A few stray thoughts before grabbing a few more hours of sleep before kickoff in less than ten hours...
I watched/listened to that “Roundtable Discussion” involving several of our best (at least my favorite ones—among them Dave from Gator Breakdown, Nick de la Torre, etc) Gator beat-writers a few hours back...Tuned in, turned in, then awoke a little while ago with a number of thoughts (I guess all this had been swirling around in my subconscious ever since):
The main thing is my growing frustration, confusion and disappointment in our COACH’S strange refusal to even TRY to make us better since our season’s horizons began to close out before OCTOBER (!) this time.
The point these Gator commentators all made, in various ways, was that even as events and circumstances have changed with disappointing and unfavorable results both in OUR onfield play and outcomes, AND subsequent strides taken by our SEC rivals and competitors, we have nonetheless failed even THEN to at the very least TRY to change, grow and develop as a team who now at least has room to find out who and what it can be in the future, even as its “present campaign” has its ongoing possibilities stripped away, one-by-one, by a combination of revealed limitations, resultant failures and losses of its own, and (at the same time) the apparent (and unexpected) successes of those “rivals and competitors”.
They make several important points:
(1) This one probably IS Mullen’s first “MUST-win game”, insofar as IF he and his team DON’T win, his “unquestioned position” in command of this program and its future will be suddenly and perhaps fatally redefined, the first dramatic steps on the road to “Change at the TOP” embarked upon, however quietly. He’s already gotten his share (some would say MORE than his share) of “passes”.
(2) The questions are beginning to pile up and rise in volume already, no matter WHAT:
Doesn’t AR need to get in there more?
Is there such a thing as “TOO Loyal” (even for a Coach)?
Where are the opportunities for some of our many OTHER young weapons to get some chances? What’s suddenly “cramping Mullen’s style”??!
As our once-goals and dreams for THIS season fall away, what ARE we playing for?
When and how will our Coach turn to developing all that?
I could easily go on (and ON)...
I don’t even expect answers here and now—but like those panel-members, and I think y’all, I wonder when and if our COACH will begin to answer them, not so much for OUR sake but for that of his team, his program, its future and everything we might ultimately still have to play for.
If he isn’t ready to begin answering that, to at the very least SEEK those answers on the field of PLAY, now and game-by-game for the rest of this season, then I have to ask:
“What ARE we playing for now?”
What are we “playing AT”???
I watched/listened to that “Roundtable Discussion” involving several of our best (at least my favorite ones—among them Dave from Gator Breakdown, Nick de la Torre, etc) Gator beat-writers a few hours back...Tuned in, turned in, then awoke a little while ago with a number of thoughts (I guess all this had been swirling around in my subconscious ever since):
The main thing is my growing frustration, confusion and disappointment in our COACH’S strange refusal to even TRY to make us better since our season’s horizons began to close out before OCTOBER (!) this time.
The point these Gator commentators all made, in various ways, was that even as events and circumstances have changed with disappointing and unfavorable results both in OUR onfield play and outcomes, AND subsequent strides taken by our SEC rivals and competitors, we have nonetheless failed even THEN to at the very least TRY to change, grow and develop as a team who now at least has room to find out who and what it can be in the future, even as its “present campaign” has its ongoing possibilities stripped away, one-by-one, by a combination of revealed limitations, resultant failures and losses of its own, and (at the same time) the apparent (and unexpected) successes of those “rivals and competitors”.
They make several important points:
(1) This one probably IS Mullen’s first “MUST-win game”, insofar as IF he and his team DON’T win, his “unquestioned position” in command of this program and its future will be suddenly and perhaps fatally redefined, the first dramatic steps on the road to “Change at the TOP” embarked upon, however quietly. He’s already gotten his share (some would say MORE than his share) of “passes”.
(2) The questions are beginning to pile up and rise in volume already, no matter WHAT:
Doesn’t AR need to get in there more?
Is there such a thing as “TOO Loyal” (even for a Coach)?
Where are the opportunities for some of our many OTHER young weapons to get some chances? What’s suddenly “cramping Mullen’s style”??!
As our once-goals and dreams for THIS season fall away, what ARE we playing for?
When and how will our Coach turn to developing all that?
I could easily go on (and ON)...
I don’t even expect answers here and now—but like those panel-members, and I think y’all, I wonder when and if our COACH will begin to answer them, not so much for OUR sake but for that of his team, his program, its future and everything we might ultimately still have to play for.
If he isn’t ready to begin answering that, to at the very least SEEK those answers on the field of PLAY, now and game-by-game for the rest of this season, then I have to ask:
“What ARE we playing for now?”
What are we “playing AT”???