Gator Country VIP Newsletter — 10/24/18 Edition

    By popular demand, Gator Country is refreshing one of its favorite features, this time in a weekly cadence to get everyone over hump day and rolling into the next Gator game day. Ray (Solari), in his everlasting wisdom (?), assigned the bulk of the newsletter to me, David Parker.

    Most of the thoughts will revolve around our beloved Gators, of course, but many will stray about the field of college football, as well as other ports of call along the pop culture spectrum.

    Following that, you’ll find additional snippets and tidbits from the Gator Country staff and columnists. Sometimes it’s factual stuff, sometimes it’s insider stuff, sometimes it’s something else entirely. But it’s always relevant to the Florida Gators!

    We’ll be mailing this out every Wednesday morning just in time with your coffee, tea, or whatever voo-doo you use to get your day started.

    Hope you all enjoy. -PD

    NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

    Hi folks! Response to our VIP newsletters have been overwhelmingly positive — who would have thought old-style “newsletters” would be so popular?

    We’re going to double down on this because we love ’em too… Nothing like getting deliciously informed news in our email inboxes. Look for more on recruiting, best of our message boards, and more. Stay tuned!

    -Ray

    Thoughts of the Week

    What We Learned

    It’s not that often that a fan base can learn a lot about their football team during an off-week. But Gator fans sure did Saturday. We learned some very promising things in the two night games between SEC teams. 

    In Baton Rouge, we learned some things about both Mississippi State and LSU. We learned that what we saw in our games against these two teams was not a mirage. They are both seriously tough, seriously athletic, and very well coached SEC teams. MSU has the big issue of a quarterback who passes the ball about as well as cousin Vinny Gambini passes the bar, which is a killer against a good SEC defense, but otherwise they are every bit as good as LSU, and vice versa. MSU has fewer offensive weapons, but stronger defensive weapons. We learned that the Gators’ hard-fought blue collar wins over both those schools were very impressive performances. No fluke, no sneaking up on anyone, no catching them on an off-night. And from watching MSU quarterback Nick Fitzgerald over the course of the season, we have learned what we already knew: Dan Mullen is a heck of a QB coach and an offensive coordinator. In two years starting for Dan Mullen, Fitz threw for over 4,200 yards, with a 55% completion percentage. This year without Mullen, he has averaged barely over 100 yards per game and a sub-50% completion rate. That’s not just great development and drive-to-drive in-game coaching, but also knowing his QB’s strengths and constantly putting him in position to succeed. See: Feleipe Franks, 2018.

    Most relevant to our next game against Georgia, we learned that LSU didn’t suddenly jump their game up a dozen notches when they blew the doors off the Georgia defense. That was the same team that struggled mightily to score points against Florida, MSU and Auburn. They ran the same plays they did against the Dawgs, with the same blockers and same skill players, and Georgia just couldn’t stop them to the tune of 36 points, one more point than Florida scored against Vanderbilt. The best thing we learned Saturday may have been about Georgia, but more on that in a later section. 

    Speaking of Vandy, we learned a thing or two in the Commodores-Kentucky game Saturday night, as well. We learned that Vandy didn’t just sneak up on us last week or catch us in a trap game situation. Sure, the pre-noon start and the lesser Gator defensive energy to begin the game were factors, but we saw the ‘Dore s stand toe-to-toe against the only team to beat Florida this year. We saw the Vandy team that almost (and should have) beaten now top-5 ranked Notre Dame. We learned that Vandy is not a bad team, as we assumed going into our game in Nashville. We also learned that Florida may very well not have been guilty of taking a lesser opponent lightly – Vandy is indeed a legitimately tough SEC team capable of scoring on a really good team when they get the number of gifts that Florida gave them. 

    Biggest Mid-Season Gator Story: The Offensive Line

    You can’t swing a stick around the Florida football program right now without hitting something that has showed marked improvement over last year, and in fact over the entire last 8 years. And among those improvements, none have stood out more than the offensive line. The performance uptick from this unit cannot be overstated.

    They are clearly stronger physically, with credit to new strength & conditioning coach Nick Savage. There was a small stable of naysayers who kept discrediting the players’ ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures over Summer workouts, but we are seeing right before our eyes that not only are they physically stronger at every position, but they’re also much better conditioned. We are the team with the most energy, the most push, the most physical reserves in the 4th quarter of every game this year. This is something we haven’t seen since at least 2009.

    But even more clearly, this OL is showing that they are getting great coaching and they are responding to it. Our technique is through the roof compared to the last 8 years, and for the first time since 2009, the entire OL is demonstrating that they know their assignments on every play. No matter how strong or technically sound a lineman is, they will not be very effective if they don’t know their assignments. Gone are the days where we have one or two defenders running through the line of scrimmage untouched on every play while one or two of our linemen block nobody (or each other) because they don’t know who they’re supposed to block on a given play.

    And when the OL knows their assignments, and they are strong and fresh for 4 quarters, they have the ability not only to execute at the point of attack, but they also get upfield on running plays and are throwing blocks on the second level consistently, leading to a significant increase in big plays in the run game.

    The Art of Hiring a Head Coach

    Much has been made in Gator Nation, and rightly so, about how to hire and how not to hire a head coach. Not just this year, but for nearly the last quarter century. That will happen when you experience such extreme bouts of feast or famine as the Gator program has experienced since Doug Dickey was shown the door after the 1978 season. Dickey epitomized the Gator coaching extremes, as he was responsible for both Fourth-and-Dumb, the most infamous play call in program history, and for giving Steve Spurrier his first ever coaching job as Florida’s quarterbacks coach. He was the only head coach who would give Spurrier the time of day at the time, and without the hire, Spurrier may never have gone into coaching, and both Florida history and college football history would have never been the same. Jeremy Foley has been the centerpiece of most conversations around this, as he proved as athletics director to be the most skilled and visionary head coaching scout for every college sport except football, in which he conversely proved to be as blind as a bat. 

    There are many opinions about the right and wrong way to hire a head coach, and in fairness most are largely hindsight-driven. But many of us have been making foresighted pleas for decades to follow a certain script, and I believe I now have that script down to a science. A Gator beat columnist last week suggested that hiring head football coaches was nothing but a crap shoot, or better yet the Gumpian box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get. But I beg to differ. 

    To wit, Scott Stricklin knew EXACTLY what he was getting with Dan Mullen. Now that’s a unique situation because he worked with him for many years at Mississippi State. However, Dan also fits the slam-dunk template for a successful coaching hire. 

    Now, as an athletics director kicking off a coaching search, firstly you have to know yourself as a program. Are you an elite-level power program like Florida, or are you a never-gonna-be-a-big-deal-EVER kind of program like Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt, Minnesota, etc. Or are you a big-time power program that will always at best reside in that second-tier of national names, with only an occasional national title shot when a once-in-a-generation confluence of talent and events occurs? I’m looking at you, Tennessee and Georgia.

    If you’re in the second category, a real nowhere program, playing in your nowhere land, making all your nowhere game plans for nobody, then not only is it appropriate to hire roll-of-the-dice coaches, you have no choice but to do it. Because no next-big-thing coach will ever go there. But if you’re one of those 10-12 elite-level programs in the nation – and Florida is as big-time as it gets – you must abide the 3 rules of the elite program formula. As Hamilton said to Spicoli: Learn it, know it, live it. 

    Rule 1: Under NO circumstances should you EVER hire someone who has never been a head coach or run a football program before. No brainer. The only exception is an assistant that has been on staff at your program under a championship head coach, knows everything about the program, conference and recruiting territories inside and out, has the full endorsement of the exiting head coach, AND has been doing Associate Head Coaching duties for multiple years, showing he has capable experience with actually running the program (see: Lincoln Riley, Jimbo Fisher). This should have excluded Ron Zook and Will Muschamp.

    Rule 2: Under NO circumstances should you EVER hire a Wikipedia head coach. That is, if the majority of fans and recruits (and even media) have to look up his name on Wikipedia to know who he is or what he’s done, he is not to be considered, EVER. As the head coach of an FBS (and maybe an FCS) school, the coach must have demonstrated enough elite acumen to have not only made their current program into a big winner, but also made a big name for himself so that ADs, media and fans are all talking about him constantly as one of the next hires at a big time program. This should have excluded Jim McElwain on all points. 

    Rule 3: Simply put, the coach must check all the boxes, not only in history of success, but in offensive and defensive personality, full understanding of the culture of the program, full understanding of the conference culture and the historical recruiting base, and while he doesn’t have to be media-friendly per se, he must be media savvy. Some universities will have more boxes than others, depending on their academic standards, Board politics, etc., but most of the boxes are universal. 

    That’s it. 3 criteria. That’s all it takes. Follow those 3 rules and bad coaching hires will almost never happen at big time programs. Not saying that it will deliver Sabanesque results to every program that follows the template, because every game has a loser…just saying that those losses will not come because they made a bad coaching hire. 

    We’ve had our share of great coaches. All have hit all 3 criteria. To my knowledge, starting with the ‘80s (I can’t claim to know enough before the ‘80s to judge earlier coaching hires):

    — Charlie Pell: was head coach at Clemson for 2 years and won COY both years, won an ACC title and was 18-4-1 and a big buzz-name coach who knew well the culture and recruiting landscape of the SEC (Clemson has always been an SEC program displaced in the wine and cheese conference). 

    — Galen Hall fits the caveat of the hire with no head coaching experience, and took place in the middle of a season due to the head coach exiting unexpectedly. So while not a traditional hire, it fits all the other criteria and was very successful. Hall only failed when the most egregious recruiting sanctions outside of the SMU death penalty crippled the program in the late-‘80s. Hall was COY in 1984 when he claimed a national title from The Sporting News and The New York Times, while winning the first two SEC titles ever for Florida. Hall is an interesting anomaly in that he had only been at UF a matter of months as the OC before Pell was fired. Ironic that he both ran the program with impressive acumen and understanding after being the OC at Oklahoma for 11 years, and also that he was ultimately punished by the NCAA for infractions that happened before he ever set foot in Gainesville. He went on to win two World Bowls in NFL Europe, in three Word Bowl appearances, after also leading the Orlando Thunder to the WLAF World Bowl (no relation). 

    — Steve Spurrier: I think we all remember his bona fides. Highly successful college OC, and highly successful head coach with the USFL’s Tampa Bay Bandits and in the college game, doing the impossible by leading Duke to an ACC title as their skipper. He was of course a former Heisman winner at UF. He met all 3 criteria and didn’t just check all the boxes, he blew them up. 

    — Urban Meyer: He not only made big winners out of two FBS programs, he led Utah to its place as the original BCS-busters, trouncing Power-5 champion Pittsburgh in a BCS bowl with a Group of 5 program (though neither of those terms were in place then). He was the hottest head coaching commodity in years, maybe decades. And he checked every box at the time, given his gaping character issues were then unknown to the general college football community. 

    — Dan Mullen: when you’re widely considered the second-best head coach in the SEC behind “6-Natty Saban”, and you achieve that status at lowly Missy State, you’re a Box-Checker Supreme, with extra salsa. And no coach in history not named Spurrier could ever understand and fit the Florida and SEC culture more perfectly than Dan Mullen.

    Projecting the Remainder of the Gator Season

    Now that we have reached Game 8, and know a lot about our Gator football team, and a lot about the other teams remaining on or schedule, it’s time to play that little game of recalibrating expectations. Coming into the season, most folks set their sights on a 7-8 win season as the benchmark for success. That wasn’t the highest water mark, but anything over that win total would be godsend gravy. Having already secured 6 wins in 7 games, which includes 3 of the 4 best opponents on the slate, a 7-8 win season is already guaranteed (given the automatic win against Idaho). So how far above initial expectations can we hope to adjust? Let’s think it through…

    Here is what I know: 

    — Georgia is a good team, possibly very good.

    — Idaho is a vastly over-matched cupcake.

    — Missouri is a bad team.

    — South Carolina is a bad team.

    — FSU is a bad team.

    We should not lose to any bad teams this year. We are a work in progress, but we are a good team. And the Vandy win demonstrated that this Gator team is not the kind that loses to inferior competition, even when we bring far less than our A-game and practically everything goes wrong. A loss to a lesser opponent might still happen – they always do, in every program – but it is looking far less likely every week. 

    We play our last 5 games in the state of Florida: 3 in Gainesville, 1 in Jacksonville, 1 in Tallahassee.

    Assuming we don’t lose any of the 4 games we should win – and we will be favored against Missouri, South Carolina, Idaho and FSU – let’s consider what we know about Georgia.

    Georgia is a good team, perhaps very good. Georgia has blown out 6 teams. 

    Georgia’s 6 wins have been against 2 cupcakes and 4 unranked bad teams. 

    Georgia lost to LSU, which is a very good team. 

    Georgia lost to LSU when UGA was a fully formed product, with 6 games under its belt.

    Florida’s 6 wins have been against 2 cupcakes, 2 unranked bad teams, and 2 ranked good/very good teams. 

    Florida lost to UK. UK is a good team. 

    Florida lost to UK when UF was NOT a fully formed product, with only 1 game under its belt.

    Florida has beaten their cupcakes by an average of 51-8

    Georgia has beaten their cupcakes by an average of 47-4

    Florida has beaten their bad opponents by an average of 42-24

    Georgia has beaten their bad opponents by an average of 41-17

    Florida is 2-1 against good, ranked teams (avg. score 20-12). They are very battle-tested against top competition. 

    Georgia is 0-1 against good, ranked teams (avg. score 16-36). They are not very battle-tested against top competition. 

    Here is what I *DON’T* know: 

    Is Florida good enough not to get complacent, not to overlook a bad opponent, or not to ‘mistake themselves’ into losing to a bad team? The Vanderbilt game would suggest they are. 

    Is Georgia a great team, or just a good team that has feasted on and looked great against cupcakes and bad teams? The LSU game would suggest they are the latter.

    More Data to Consider

    #9 Florida and #12 Kentucky played to a virtual stalemate, giving UF its only loss.

    #16 Texas A&M and #12 Kentucky played to a virtual stalemate, giving UK its only loss.

    #16 Texas A&M and #2 Clemson played to a virtual stalemate, giving A&M its only loss not to Alabama.

    #9 Florida and #4 LSU played to a virtual stalemate, giving LSU its only loss.

    #9 Florida played then-ranked Mississippi State to a virtual stalemate, giving MSU its only loss at that point not to UK.

    #4 LSU played then-ranked Mississippi State to a virtual stalemate, but pulled away in the second half because MSU’s quarterback has fallen to absolute pieces.

    #4 LSU completely destroyed #7 Georgia, giving UGA its only loss.

    Does this demonstrate that Florida, even with all its faults, flaws and foibles, is on par with the best teams in the SEC, and indeed the best teams in the country not named Alabama (which is playing on another planet this year)? Only one of those games was a blowout instead of a down-to-the-wire nail-biter…does this demonstrate that of all these good to very good teams that have played to virtual stalemates on the field, perhaps Georgia is the one team in the group that is not on par with the rest? We will find out in Jacksonville.

    So How Does It End?

    That’s in the words of Phil Collins, and wouldn’t we all want to know? I think that we will in fact keep getting better each week, but as young and as new as we are at this “football the right way” thing, we may not be able to avoid a week where we simply have a bad day. Have the breaks go against us and regress for enough series that we trip up. You can write this down and throw it back in my face if I’m wrong, but I see us losing one more, and only one more…and beyond that, I will only commit to the declaration that the one remaining loss will NOT be to FSU. However, I have no difficulty seeing Florida win out in the regular season. Even with one loss, we can still go to Atlanta (if we win out and Kentucky loses one more, most likely to Georgia), but we can’t win the East if we lose one more and it isn’t to FSU. So I’m calling UF to watch the SEC title game on TV, but finishing with a dazzling rebuild year 1 regular season record of 10-2. Billy, don’t you lose that number. 

    Trivia to Go

    To wrap up the Fast Times reference, when Brad Hamilton, played by Judge Reinhold, tells Spicoli (along “Stoner Bud 1” and “Stoner Bud 2”, as they are billed) to learn and abide the shirt-and-shoes-wearing policy at All-American Burger, everyone remembers what actor famously played Spicoli. But what other soon-to-be-famous actors played his two stoner buds in that scene and throughout the movie? Extra bonus if you can also name Hamilton’s fellow All-American Burger co-worker who watched him get fired (billed in the credits as “Brad’s Bud”), never had a line in the movie, and went on to have one of the bigger Hollywood film careers of his generation. As this is an emailed newsletter, I have no way of fielding guesses or giving the answers, but if you don’t know, it will hopefully be a fun exercise for you looking them up. 

    Chomps from the GC Staff & Columnists —

    ANDREW SPIVEY

    Everything I’ve heard is that the team is loose and ready for Saturday. Dan Mullen’s bye week schedule is one of the best we’ve seen. He has a mix of having fun and also getting in work. Mullen is also a great self scouter of his own team. 

    This game is huge for recruiting purposes as well. The Gators are batting Georgia for several guys in the next few years. A win on Saturday would go a long way to showing recruits that Mullen is ready for the big games. One of the biggest target for both teams is Kaiir Elam who says he may buy a ticket to attend the game. 

    Last but certainly not least the Gators are definitely the team to watch for cornerback Chris Steele now that he has decommitted from USC. Florida will have to wait until the Army game to get official word from Steele but the Gators sit in good shape.  

    NICK DE LA TORRE

    For the first time since 2008 the Florida Gators and Georgia Bulldogs will face off as top-10 teams. The eyes of the college football world will be on Jacksonville with both College GameDay and SEC Nation at the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.

    To me this game will be won in the trenches. Florida needs to be able to limit Georgia’s rushing attack. Right now Georgia is rushing for 226.29 yards per game (3rd in the SEC). Elijah Holyfield is 10th in the SEC averaging 69.71 yards-per-game and second (to Dameon Pierce) with a 7.71 yards-per-carry average. Florida and Georgia will fight this one out in the trenches and the Gators are preparing that way this week.

    My overriding feeling is that this game will be similar to the Mississippi State game where both teams aren’t necessarily conservative but very cognizant of field position and will try to protect that when they can.

    With that being said I would expect Dan Mullen to have some wrinkles ready on offense if the time and opportunity presents itself. He’s shown that several times this season and we’ve seen a lot of that in this game historically.

    DAVID WUNDERLICH

    In 2005, Dan Mullen’s Gator offense opened up the Florida-Georgia game by grinding out a 13-play, 80-yard touchdown drive. After the defense forced a three-and-out and Vernell Brown had a nice punt return, the attack covered 41 yards in four plays to jump out to a 14-0 lead midway through the first quarter. Florida never scored again, but the lead held for a 14-10 win.

    This year features a better Georgia team and quite possibly a better Florida team, but that’s a template that could work. Mullen can successfully play for lead preservation and field position for a long time even when outmanned, epitomized by Mississippi State’s near-miss against eventual national champ Alabama a year ago. UGA showed an inability to play well while behind against LSU two weeks ago. If the Gators jump out to an early lead, they will have to add to it unlike 13 years ago but coaching in a way to try to ride it for a victory is Mullen’s most likely move.

    ERIC FAWCETT

    The hoops team had their secret scrimmage last week against Furman and it was like pulling teeth trying to get details, but I heard the Gators played pretty well and most importantly, there were no injuries. Current buzz around the time in practice is the play of Noah Locke. He has been torching 5 on 5 drills with his ability to create space and shoot and though the backcourt looks crowded this year, it seems like Locke is going to command a good chunk of minutes.


    That’s all, folks!

    We’ll send you off with our photo of the week below. Until then, see you in your inbox next Wednesday. : )

    All the best,
    Your friends at Gator Country…where it’s GREAT to be a FLORIDA GATOR!

    The Florida Gators volleyball team loses in five sets to the Missouri Tigers in Exatech Arena at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center in Gainesville, Florida. October 21st, 2018. Gator Country photo by David Bowie.
    Raymond Hines
    Back when I was a wee one I had to decide if I wanted to live dangerously and become a computer hacker or start a website devoted to the Gators. I chose the Gators instead of the daily thrill of knowing my next meal might be at Leavenworth. No regrets, however. The Gators have been and will continue to be my addiction. What makes this so much fun is that the more addicted I become to the Florida Gators, the more fun I have doing innovative things to help bring all the Gator news that is news (and some that isn’t) to Gator fans around the world. Andy Warhol said we all have our 15 minutes of fame. Thanks to Gator Country, I’m working on a half hour. Thanks to an understanding daughter that can’t decide if she’s going to be the female version of Einstein, Miss Universe, President of the United States or a princess, I get to spend my days doing what I’ve done since Gus Garcia and I founded Gator Country back in 1996. Has it really been over a decade and a half now?