It’s time for another edition of Dr. Football’s Mailbag. Keep those questions coming and don’t forget that your question doesn’t have to be about Gator football. It can be about a play or a team or a trend nationally or in the SEC.
1. It seems like the suspensions were on the surface meaningless since it’s going to be a one play suspension. Am I missing something? — Rafa (on Twitter).
We’ve seen this before. Players suspended for the 2004 opener that was postponed until later in the season were not suspended for the next game but for that opening-game opponent (Middle Tennessee) later in the season. While I get that not playing is a great deterrent, the three players in question spent the entire week with the knowledge that they were not going to play. And no matter what happens with the Idaho game, they’re going to miss it. It’s just that everybody else did, too.
2. It’s hindsight, yeah, but for the one Saturday with no classes on Monday, why was there not a contingency plan to play Sunday? It would’ve been far cheaper for all parties, satisfied all contracts, and not interfered with the all-important NFL. For such a well-run machine, the administration was amazingly clumsy on this one. –Pat Conrad.
I received several questions about this and I thought I knew the answer but I went to the source, Chip Howard, who is UF’s game day guru. The biggest issue was travel. There was nowhere in Gainesville to house a party of 130 people. The team had checked out of its hotel and all of the rooms were full. Plus the charter flight wasn’t going to wait another day. Those flights aren’t easy to arrange. And that doesn’t mention the 3,000 people who work at the game who would have to be brought back. So Sunday was never a consideration.
3. Some writers seem to think if Florida’s offense has a big turnaround Kurt Roper could be hired away as a head coach somewhere. If (Will) Muschamp really likes the offense would it be possible to bring someone in to run the same scheme? — ZD
We may be getting ahead of ourselves here, especially since Roper has yet to call a play. But if he is successful I would think he’d be a hot coaching prospect. And if he did get a job, yes, I think Muschamp would get a coach who would run something similar.
4. It seems like everyone in FBC is going “uptempo spread” — what will make UF’s version different, good, bad, etc? — Paul Schrenk
All we have to go by is practice and it looks like most of the other spread offenses with one exception — I don’t think they are going to ask the quarterback to run as much as most spreads unless Treon Harris is in the game. It’s not that Jeff Driskel can’t run but I think he will be somewhat protected. The keys to these offenses — 1. Your linemen have to be in shape and I think Florida’s are; 2. You have to make the right reads on the most basic of plays; 3. You have to have the athletes to make it explosive. So we will see.
