I Have a Theory

[DRU2012]

I post this thread with both broken heart AND tongue-in-cheek:
But I really DO have an idea of what was revealed here about the fundamental underlying problem with this team:
What we saw tonight well-documented once more in the PLAY of this team has ALSO been long at work before now, and in EVERY FACET of the way Napier and his large staff have run this team.
Just as the offensive game plans have long displayed an unimaginative, repetitive overly "play it safe" approach, so it is my suspicion that perhaps Napier has displayed a similar approach generly to injury, particularly in separating, virtually isolating Lagway from practice and familiarization with his team (including important new members of his receiving corps), a process that, whatever its (I suspect fear-based) motivation, has contributed to DJ not being nearly as ready as he might have been , and contributing to the very same (unchatacteristic) missed throws by him, and some crucial drops and misses at crucial moments in drives by talented receivers, and greatly contributed to lost touchdowns, 3s instead of 7s, and more than enough points left on the field to have won this game handily.
Add the foolish, suicidally badly timed penalties, missed tackles, and a few more egregious examples of all-of-the-above and MORE, and not only is it another "defeat-snatched-from-the-jaws-of-victory", but a concentrated demonstration of what amounts to a collection of all the frustrating, disappointingly hopeless crap we saw to open LAST season.
I don't know for sure, so few have the complete story to start with, and NO ONE knows how much difference it all could have made in ANY event--But put it all together, by the way, and simply change of eliminate the sequence of events in just ONE of the above instances, and it would likely have meant our getting and KEEPING one of those TDs, or maybe stopping one of THEIR drives for points. And right THERE converts the otherwise same mess to a close Gator win. Interesting that it happens zgsinst the team and coach that it did--running a similar "uptempo offense" that similarly troubled Billy's plodding inflexible mind and discombobulated his staff's OWN lack of organization, discipline, and general readiness for what they knew was coming.
We saw this same kind of thing cost us at least one game LAST season, and OH YEAH: It was against the same team HE used to run practically the same damn offense for, that runs that same "uptempo offense", and who were the very team that we similarly lost to at the end when we SHOULD have won fairly easily LAST year! Now it has similarly affected today's second week contest.
Thus, for all his recruiting prowess, his ability to judge and then connect with potential "uniquely promising" prep-level athletes and their families, Coach Napier's limitations in other areas are neither admitted nor therefore compensated for in any WAY.
We therefore appear doomed to repeat ourselves, see these same patterns repeating endlessly in new forms, by different players at other positions or in new situations.
I have more thoughts, examples and developing "evidence", but I'm tired and DOWN.
If y'all would like to discuss all this further, continue exploring this and potentially related ideas that could help us at least to begin to suggest an effective way forward, I WELCOME your thoughts and strongly suggest you press your views here. At the very minimum, there might be some RELIEF in us making progress in simply TALKING it OUT. Anything beyond THAT
MIGHT do more, who can know?
I suppose I am just grasping at straws now; the pain of so much lost here today, and the aching void of not having the slightest idea if, when or EVER we'll get it back.p

 

[Leakfan12]

I don't know what to say about the game other than that Bett kid should serve a multi-game suspension. Also, the season is still young. LSU is going to be a tough game. I think it can still be a 7-9 win season, well 8-9 for Napier's sake. The teams I'm afraid of are LSU, Georgia, and maybe Kentucky since they have home field advantage. Texas, Tennessee, and Miami who knows especially Miami. They start strong and collapse down the stretch.

 

[DRU2012]

I support your loyal optimism, LF...BUT:
I just have the strongest, STRANGEST certainty that you are wrong.
It may well be NECESSARY to honestly SEE it that way--I know that seeing it MY way leaves me basically already DONE with this season--and likely this whole program's likely current make-up!
I now think the whole thing is a teetering wreck that will not remain standing much longer.
And THAT IS NO FUN: I find myself now even devoid of HOPE.
I am being honest--but more than EVER my one (admittedly vain) "HOPE" is that I am WRONG, and that YOU ARE RIGHT.
(Wouldn't BET on it, however.)

 

[Escambia94]

You are right about the offensive being unimaginative. This offense could win 10 games with a different play caller. The talent is there. The decent coaching staff is there. The professional style back office is there. All that Napier needs is an offensive coordinator who can veto Napier's conservative calls.

 

[DRU2012]

You are right about the offensive being unimaginative. This offense could win 10 games with a different play caller. The talent is there. The decent coaching staff is there. The professional style back office is there. All that Napier needs is an offensive coordinator who can veto Napier's conservative calls.

@Escambia94,
I went back and looked at my original post up top here--and was much-embarassed, to say the least: I do not mean the following as excuse as much as frank "explanation"...Indeed, I can only offer honesty and hope for understanding.
I suppose I wasn't really aware of just how much exhaustion, disappointment and the growing realization that after all these months of shared excitement in waiting for us to "pick up where we left off", the feeling that it was ALL FOR NOTHING was an overwhelming let down.
Add to all that a few drinks and a flurry of incoming phonecalls and emails coming in from folks, including people I went to school with, from all over the nation, and, well, those are all I can offer in trying to even explain to myself not only how the original version of the post, long blank's, unintelligible stretches and a general lack of logical coherence at all not only came OUT, but that I somehow failed to notice and LEFT IT THAT WAY.
SO: I read over all the various OTHER replies I wrote elsewhere in response to a wide range of stuff I got from those "others" and, between that and the best I could manage to draw out of what WAS here in trying to reconstruct what I meant to TRY to say, and rewrite the worst, most disjointed portion (mostly the first third or so, I think) of the original entry above here:
It is I think CLOSE to its actual intended form, I believe...and since you had the grace (and discretion) to more or less overlook its wildly off-kilter, off-target effort and simply attempt a reasoned, logical reply yourself, I offer "the corrected version" in hopes that you will read it--and note how that answer of yours is even more appropriate and accurate in its aim and tone.
Not only would an imaginative, adventurous OC have a shot at winning TEN games with this squad against the current GATOR schedule, I believe that individual even more likely might well have us SWEEPING a more reasonably-paced line up of a handful of top-tiered rivals among the more "usual" up-and-down mix of ,"sometimes good but seldom great", and "not in our league" victims-to-be, go to the SEC Championship, and (regardless of outcome of a hard-fought game there), if remaining healthy, still have the chance to make a deep run in the CFB PLAYOFF.
SO. Therein lies my assessment of the degree to which Billy Napier has been a successful TEAM BUILDER, but also a poor play caller, game manager, and general strategist.
As far as "fixing" any or ALL of what is not working, make of THAT what you will.

 

[DRU2012]

(Addenda
Without my consciously intending to do so, certain headlines and alerts lurking on my iPhone's intro-screen first thing this morning induced me to make the huge mistake of deciding to check the current nature and temperature of Gator panic and desperation:
I began clicking on some of the obviously more prominent and relentlessly insistent bylines--and of course MOST return again and again to the same old points:
What were "fears" and "warnings" are now "facts" and "accusations".
It is difficult to argue with "20-20 Hindsight".
I don't even WANT to: My only problem generally here is not with all the now long-suffering "every day, every YEAR" Gator fans (like you, me, and so many OTHERS) who are sick to DEATH of both Finebaum's self-serving pronouncements AND Napier’s by-now anemic platitudes, but with the simple truth that WE could see it coming, while none of these others, "media personalities" whose whole job is (presumably) to dig up facts and share cogent observations, nor (worst of all) the COACH in charge of everything concerned with our team, program and his young CHARGES' "PREPARATION", ALL of these by the way collecting to varying degrees relatively ENORMOUS PAYCHECKS, yet somehow either failed completely, or choose to continue stonewalling themselves and US!
But of course my biggest gripe here is that I KNEW that this is what awaited us "out there"...
That there was even less point to the "post mortems" than to the original prognostication.
AnyONE of us "regular, everyday Gator fans" can and COULD tell you before hand what the dangers were, what needed addressing then, and what the repercussions and consequences of inattention and failure will likely be NOW.
For the moment, I just find it all more than my clear-eyed, well-aware Gator-heart, mind and soul can bear: It will take a continued withdrawal, distance and period of observation and reflection (OR of course some sudden miracle reversal-of-fortune I for now no longer dare count on) to allow me eventual entry to a new and better place:
A return to "Hope and Excitement"!
May we all live long enough to see it...
And in the meantime, find happiness and satisfaction where we can, among family and friends.
(And meanwhile ALSO hope these money-grabbing mofos don't indeed RUIN college football!!!)

 

[DRU2012]

(Addenda
Without my consciously intending to do so, certain headlines and alerts lurking on my iPhone's intro-screen first thing this morning induced me to make the huge mistake of deciding to check the current nature and temperature of Gator panic and desperation:
I began clicking on some of the obviously more prominent and relentlessly insistent bylines--and of course MOST return again and again to the same old points:
What were "fears" and "warnings" are now "facts" and "accusations".
It is difficult to argue with "20-20 Hindsight".
I don't even WANT to: My only problem generally here is not with all the now long-suffering "every day, every YEAR" Gator fans (like you, me, and so many OTHERS) who are sick to DEATH of both Finebaum's self-serving pronouncements AND Napier’s by-now anemic platitudes, but with the simple truth that WE could see it coming, while none of these others, "media personalities" whose whole job is (presumably) to dig up facts and share cogent observations, nor (worst of all) the COACH in charge of everything concerned with our team, program and his young CHARGES' "PREPARATION", ALL of these by the way collecting to varying degrees relatively ENORMOUS PAYCHECKS, yet somehow either failed completely, or choose to continue stonewalling themselves and US!
But of course my biggest gripe here is that I KNEW that this is what awaited us "out there"...
That there was even less point to the "post mortems" than to the original prognostication.
AnyONE of us "regular, everyday Gator fans" can and COULD tell you before hand what the dangers were, what needed addressing then, and what the repercussions and consequences of inattention and failure will likely be NOW.
For the moment, I just find it all more than my clear-eyed, well-aware Gator-heart, mind and soul can bear: It will take a continued withdrawal, distance and period of observation and reflection (OR of course some sudden miracle reversal-of-fortune I for now no longer dare count on) to allow me eventual entry to a new and better place:
A return to "Hope and Excitement"!
May we all live long enough to see it...
And in the meantime, find happiness and satisfaction where we can, among family and friends.
(And meanwhile ALSO hope these mofos don't indeed RUIN college football!!!