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The Thing That Keeps Eating Me Inside

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
I am so done with this season. In fact, things really have sunk so low by now, in the depressingly steady decline since that fateful Championship Game against the Tide in #15's last season--Now NINE SEASONS AGO!!!--that I have finally sunk to the point that a part of me really DOES now, if not root against our team (I just cannot do that, even now), secretly take no pleasure, find no hope in wins which only preserve this Head Coach's tenure, the perpetual "vision of mediocrity" he in truth aims for--the at best "uninspiring" onfield product he is in fact satisfied with long as it keeps him employed.
I am sick of going on about it, too--I apologize, and will have to find some other approach here at GE if I am to carry on. I'm still at a loss as to what that approach might be, but I know I better find something, some way to get a handle on things that ISN'T so much a constant angry rant--for y'all's sake AND my own.
Before embarking on that search, I have to repeat, sharpen focus on a point we've all had to face and suffer with, more and more over these last few seasons:
The PROOF of how badly things have gone for so long, all one has to do is to see which and how MANY programs have sunk over those years, found themselves a "good fit" at Coach, recruited their asses off and, one by one, are now in the process of re-rising from those "lowest lows".
Each of you could come up with a sizeable list of examples right off the top of your heads...It goes beyond disappointment or envy, too: It's a complete damned PISS OFF.
Hell, I'll just give you ONE, one that embodies everything I'm saying and we've all witnessed variations on...
Penn State. Think about where they were, where they fell to with publicity and sanctions, the heights of (albeit over-rated) respect down to condemnation and public contempt--but eventually brought in (what for them turns out to be) the right coach, and in relatively short order (while we meanwhile flounder, sinking deeper and deeper) they quietly rebuild, strongly recruit with a particular plan and future-form in mind.
At UF, in the same period THREE COACHES first fumbled away our elite status, then collectively oversaw our continued slide, while PSU, in the face of numerous handicaps, has re-risen to the very TOP of college football.
For us, that isn't just "bad luck". It is some combination of the poor coaching we see and, behind it, mismanagement by the AD and those who with him in truth run the program--those who found and continue to permit the latest loser to run us into a deeper hole. All for ridiculous amounts in annual salaries the whole time, too.
 

Leakfan12

VIP Member
For starters the Quarterback position has been inconsistent after Tebow with so-called top recruits (Brantley, Driskel) underperforming, players (Brissett and Grier) starting but leaving, and there's Cam Newton. Unsure if Cam was a step or two close of being expelled. Anyone know for sure? If not, I wish him and Grier were patient and waited though another season or half-season in Grier's case because Del Rio and Appleby weren't getting the job done and I'm sure that Grier's could have seen some action last year if he stayed. Also I believe if Cam Newton waited another year, he would have been the starting QB in 2010 and the Gators would have the champs that year and not Auburn (seriously tell me another reason why Auburn won that title besides Cam Newton? Exactly) and maybe Urban Meyer doesn't retire (and doesn't became the suckeyes head coach unless OSU wanted to give UF millions of dollars). Also I hate to said this but I think the Gators would have been better off with Addazio as interim head coach in 2010 because Meyer's last season stunk. Meyer's heart and energy wasn't in it, I know people gave Spurrier crap for quitting during last season but considering the Gators 2010 season maybe it's best to leave if your heart isn't in it and give someone else a try. Plus maybe Foley hires a OC who knows that he was doing unlike Addazio. Ok now on to the coaches Muschamp came with promise especially since UTexas had him to be Mack Brown successor, it was a coup to get him. In his second season, he actually led the Gators to a BCS bowl though that was a Sugar Bowl lost to Charlie Strong's Louisville team. Then 2013 happened and now Musgone is now in South Carolina (really not looking forward to that game). Coach Mac had an offensive mind and actual head coaching experience and taught quarterbacks that were later on were drafted into the NFL. Granted the Gators have won the SEC East Title the last two years the offense hasn't improve and this season could turn in a repeat of 2013. I hope I am wrong about that but it's looking like it unless the Gators get better real soon, outlook isn't looking good.
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
This is a repeat of a few years ago. Yeah. Florida football is not as much fun to watch, but they are still my team and I will never root against them. I have no idea who should be coaching the Gators next year, but I do not believe Gator football will be fun to watch as long as Mac and Nuss are basically the only two running this offense.
 

awebbf5

VIP Member
This is a repeat of a few years ago. Yeah. Florida football is not as much fun to watch, but they are still my team and I will never root against them. I have no idea who should be coaching the Gators next year, but I do not believe Gator football will be fun to watch as long as Mac and Nuss are basically the only two running this offense.

Agree I will always watch and love my gators regardless. I spent 2000 dollars that I worked 16 hour shifts to be able to take my family to last weekend, and as much as the loss hurt , being in the swamp with the people I love the most and cheering my gators was still the best feeling ever.
In all kinds of weather!
Go Gators!
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
Agree I will always watch and love my gators regardless. I spent 2000 dollars that I worked 16 hour shifts to be able to take my family to last weekend, and as much as the loss hurt , being in the swamp with the people I love the most and cheering my gators was still the best feeling ever.
In all kinds of weather!
Go Gators!

I have been to exciting games with Tim Tebow at QB, and I have been to boring games with John Brantley IV at QB. To paraphrase a Bible passage, "Through Tebow, all things are possible." Those games were always exciting--even the losses. The games with Brantley at QB were painful. There was more excitement in the stands than on the field. I saved up a lot of money to fly from San Antonio, Texas to Gainesville, Florida that year for a crappy game that we lost to Dan Mullen's Mississippi State team, but it was fun watching Mullen's offense clicking better than Florida's, even if Tebow were not the one running it. The wife and kids enjoyed the game, but as I look back at that game in October 2010, I realize that was the last game I attended, and that may have been the last game that was remotely exciting on the field as much as it was off the field.
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
We all see it. ALL of it. If our Coach, staff and suits with "the power and the purse strings" DON'T by now, well, they are either liars (at least to themselves) and/or idiots.
Logic (and the inclination to protect myself to MORE raw pain and disapointment) drive me towards trying not to care, harden my heart and somehow convince myself to hope for losses, the sooner to rid ourselves of this Coach and staff, begin the long road back--especially if we think "the right guy" to replace them may be soon available, the timing-window opening right now...
But truth is, in the actual event, when it's gameday and winning/losing is ON THE LINE and I'm watching, I just won't, CAN'T do it. Every piece of logic can SCREAM, "WE GOTTA MAKE THE CHANGE, WHATEVER IT TAKES!!!", but my every part of me right down to the heart, guts, core-of-my-BEING just takes over.
So. I still TELL myself "It's OK if we lose..." each week now--for all the logical, cynical reasons we've talked about, but I suspect as much or more because it fortifies me somewhat against the continued frustration, disappointment, and seemingly inevitable mediocrity that has and will continue to bring us bad, boring losses on a regular basis.
I also tell myself "I may not even WATCH the next time...". But come gameday, I am there somehow, by now saying, "Well, I'm ready to bail--and WILL if/when this even STARTS to get out of hand..." And of course that isn't what happens: This Coach locks the opponent up in another ugly "rope-a-dope" affair, tortures EVERYONE with that inept and unwatchable offense following his patented "dumbass tactics", purposefully puts the rest on the shoulders of his by then exhausted D to somehow keep the opposition's O looking almost as bad--leading more often than not to either slow death or sudden breakdown. Then he implies some sort of MORAL victory when (more than half the time) we end up losing another one "scoreboard close".
In my view, the fact that we actually win a couple of these early on (one hanging on by our finger nails, another miraculously on the "that NEVER works!" Hail Mary) is a tribute to our PLAYERS, NOT our Coach, and further evidence that, despite injuries and everything else, we do have talent--talent that he is otherwise misusing on a weekly basis.
We aren't especially sure of ourselves OR our judgement in all of this right now, either: It's not as if we loudly disagreed with the choices made at Coach last coupla times ourselves. In terms of opinion and support, we "whiffed" too. Same at QB, where we all were generally optimistic in analysis, based largely on the same "facts'n'stats", media hype and highlight reels selectively "offered for our examination". We're not experienced coaches, recruiters, people well-paid to find and evaluate these not-quite-men still in highschool for their skills AND character, though. And for non-insiders there's less to GO on when it comes to evaluating coaching "skill"--All WE have are records, reputations and more than ever "gut-level impressions" that more than ever are thin indeed.
Naturally, we are mixed up. Confused as to what we really think and/or feel--I mean, one contradicts the other. I imagine it's even worse, much worse for the team: They voice "the party-line", whatever the coaches put out there in support and under the direction of their Head Coach...They know what they are "supposed" to feel; then there's what they actually think, but have to edit in their thoughts and what they actually say. All (HUGE) factors in their own lack of inner-balance and growth as individuals, AND lost team-solidarity. Talk about the "hidden but REAL" dragging a team down!
Bottomline is simple, though, if you cut through the shit: Every important job of a Head Coach and staff, all the opportunities and responsibilities both have to build, mold and prepare a TEAM for each game and consistent success, are being blown--from recruiting and overseeing the external environment you bring them to between seasons, to (once the season comes) bringing them all together and on steady course to improve, continue to develop and finally arrive at higher and higher peaks as that season progresses--all are being squandered by this regime, in particular by this Head Coach, in every way possible.
He wants to somehow BLAME it on everything and everyone else--yet be given CREDIT for the rare "great moments", AND meanwhile redefine the mediocrity that dominates a large portion of everything else that happens as some kind of "SUCCESS".
It is quite a dance he is doing; in a cynical way AMAZING the degree he appears to somewhat get away with this, far as so much of our fan base is concerned.
I am trying to CALL him on it, I suppose--and I know I'm not alone in it here. But outside of GE, well, I don't get much impression yet that the call for his firing is even "a ground swell" yet. THERE'S where our "guess we have to hope for GATOR LOSSES ..." calls are coming from--not just from frustration and disappointment ourselves, but our recognizing how bad things are, how deep it goes, how time is more and more working against us--and what it'll TAKE to begin to turn it around: There has to be more a rising cry to MAKE THE CHANGE.
 

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