10/18/14 (?): Gator Groundhog, I Mean, GAME Day, I Mean--Aw Hell, Y'all Know What I Mean

[DRU2012]

I'm putting this up early 'cause I'm really not entirely sure I can even WATCH another one of these.
I mean it: For the first time that I can remember, I can, but may NOT watch a Gator game. Even more unprecedented for me, I honestly DON'T CARE if we win or lose a game. My deep-seated, in-built automatic will-to-win, completely support and cheer for this team is by now completely balanced by my fervent hopes regarding WHATEVER might contribute to this Head Coach's sooner exit-from-the-scene. At this point, I am more interested in scenarios that might hasten that end and, say for example, get Roper in there as "Interim Coach", installing Treon at starting QB and getting him game-experience as he brings him along, than I am in even watching another of these nightmarish "exercises in repetitive frustration" that fall Saturdays have become for us Gator fans.
Another week of "Muschamp Says Driskel Will Start" and "Jeff Driskel Ignoring Criticism" leading up to ANOTHER debacle, another horrible-to-witness, we-do-EVERYTHING-to-lose performance--and that's the one thing we're learning to do, the only thing we seem to be "improving" at: Actually finding ways to LOSE.
I know. "Through all kinds of weather". "Our team, no matter what." BUT: AM I WRONG?
Someone else may have to pick up the ball, run with it here...I may well be able ONLY to participate from an ultra-cynical, "Here we go again..." bummer-of-an-attitude that you may all well able to do without, anyway. At this point, getting sucked back into some by-habit in-game pattern-of-support is likely only to set me up for ever greater pain, frustration, outrage--and I'm at my limit there already.
I better at least get out of HERE: My desk/"work station" is by a window...I may not jump myself(and truth be told, it ain't that far to the back deck from here), my big screen TOO "big" and far away to manage--but my Mac could go, suddenly and EASILY (depending on the heave, that'd be onto cement, or into the pool)--and "What Muschamp Has Accomplished" just isn't WORTH that.
And that's how I see it now, how I've somewhat removed myself emotionally from much of "the ache": More and more now I see, FEEL what we see out there NOT as "our Gators" as much as "the mess this blind fool has wrought". It dulls the pain, pushes it away--and will be gone the moment HE is!

 

[miltongator]

It is starting to seem like Groundhog Day. Another Saturday....another Gator stumble, bumble, fumble grumble. Word has it that Mushiepants had a meeting with the seniors to show them how they could still win the East. I wonder how many bought into his "play good D until it's crucial (ie: 3rd and 25) and then figure a way to mess it up" game plan. I think we are on the verge of watching a total collapse of this team. Foley may be smarter than I originally thought. His last pick was so bad that the next one will look good by comparison regardless of who it may be.

 

[Escambia94]

I am not turning on the TV today. Every dadgum channel is showing snippets of Forced Sex University and Notre Dame. Meanwhile, my team's offense cannot locate the endzone!

I try to hold onto some optimism, but I just do not have enough booze in the refrigerator to maintain much optimism. It is not even 9:00 AM Pacific time and I need some booze just to read this [Only Gators: The Silver Lining]. The gist of that article is that article is that amidst the noise, there are still signs of hope for Will Muschamp. Right now, there are plenty of Gator fans clamoring for Dan Mullen. In 2008, there were plenty of Gator fans calling for Mullen's head as OC--even going as far as putting up websites calling for him to be fired. How short our memories are here in Gainesville in 2014. In 2013, fans in Starksville were calling for him to be fired after they went 6-6. Fast forward to 2014, and with only 7 additional games there are fans in Starksville and Gainesville proclaiming Dan Mullen as the greatest coach of the past 30 seconds.

To the point: Will Muschamp's numbers overall are still better than Dan Mullen's at equivalent points in their respective careers. The outlier here for Muschamp is not the 11-2 season, but the 4-8 season. The outlier for Mullen is the 7-0 season to this point, which is statistically a sign that he has reached nirvana of college coaching or he reached an anomalous peak.

In summary: As much as I expect a crappy game today, and as much as I am fed up with the product on the field, I still hold onto a smidgen of hope that the statistics below point to a possible turnaround next year for Will Muschamp. However, if the Gators lose ugly to Mizzou today, then all bets are off.

 

[DRU2012]

Gotta tell you, E-- (and a lot of folks here will be as bummed to hear this as I was), while I don't happen to be among the "Mullen, for SURE, let's GET him!"-crowd, I am at the "ANYONE-but-Muschamp"-stage (though I also think that could get us out of the proverbial frying pan into long-term 'fires of hell' if we don't get it right this time)...So I took the following pretty badly, when I heard it yesterday:
Apparently, as I've mentioned before, Foley made certain promises to Muschamp, promises he should NOT have made, reiterating them as late as post-Alabama, it turns out--and he is seriously loathe to reneg, has made it an "honor" and "This, and my judgment in such matters, is why I was hired"-issue. Here are the supposed, admittedly off-the-record details: He told his Head Coach that the "just win 8 games"-promise, never mind how you do it or how much it's by, was still solid. Now, I'm not even gonna get INTO all the things wrong with that, in every way, on every level (even if we all more or less figured the same thing coming INTO this season--but that was before the evidence displayed on the field, AND the Coach's hand in ALL of it, proved how much is really WRONG with this team and program). Point is, such a promise shouldn't have been made in the first place--and by after-Alabama, Foley might as WELL said "never mind what the fans say, do or think either...". Hell, he may WELL have.
So there DOES turn out to be "Keep Muschamp at least another year"-scenario possible, least as far as Foley's concerned, and HE'S ready to make this a "fire me FIRST"-deal. Boosters are just about ready to readily do just that, but it isn't their ultimate power to do so; the President and Regents are more cautiously conservative, more mindful of "appearances" in a more rarified world of long-term tradition and "academic image"--and a harder bunch to read in general. There'd have to be a consensus, as they saw it, and with the program having been seen as "cleanly run" since he got here, well, ya never know.
So now I have to lean towards that "maybe it's OK if/when we lose some games, badly even" way-of-thinking--something I have never quite been able to manage, no matter WHAT the circumstances. Don't know that I can even now. Another reason I am inclined not to watch the games themselves: I'll be more conflicted than ever! Find myself cheering, then catching myself and thinking, "But that means..." I really hate the whole idea, frankly.
But I want this guy GONE. Sorry, nice guy and all that, BUT HE'S HERE TO BUILD A WINNER. Or was supposed to be.
Some pretty strange situations having developed out of all of this...In addition to the for-us-at-least bad timing of the coaching-changes here and at TEXAS leading to a "how 'bout you give us OUR old DC for YOURS?"-wish, there's the whole business of ours and 'Noles' Coaches being best friends, co-owning vacation home and families spending off-seasons together, coaching styles and standards diametrically opposed, it seems--and the results, along with each programs' overall directions, likewise heading in opposite directions. Guess us all being completely confused as to how or even IF we can, or SHOULD be even rooting for Gator in-game success is just par-for-the-course in all of this.
But if I'm not "around" come Kick Off, or just "pop up" here and there to comment, at least until its over, well, I think you all will understand--maybe feel much the same way? I really don't know what will really happen, how I'll handle this--today, or in weeks head. Talk about a "work in progress". This is new territory for all of us--and I want OUT, need it to be over, resolved ASAP. Happen to be certain that our team and PROGRAM "needs" it, and soon, for so many more and deeper reasons. But that may not be in-the-cards, not if "Foley's Promise" holds. More than ever, it appears there may be no resolution of ANY kind until after the FSU-game. And even then...
I read that again, and I wanna be sick.

 

[Escambia94]

As I mentioned before, Will Muschamp was the right guy to clean up the program. I do not know if this is a sign of the times with football players today or not, but in the past decade it seems that Florida has been trouble attracting clean athletes that work well on a team. They had no issues attracting the best athletes with the worst attitudes, and it is hard to escape that perception at UF. For some reason, the world overlooks FSU and its issues, and I really do not understand why. To that end, Muschamp has cleaned up that part of the problem, but UF now needs to find the guy that cleans up the product on the football field.

If Foley likes these attributes to Muschamp and is not going to fire him over a 6 or 7 win season, then the best case scenario is that UF brings in a Dan Quinn-like defensive coordinator and Muschamp becomes more like a Mack Brown CEO-coach and less like a former DC-coach. DJ Durkin is in over his head as DC of this team, and Muschamp has way too much to do as HC to micromanage the defense, much less the overall team execution.

I guess what I am saying is that if Foley does not fire Muschamp, then promote him to CEO-coach a la Mack Brown, and take away his clipboard and playbook. After that, hire a dedicated DC to help Durkin out. UF can afford it.

 

[DRU2012]

@Escambia94,
Agreed. I could LIVE with that--IF it could happen, and that was the only way we could likewise "move on"...
BUT IT WON'T. Muschamp has his own "way", and that clearly involves an anal, uber-control over every aspect of what he sees as "the right way to run a team, a program, for his players to play the game"--down to the minutest detail.
In other words, THIS is what we get, will continue to "get" with Will Muschamp as our Coach, and somehow Foley is among that shrinking few left who (as I once did) believe he is the right guy, just needs some "breaks" and a healthy squad to "break through". I'm afraid that our AD will stick with that view "until the bitter end".
Anyone else willing to wait that long?

 

[DRU2012]

@Escambia94, (part deux)
...As for that break down of salaries, E-, well, it's interesting. Who ever got the idea we were intent on "saving money" in our Head Coach-decision(s)??? Hell, they lose 5,000 paying fans-a-game as a result of not being in the hunt for Championships (and that's both a conservative estimation AND somewhat of an understatement of our slide), and (at, say, a hundred bucks a head) that's pretty well the difference between Will's and Nick's respective salaries right there. Of course, that doesn't even begin to tell the whole story, consequences-wise--and we've got the money for whomever we want, MORE than enough, no problem, without a doubt, ANYWAY (and a good deal of it is there in the first place for that very reason, never mind what's said by whom for public consumption).

 

[DRU2012]

Btw--what a Sh*t-@$$ season this has turned out to be: In addition to our own dismal performance, (despite Muschamp's team pep talk) its realistic prospects the rest of the way and all the "what-might-have-beens" as to the rampant opportunities open to us had we HAD for eg. an offense, now I have to hear the yammering about "The Battle of Undefeateds" tonight between two of the programs I most despise in ANY sport?
All could be borne had we been at least 4-and-1 and playing well, still a "Gator-in-the-weeds" that could still bust out and into the Playoff at the end--but as it is, as you like to put it, E-, "Bleh."

 

[Escambia94]

@Escambia94, (part deux)
...As for that break down of slariesa, E-, well, it's interesting. Who ever got the idea we were intent on "saving money" in our Head Coach-decision(s)??? Hell, they lose 5,000 paying fans-a-game as a result of not being in the hunt for Championships (and that's both a conservative estimation AND somewhat of an understatement of our slide), and (at, say, a hundred bucks a head) that's pretty well the difference between Will's and Nick's respective salaries right there. Of course, that doesn't even begin to tell the whole story, consequences-wise--and we've got the money for whomever we want, MORE than enough, no problem, without a doubt, ANYWAY (and a good deal of it is there in the first place for that very reason, never mind what's said by whom for public consumption).

The intent was not to show that UF has been trying to save money by keeping salaries low. The intent was to show that Florida can afford to bring in better coaches. I do not know what Jeremy Foley's plan is, but as the athletic director, the plan is his to own. My guess is that Foley would like to win games with class. Okay, so Muschamp has cleaned up the program and has earned the respect of other coaches--they all say he is classy, despite what we the fans say. As I mentioned earlier, he has struggled with cleaning up the on-field product and he has not proven that he is the guy to elevate the product on the field. If Foley likes all the other qualities of Muschamp, I doubt he would be willing to fire a respected coach that has cleaned up the program, especially when you look at all the issues just about every other team is having.

Mark my words, if Muschamp is fired because he only won six or seven games, it will be rather difficult to hire a good coach that wins and wins cleanly. To me, the best solution is to "fire" Muschamp from on-field coaching and use the extra salary room to upgrade the defensive coordinator position. Maybe even upgrade the assistant head coach. Whether we like it or not, we will have to upgrade the WR coaching position as well. I am not sure if that leaves room for Leak.

The alternative to all that is to fire Muschamp and start over with a new coaching staff. That is a long rebuilding project, since there are no other Kevin Sumlins that are up and coming. There are no Hugh Freezes not coaching close to home. There is nobody in the NCAA that can swoop right in and turn this around if the majority of this coaching staff is fired.

 

[DRU2012]

@Escambia94,
I didn't mean to imply that was the point YOU were making, man--only wondering who (mainly Foley, or anyone else, if they thought THAT was important or worth even taking into account here) figured that was a major consideration.
The point where we hit the crux of the matter is at that very "it'll be hard to find a coach that wins, AND WINS CLEANLY" part. So I'll ask the NEXT "obvious question": Who says we are after a coach for whom "wins cleanly" is a major part of the profile this time? I mean, all well and good if he has the kind of overall "hasn't been even close to getting caught, so he must be a genius"-cache a handful of these "latest media-darlings" seem to carry for awhile--'til they either fail (a la Meyer, here--until he wasn't anymore--so they start again elsewhere, only slightly "tarnished" IF they win again) or are so successful and well-entrenched somewhere they appear untouchable (a la Saban, w/the Tide). Gotta figure they'll be going for one of THOSE--and there are never more than a few, so it should be easy to at least "narrow it down". (Interestingly, Muschamp WASN'T on any such "list"--and though he DID clean things up, well, the actual results speak for themselves--badly, for both he AND Foley) .
It's gonna take some time regardless of WHO they bring in. I don't see "tinkering", changing some pieces here and there as anything more than a patchwork, temporary/partial-fix that ends up demanding the same eventual "rebuild" to get where we wanna go ANYWAY, so I say "Start NOW." Let's get to it while we still have some top talent on-hand, and BEFORE the imminent slide there on the recruiting-front makes a quick build-back to at least contention more and more difficult, while The New Guy does his thing, remakes the whole team and program in his own (and a talented staff of just-as-talented young-and-hungry supporting coaches') image. That's how Meyer managed it, and Spurrier before him. Yeah, it's a gamble--but that's the way it always is: You gotta gamble you get the "right guy", and if you do, well, we've seen it before. We've also seen what an AD's "gut-level", against-the-current/people-I-know-and-like choices can get you--TWICE since the turn-of-the-millenium, in fact. "Good guys", both--and though statistically not TERRIBLE choices, "not terrible" doesn't cut it at UF, right?

 

[DRU2012]

Well, game itself is like, 1/2 an hour away and I'm still around--figuratively (still at home monitoring other games) and literally (here at my Mac). Don't have any hard and fast plans to be "here" the whole evening, though. I know I've said that before (last week, in fact) and somehow been with you 'til the very end...but I again have "other plans", this time more likely to be adhered to--though appears I WILL be around for the Kick Off, and after that you (certainly I) never know. This will probably be more dependent than ever on our actual performance early on. I apologize in advance: This could be the weekend I bail-in-disgust as we drop another "bomb" on the world of college football with another unwatchable "rope-a-dope" deal where we manage to make BOTH teams look terrible. I SWEAR that's Muschamp's idea of "winning football", keeping us "in it" 'til late with seeing both teams "stumble/bumble/fumble" their way through the better part of 60 minutes, if y'all are LUCKY. (Message to ESPN commentators: Just because there are THREE OVERTIMES or whatever does NOT mean it's some "classic tilt in the SEC". Co-blundering into overtime ISN'T the same as "a fight right down to the wire").
Anyway, good luck to all of us--though exactly what that means, what would constitute "a good outcome" for us, the fans, and in some fundamental way, the program, remains unclear. Yeah, that's how bad things are here in The Nation.
(As for a "Set Up", that's about the best I can do now.)

 

[DRU2012]

Meanwhile, watching the Louisville/NC State game (where NCS is "coming back" late on Brisset's arm--though may not have enough time to get it done here--ALMOST got the 2-point conversion if only the receiver holds onto the nicely-thrown fade), you're struck once again by how much better Brisset is IN-GAME than Jeff Driskel. Admittedly this wasn't so clear from what we saw early of each (and by all accounts, JD's a "masterful practice QB"), but at this point, in Petrino's wide-open,. make-a-play offense, he makes all the throws--including the long ball, on the run. No overthrows OR underthrows-for-INTs for Jacoby. Oh well, so what else is new? I mean, in a lotta ways, watching him now I think of Treon Harris--only Treon has even more obvious upside this early in HIS career. That may be the most promising part of all: He came in here in time for SUMMER, not even here in the Spring with Grier, yet he's way ahead, pulling off big plays from the moment he got in there, lets remember. OK, I can understand how Muschamp made the wrong choice back there with Driskel and Brisset, but the way he continues to repeat, even compound that error-of-judgment in doing it here with Driskel and Harris makes me more and more see him as stubborn and blind to the point of self-destruction--and as often is the casae in such cases of Coaching mono-mania, he's taking us down with him. That's where it's up to Foley to "break the downward spiral of failure", make the starting-to-be-PVERdue change...and as I've said elsewhere, as time goes on here it begins to appear that Foley himself has a similar fatal-stubbornness himself when it comes to Muschamp. Starting to look like some Shakespearian tragedy, the main players unable to stop their own headlong rush to disaster.

 

[Escambia94]

Did anyone see that butt whooping that Bama put on aTm? I feel 1% worse about the Gator loss to Bama, since they scored 14 points to their 42.

 

[DRU2012]

Like to see Cal pull it out and beat UCLA...Why do I even CARE? Don't know myself. Guess I'm jonesing for SOMETHING from this season, OR, as my Dad used to say, "Hope they ALL lose!".

 

[DRU2012]

Did anyone see that butt whooping that Bama put on aTm? I feel 1% worse about the Gator loss to Bama, since they scored 14 points to their 42.

AND we actually played them pretty even most of the 1st half--"coulda" made a game of it had we not done our bumble/stumble/fumble routine with the chances we had early. They were as tight as WE were, but we are MASTERS of "tight", thanks to our Head Coach. Something along lines of "I don't EVER relax--none of Y'ALL will either, or I'll be screaming in your face then and glaring at you rest of the way..."

 

[DRU2012]

Aw, hell...INT for UCLA. They'll review--but they "called it an INT on the field", so they may not "have ample evidence to overturn". Ah well..."Hope they ALL lose!" Maybe even us (though if I find that's really how I feel, I won't watch. Yeah, it's come to that.)

 

[Escambia94]

****! ****! ****!

 

[DRU2012]

Mizzou opens up with a 97-yd K O return. Um, anyone figuring this is gonna be a fun one to watch? Yeah, Will, way to prepare your team. "Special Teams, the mark of a well-coached team"...and vice versa.

 

[Escambia94]

One beer down...

 

[DRU2012]

Loses the ball on the hand-off AGAIN. Mizzou ball deep in our own end. Oh, MAN, we are PITIFUL. A Joke. We were driving on a relatively weak defense...and now, after spotting 7 to open this, we have opur QB give then the frield position our punter NEVER would. Maybe we SAHOULD "Puntg on every down"...Beat the spread? May be too late for that...Shouldn't have deferred, I guess--put off that return to the SECOND half. Yeah, I have real confidence in this team.
But the D still has talent and pride--INT gets it back. Gotta say, tho'--no wonder Roper's getting bugged, estranged from his Head Coach who brought him in here: His hands have been tied, he wants to go to Treon but Muschamp overruled him, insisted JD start, and his offense continues to look PUTRID....Isn't exactly nhancing his RE-hire potential.