Maybe CBN is turning the corner!

Yeah Coach really should have hit that 40 yard FG to beat Arkansas. Can definitely hang that loss on Billy

 

Well, Texas A&M spent insane money to get Jimbo... and insane money rebuilding their stadium.

Where did that get them?

Yes we need to open pocket books but money is just one part of the equation. An expensive bad coach isn't going to fix anything, but it will hamper your future. Just as paying fire coaches buyouts for multiple years hurts us.

 

But you can blame the chaos prior to the kick on him and his staff (or lack thereof on the ST side). Does that mean he 'caused' the loss? Not directly, but it certainly didn't help.

That sequence is a symptom of problem MUCH larger than a home loss to a team who had scored 3 points the previous week and whose only other wins on the season came against West. Carolina, Kent State and FL International ...


So, the more I think about it Arky is probably the loss most accurately blamed on coaching. Most of the other losses were to objectively better teams

 

Still to be determined....so far his actual signing classes are rated no better than his immediate predecessor and not as good as Muschamp. If he delivers that mail on 12/20, then we can reassess.

 

Well hell then, let's just blame everything bad that happened directly on Coach Napier. I mean, anything can ultimately be traced back to the head coach. Really makes for a straightforward Root Cause Failure Analysis, doesn't it? I mean, in every RCFA I was ever involved with in my engineering career, you can always track the root cause back to management. Easy peasy

 

Unfortunately, he's a year or two late on addressing those deficiencies and/or would never do so until forced to:
(Toney, Raymond, Spencer, OC TBD?, Special Teams TBD?)

 

I think that was a gamble that didn't pay off, but it was a good one if the mentality is championship or bust. He was probably seen as a top 5 coach in the country at the time they picked him up and he already won a national championship as a head coach. He recruits well and has been characterized by Saban as the best offensive coordinator he's ever had.

I just don't think he was ever the same after the personal life issues he had on his way out at FSU. And fat paychecks with guaranteed money have a way of making people complacent.

I know I just said we have to spend money, but that's the dilemma now isn't it. Drawing an established elite coach will require an absurd cost with a lot of guaranteed money, but guaranteed money makes coaches less likely to put in the work.

Yeah, I think it's more about staff, facilities, recruiting budget, atmosphere, etc. And I think that's a good sign with Napier as I believe he specifically requested a hefty lump of cash to try and implement all of these things. And that's a good thing because even if he fails, he has raised the status quo of the Gator Football Program. It means any old coach off the block is now more likely to do better in the Swamp after Napier than before Napier. Hopefully it won't even come to that for a while.

 

Fair point, we can't count our chickens before they're hatched. He needs to close on this signing class and he probably needs to add 3-6 more people to sign, especially in light of the portal.

 

If his predecessor actually got his signees to campus, that would be a worthwhile comparison. That’s the biggest difference between those classes. Not only did Billy’s signees make it to campus, most of them were ee’s as well.

 

You have to have a comparison someplace and the annual recruiting rankings are as good as any. Billy's recruits being on campus for 2 years hasn't yielded much in the way of positive results so far and we don't have the luxury of looking at them retrospectively. Napier's classes may dissolve into the portal just as easily as his predecessors did. Declaring that BN is a better recruiter at this point gets a grade of I from me. I'm hoping he is, but the cake isn't fully baked at this point.

 

Getting the best out there regarding coaching is critically urgent. Is our Gator Branding NIL stuff any good? Does that need help? I always feel like this stuff is a lawyer's dream job, skimming the boosters pot for cash. I don't know, just asking. At this juncture one needs to ask all the questions.

I think Napier posses the mindset to win over kids and parents and it appears he has the capacity for change which would offer hope for the future and address his longevity. With coaching, I just hope he will snag the best, not just some guy he's worked with. Unless, of course, they're the best.

What about the University Pres? Now that the University is highly-ranked, isn't it time to ratchet up sports? He can gather up big time $, I know that. He's a sports guy too, and is probably sick of mediocrity having come from Nebraska.

The naysayers are out big time. I feel a disturbance in the force. The haters are like that scene in Braveheart when they appear over the top of a empty hillcrest. Ahhhh

I suppose this is where faith comes in...realising we don't have a lot of power and hoping someone with power can make right choices...

Go Gators.

 

Two games in particular that will probably keep him awake at night for a while: Arkie and Mizzou. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. Instead of 5-7, we'd be 7-5 and heading to a bowl with a bit more optimism than we have now. Toss in the F$U game for 8-4.
The margins are very narrow sometimes.

 

Mullen’s signees didn’t just dissolve into the portal. A good portion never made it to campus at all. Others were gone before the first fall practice came to an end. A lot of these guys that never made it to the first game were higher ranked guys that pulled the rankings up. If you actually look at what’s in the classes, you’ll see they aren’t very similar. Whether they yielded better results is another discussion.

A guy that has a chance of being used is a lot different than a guy that has no chance of being used. If they don’t make it to campus, you get nothing out of them. I don’t really get why the classes aren’t adjusted for this. I don’t see how you value a guy that at least stayed with the program for a season or two the same as a guy who never made it to campus at all.

 

And if shemar plays, likely doesn’t come down to that

 

Not to mention the biggest contributors on Billy's teams seem to be his recruits. And while no phase of the ball has been promising, some young individual players as well as Mertz have been very promising.

 

So did coaching contribute to Pearsall’s strip and fumble just before going out of bounds that was returned for a TD on our first or second play from scrimmage that put us in a 14-0 hole and gave Arky confidence? Ricky is a senior and knew better, but it was a costly mistake and maybe the only one he made in 2 years.
Not to make an excuse, but football is an emotional game and our team was coming off a loss to our biggest rival, playing an Arky team that had a bad record with a lot of close losses and coming off a bye week. We should have won no doubt, but this wasn’t all on the coaches, the players own as much of that loss if not more imo. Between the play I described and the missed easy fg, that ‘s 10 points. We also tackled like crap in 2nd half.
For those that look at recruiting rankings and ignorantly say we had more talent than most of our opponents, did you see our OL play this year? Had to be the worst I’ve ever seen. George had to play OT instead of OG, and our two best OL going into the season were hurt for much of the season.
Also, recruiting rankings don’t account for experience. We were YOUNG and inexperienced at most positions. We need some good experienced OL, especially OT, and Safeties and LB’s as well as a DT and DE and WR or two.

 

You are forgetting the gift from the refs to even allow us to attempt that FG as time should have ran out due to the substitution issue directly tied to the coaching.

 

Agreed. We iced our own kicker because of a lack of coherent organization. How many times did we leave points on the field or allowed an opponent to stay on the field and score because of lack of organization. We look confused and unorganized a lot. That is absolutely on coaching.

 

How you coach and call plays directly affects the margin you have for victory. Napier calls things conservatively with a lead. In doing so, he keeps the game close, but that also magnifies any mistakes/bad luck that may occur. When your offense relies on staying on schedule with little big play ability, any mistakes will usually kill a drive.

The defense was an issue all year, but the defense got our offense the ball back in each of our last three games with multiple chances to extend a lead, and the offense would sputter. We would eventually fall behind and then the offense would come alive and score while the defense sputtered. We never played consistently all year.