I apologize up front for this large post but now that we are approaching the long summer prior to football season start I thought this would help stimulate board discussion. With the baseball regular season completed I decided to do a quick assessment on how the Florida sports program performed during SEC regular season league competition relative to the other 13 programs. With football and men's basketball competing with 1st year head coaches and finishing below historical average for this century, I expected a significant drop for the overall athletic program. Especially when you throw in the abysmal performance of the soccer program (dead last), mass roster defection to turn pro for the men's tennis team, and softball's disastrous pitching situation leading to a below expected finish in league competition. However, buoyed by UF sports winning outright or sharing 6 league regular season banners, by one basic measure they had the second most successful all around program behind Tennessee in men's only, women's only and the all-around sports categories. UF was easily #1 if you count the 6 total SEC regular banners hung in Volleyball, gymnastics, men's and women's swimming, men's golf and baseball. Arkansas was second with 5 banners. However, that number includes 4 total banners alone in T&F if you count indoor & outdoor separately. Otherwise, they won 3 total as baseball co-champs, men's T&F and women's T&F. What I find interesting is Tennessee won 1 regular season banner in all the sports the SEC recognizes. That being softball. What the Vols did well in is that they had very competitive finishes in every sport with the exception of women's golf. No complete failures (think soccer) or major historical dips in other programs like UF endured this season. There is an argument to made that UF had the most successful regular sports program in the SEC this season if you account for total banners won in sports the Gators actually competed in (congrats Auburn on your lone banner won in that rigorous 4 SEC team field of Equestrian). If you base success on banners won, the UF "win-rate" would be an astounding 30% assuming separate indoor & outdoor T&F banners for both men and women; or a 38% of championships won "win-rate" in you consolidate the run sports (CC, I T&F & O T&F) into a singular T&F banner, one each for both the women and men. This is often done in determining end of season All Sports rankings. Either way you count it, that is a phenomenal "win rate" especially in a 14-team conference considered the national best in multiple sports. Going forward, UF just needs to tighten it up in a few sports that they have traditionally been good at. The fact that UF was down in the two most "important" and certainly visible sports did the overall sports program perception-wise no favors. Final note: I am not going to list my Excel spreadsheet as this post is way too big to begin with. For those interested, the methodology used to determine this placement I kept simple. No exotic algorithms to weight team placement based on # of fielded teams per sport, etc. Just a simple points assignment based on finish. For example, in sports where all schools fielded a team such as football, basketball, soccer, baseball, etc., I assigned 14 points for 1st and 1 point for last. In gymnastics UF got 8 points for first in the eight team field and Auburn got 4 points for 1st in the four team Equestrian field. If I had assigned finishing 1st with added weight points-wise as is done in swimming, there is a good chance UF "wins" in multiple categories. There is an argument for doing this as winning does matter. However, this for me was a KISS (keep it simple) and quick exercise that I believe will pretty much mirror what officially comes out when the "weighted" SEC All Sports Trophy result is announced shortly.
As would Georgia since their basketball and baseball teams are perennially at the bottom of the conference. . Just guessing but i think Bama finishes ahead of Georgia in this analysis.
Bama at 3rd did in fact finish ahead of UGA at 4th in men's sports. However, based on the strength of their women's sports, UGA trades places with Alabama when you combine the men's and women's rankings. The rank order for overall SEC programs is as follows: 1. UT (1 banner) 2. UF (6 banners) 3. UGA (2) 4. Ala (2...4 if you separate out cross country from a combined T&F program ranking) 5. TA&M (2) 6. LSU (0...and no, a natty in women's basketball does not count here) 7. Ark (3...5 if you separate out indoor & outdoor track) 8. Aub (1...in Equestrian no less) 9. USCe (1) 10. UK (0...Calipari and the boys fall short, again) 11. OM (0) 12. MSU (0) 13. Vandy (0...sorry, bowling is not recognized as a sport that counts by the SEC) 14. Mizzou (0...they were brought into the SEC, why again? Oh, that's right, we needed the all important St. Louis market for TV rights negotiations)
Agree with Bama fans . But …. I’ll say football bskball and baseball. Very few gives a poop about All Sports trophies.. actually fewer than very few . It’s nonsense
9,000 who attend uf gymnastics meets and those watching on tv probably don't agree. it just means more in the sec is accurate.
Since you couldn’t get a rise out of ET I was going to tell you that your post was a little harsh but sometimes your posts are better left alone!
I’m one of those 9,000 losers who enjoys having a strong overall sports program. Don’t know what I would do without baseball, softball, volleyball, gymnastics, etc. to keep me occupied and interested until we get through the summer and have football on the horizon. Especially now that I retired this year.
Ok but how important is academics? Would you switch with Alabama. In the Playoff every year but not so respected academically?
To me anyone that doesn't value college academics should just move on and root for pro teams. I would never want to trade places with the total package at Bama, lsu, etc.