You can see Miller has played MLB his whole career. We need a guy like Jayvant Brown to come in and make the position his. We are having a hard time (over multiple coaching staffs) converting outside guys and safeties to ILB.
The poor defensive recruiting started with maclwein which is crazy because florida had been putting out awesome defenses and sending several defensive players to the nfl
So I am mistaken in what would have been your temperature...IF we had lost this game? Okay, good to know. Personally, I can not refute this...as well as you can not prove it. It did not occur and so there is nothing to discuss in concrete. I am not attempting to "correct" you, or anyone else for that matter, because I am all knowledgeable regarding UF football. What I AM attempting to do, and I have had this conversation with others on different topics and games, is to get folks (perhaps such as yourself) to realize that we seem to have a "Euphoria to Despair" kind of dynamic this season. We are who we are and that is sobering. And, if you don't mind me calling it, this team is plainly mediocre. Too many missing parts to be better. I don't want to go over all the issues...again...just to give me scholarship in some weird way. I am using your post to at least try to help those who are afflicted with this dynamic by attempting to damp down the highs of winning...IF it leads to really bad lows of losing. And, as I posted to your post, Missouri IS equal to Kentucky. We won against Missouri but lost to Kentucky. Either game could have been won or lost based on certain bounces of the ball (which is the absolute definition of the game). Until further notice, we aren't Old UF playing Old Vandy and everyone KNOWS the outcome (at least the W-L outcome). When I am, in your terms, reading your mind without scholarship, what I am really doing is to make sure any "highs" that we collectively feel is dampened by the real knowledge that we could be 1-5 (and yes, 6-0). SEE THE GAMES AS THEY WERE. Your post seemed to have missed that point. Now, why do I do this (besides boredom)? Because what I see (actually project) is that we - collectively - are DAMN TIRED of not getting from the football program what we believe we are entitled. Since the second-to-last year of Meyer, we have been stuck in the mud. Do you not agree? Now we have hit the reset button...AGAIN...and Napier is at the helm. He is in Game 6 of his first year. The rhetoric, on any game and outcome, does not reflect this AT ALL. After a loss, and even after the less-than-stellar wins against "inferior" opponents, we play a game of "Is Napier Smarter Than a First Grader", and that IMO is DAMN DANGEROUS to the health of UF football. No one believes we can't be Tennessee, post-Fulmer. Really? We can't be just as silly in our expectations? I politely disagree. Having a gold mine in your backyard does NOT mean you are rich. You have to DO something with it to make it valuable. Otherwise, you are merely a fool with a mouth. Again, please realize this isn't an attempt to "correct you" per se, but you have given me a post that I can use to "remind" folks who read and post here that we should not be quite so elated when we win against a "better-than-bad" team and so disgusted when we lose against a "worse-than-elite" one. This IS going to be a year of cleaning up Dumbo's mess. And it is likely we are going to have some more to do next year. It is what it is.
We won the game because we remained committed to the run, especially in the second half. Missouri lost the game, because they let Cook throw too often. I thought their running back, Peat was fantastic.
I have said bench players and I mean it. Bench all of the upperclassmen on defense outside of Miller and maybe one other. He stands out and you know it on and off the field. Need to go all underclassmen. Why? The stink. I reference the stink a lot. It's when a player has been under bad coaching for so long that it takes more than one off season to correct problems. When you employ bad habits because of poor coaching, it becomes 2nd nature. It take more than a year to correct. We saw this on offense with McElwain with players transferring and becoming stars at their new schools. Seeing it with even a couple of defensive guys who transferred. You aren't going to fix Dean, he's been in the prior system for too long. The NFL will fix him or they won't and he'll go get a real job.
I would only add one caveat, we ARE a running team. The issue is when the other team's defense is good enough to take it away (see Kentucky). Do we have enough of a pass offense to make them pay?
I would only add that there is a reason why Dean gets as many plays as he does, and that is... for his entertainment value! Winning football games is fine and all, but you can NOT dismiss the fun factor!!!
Head hunting is verboten. Getting there the moment the ball arrives is definitely still allowed. And none of our "usual suspects" do it with any consistency...if ever.
Understand, but I look at the star average, not the total rank. Not sure why Kelly had so few recruits. They are getting quality players. Just not enough players overall. But as I said, look at Kansas and Kansas State. How do they do it? It's not just signing JUCOs, which both schools did for a long time.
THIS IS PART OF THE PROBLEM! Our defense can't get off the field and, consequently, the offense is not running that many plays. Our defense needs elite players on the defensive line, at linebacker, and at safety. Outside of Dexter and sometimes Cox, we have no elite pass rushers or run stoppers. Imagine if we still had Jonathan Greenard how much better we would be. Ventrell Miller is decent against the run but has been guilty of committing to the wrong gap and being out of position. Neither Miller or Burney would start for Georgia! The most glaring problem are the starters at safety. None of the starting safeties are that fast, often play out of position, and cannot tackle worth a dean! Again, our safeties would be riding the pine in Athens! On offense, Johnson and Etienne are really good. Are they elite? Gibbs at Bama is elite, and I just made my point. I think Richardson will be elite, he just lacks game experience. Pearsall is the only elite receiver, who catches like a vacuum cleaner. Elite lineman (outside of Torrence), I can't say. No elite tightends yet. Again, Zipperer wouldn't play at Georgia. We have mostly suffered without elite players, because coaches have not emphasized recruiting elite players. Finally, we have a coach who gets it!!!
Regarding the defense, our front 7 is greatly improved and we have been much better against the run the past few games. The consistent issue has been the secondary and how much cushion we give opposing receivers. We routinely give up easy 10-15 yard pass completions by playing 10+ yards off the receiver. We play the secondary 10 yards off the ball on a 3rd and 2, like we don’t give a damn about trying to get a stop. So that makes me wonder how much of our defensive issues is scheme related and how much is player related. There are other teams that are much less talented, yet their scheme maximizes the talent that they have. Not a fan of our current defensive scheme, especially in the secondary. We got the two picks (almost a 3rd, but the Missouri QB wisely didn’t throw it) last game because Miller and Hill aggressively attacked one route combination that they knew Missouri liked to run. We also gave up 2 15+ yard completions to a different route combination because of how soft the zone coverage was on the other side. We had two defenders in the area, where the first defender (Dean) stood in the same location where he started the play and didn’t move an inch until the ball was thrown, and the second defender (Marshall) was giving the receiver a 10 yard cushion.
Raymond and Toney know what they are doing, playing how they need to in order to mask deficiencies. Bringing along young players while recruiting with hair on fire.
I have heard this same thing at various times over the previous 4 coaching staffs. Only the 2008 coaching staff delivered improvement on both sides of the ball from the previous year. I have no doubt that Napier can deliver a functional offense, but I don’t feel the same about our defense at this time. I hope you are right about Toney, but nothing that I have seen or heard with respect to his philosophy screams aggressiveness. We are currently playing scared in the secondary on most plays and make it too easy for the opposing QB. Talent is all well and good, but talent covers/masks weaknesses in scheme and play calling, so it doesn’t mean the scheme is sound. And when you face equal to greater talent is when those deficiencies in scheme are exposed. Look no further than Grantham’s defense in 2019. As long as we had Greenard and a pass rush, the issues in the secondary were masked. When that pass rush went away, the opposing QB carved up our defense like a knife through butter. Talent can make any scheme look good, but that doesn’t mean the scheme is a good scheme, see Muschamp’s offense at UF.
