lesgrossman

That’s more like it and what CBN was hired for. Footprint. If Billy can make it to 2024 he might be able to do something. Next season is going to be the winter of our discontent

At least we have bball for the moment. Golden doing relatively better in his year 1 than football. Next 4 after usc is murderer’s row and will dictate if uf goes to the dance

Will compete with Damieon George for a day 1 starting position even with his inexperience, given Barber is the only other legit SEC OT left on the roster with Waites out. Good work by CBN to land him.

Thanks Doc! I share your curiosity on the culture dividend from Napier turning over the roster to have a majority of ‘his’ players. That could count for a couple of wins that would normally go the other way if the players that remain are more physical, tackle better, don’t quit under adversity, and more disciplined with penalties/ball security.

The program has an identity crisis. To win in the modern era 1. Admin 100% commitment and alignment to invest what it takes to win 2. Bull gator commitment with admin, staff, collective to invest winning 3. Competent AD committed and aligned with admin, staff, collective, bull gators 4. Long term coaching stability with innovative coach or strong GM type with good hiring instincts/recruiting ability 5. Winning NIL strategy from a collective that’s aligned with the admin, staff Right now I believe maybe at most 1-2 factors are in place. The admin needs to decide if they want to win or be a public ivy with a mid or low tier program like cal or uva. Until these factors are in place 6-6 is the likely expectation

Great to see. Hope he does really well in his final year, stays healthy, and his stock goes up in the 2024 draft

Go frogs! Great game by both sides absolute garbage officiating

Evidence of great pride in the program to have your two biggest stars and future 1st round picks show up in a bowl game with nothing to prove and potentially a lot of future nfl $’s to lose. Congrats to the tide

Doc, agree the infusion and turnover in talent at the dline and 3rd level is encouraging, my worry is ILB which has been the gators weak point for 3+ years is still very lean

St Louis, he’s listed at 6’ 6” 340 on the U of Memphis’s website and has been reported as having gained those 70lbs in size in the 2+years he spent at Memphis by many of the outlets covering the gators. If that’s true he’s ready size wise for the SEC. Would love to see a starting lineup of him, dez, and collins on sept 2.

Great get. 6’7” 340 Sec ready size at DT either opposite or behind big Dez. Finally some good news, Go Gators, need more of it

Great points both St Louis and Truth, it’s a tightrope these coaches have to walk. A pure mercenary mentality to talent acquisition won’t work (witness TAM), but neither will old school team loyalty and long term player development. The goldilocks solution seems to be appeal to good players who want to do right by their team but also want to get fairly paid so they don’t feel used relative to the millions the schools and coaches are making, since very few will make nfl dollars. Identifying those players and paying them a fair wage is tough.

Will be interesting to see if Napier’s old-fashioned philosophy of ‘you play for your band of brothers and by extension your school’ is a winner in the NIL mercenary world of 2023 and beyond. I sure would like to believe so but will be minor miracle.

For unto us is born this day in the city of David… merry c h r i s t m a s to all

Great points St Louis, my worry is they won’t infill with quality better or equal to the losses (close to 30 now) to get up to the 85 scholarship limit. Depth will be paper thin, and in many cases the 1s won’t be sec caliber.

Merry C h r is t m a s to you Marsh and to all!

Also UF has shown it won’t pay top dollar to compete for top talent, and only wants players who want to be there over money. I wonder if the admin consciously wants to be more of a top public ivy with a mid level program like uva or cal, vs a sec power which takes more cutthroat strategy.

Interesting scorched earth strategy by Napier. By burning all but a few of mullen’s recruits to the ground, it’s a total reset and ensures it will take 3+ years to organically build the program back to respectability, given Napier’s lack of aggressiveness and results from the portal. That gives the admin and bull gators two difficult choices - go all in on Napier and go on faith that out the other end a new sustainable foundation will be built, or lose patience and do a reset on a reset. Wouldn’t want to make that decision

Great job keeping rashada, was worried about the rumors of a flip. Agree unless the wheels come off Billy gets all next year to show progress: 1. Beat (1) rival 2. Don’t lose to G5 or vandy 3. Develop a real sec qb 4. 7-5 if does the above and wins a couple of toss up sec games against mid level teams

I get the OL fell apart. But this get is building negative momentum for CBN across the base and in the court of public opinion. Bringing in a low ceiling qb from the portal to address the second biggest area of need has bad optics, which could hurt in other ways. The trust me I know what I’m doing phase is over, and only works when some of the questionable choices are right. He needs to get ahead of the narrative or it could get away from him like mullen.

Thanks doc, appreciate it given your long history with Gator football! It’s the reality, but it really is worrisome that long term development is a thing of the past. In some ways UF is in a conundrum due to past success. Fans won’t settle for mediocrity even for a little while, and we’re sandwiched by rivals like uga, Bama, lsu that never really have down years for much if at all. If UF were a lesser program in a lesser league it would actually be an advantage for a rebuild.

Napier is on a slow burn rebuild, he needs to max the portal recruiting and get some early positive momentum next year. Unfortunately the SEC (and UF) is not the pac 10 or some other league where slow burns will work. It’s very much a momentum driven league. Without positive momentum getting high talent kids to buy in to the culture will be hard, they come to the SEC for money, a chance at the pros, and winning in that order. The alternative is for him to do great player development with lesser talent like stoops did 4-5 years ago or like Mullen did at state, but that isn’t sustainable at UF. A culture changer like a lagway (reminds of tebow) might be piece to build around to turn the ship, but lagway is 21 months out.

St Louis, agree it’s not a requirement but we’ve seen so many caretaker coaches come and go since spurrier/meyer who really didn’t understand Florida and what’s really important like beating Georgia at all costs and/or keeping the top recruits in Florida home. UF needs an innovator like spurrier or a great recruiter/GM like saban, vs an unproven G5 coach. Agree the experiment should continue another year but hate to say the momentum is not with Napier right now. It would take a lot of positive developments to go his way to change the momentum. Most importantly a proven winner/qb1 from the portal.

I didn’t watch thankfully. Unfortunately it looks like they will have to fire CBN, unless he’s comes up with a miracle season 2, phoenix from the ashes story. Unlikely - need to get the program back into the hands of real Gators who actually live and breathe real Gator pride and tradition, and give a s^*t. I’d take kerwin bell or any other former gator great who can reasonably coach. Please take stricklin with him.

Illini gonna get hit, gonna get bit, better get ready for the Bulldog Blitz!

Dang Coach, we thought we’d have you gracing the sidelines and making college football better because of your presence for a long time. Irreplaceable, you truly made a big impact on all of us. Maroon, white Bulldog Blitz

Too soon, Coach Leach that you set sail for that distant shore. Smooth sailing and Godspeed, one of a kind and will be missed. Sad

Prayers for Coach Leach for recovery, God bless

Hard to draw conclusions Chomp on miller from this game. He’s had very little time to develop a rhythm with his receivers and the receiving corp has experienced a ton of turnover. Even the great Kyle Trask looked awful throwing to a bunch of 2s, 3s in the 2021 cotton bowl because of lack of rhythm and not being on the same page with a turned over group of receivers. To me the need for a true qb1 from the portal won’t be answered by this game, unless miller really over performs.

Some great positive news that will help CBN validate and share his vision/narrative with more recruits. CBN’s resilience in response to negative events is a thing to behold.