trace of buzz, heat or excitement, either. Heck, Vanderbilt has the most excitement and buzz around it of any team outside of the Tide. Want to be them?

But when I look at the Gator program, it is very easy to see why there is no buzz out there. In addition to the factors I mentioned above, the Gator fans can look square in the mirror to see the problem here. We were picked to finish in the middle of the East this year and last year and we won the East both times with no quarterback. We are WAY ahead of schedule on this rebuilding progression. We should be anywhere on the emotional spectrum between happy and dancing in the streets.

But no. We aren’t. We’ve got people carpet bombing the Internet about how Mac is a dud and how winning the East is meaningless and the only thing that matters in college football is recruiting rankings and an exciting offense, and that roster and depth and injuries and youth and strength of the opposing teams all have absolutely no impact on a team’s ability to win games in the toughest league in the nation (plus one of the toughest out-of-conference opponents in the country).

Recruits live on social media. They have more re-tweets in a day that they’ve had hot meals in their entire lives. How on Earth can Florida build any recruiting momentum when there is a perpetual thunderstorm of negative recruiting on social media against the Gators…by Gator fans? Nobody should have to be phony about their feelings, but when you are actually doing our rival coaches’ jobs for them on the recruiting trail, it is time to reassess.

Because the McElwain show so far has been what I would call a mixed genre action-drama, coming-of-age and a little slice-of-life. But many of the reviews for the show that are coming in from the professional critics fall strongly under the category of mystery.

David Parker
One of the original columnists when Gator Country first premiered, David “PD” Parker has been following and writing about the Gators since the eighties. From his years of regular contributions as a member of Gator Country to his weekly columns as a partner of the popular defunct niche website Gator Gurus, PD has become known in Gator Nation for his analysis, insight and humor on all things Gator.