Am just so tired and frazzled from the latest game and loss...the how's and why's, it's implications and repercussions, the best I can manage in response to this latest morsel of desperate hope-mongering (one I tumbled across DESPITE determined avoidance) is to just put it out there...In the name of transparency, ongoing mutual confusion and the search for a Lifeline (and under the category, "Any Port In The Storm"), see what anyone ELSE here has heard, read and/or THINKS about THIS one:
Sports Illustrated INSISTS that there is serious interest in, and even now movement towards an active effort to effect the buyout of Billy Napier's contract and bring in Oregon's Dan Lanning to replace him.
They make unexpectedly somewhat convincing arguments as to how it would happen and why it makes sense ("up'n'coming, proven", "innovative, frank and unafraid" and more--sure, all true, though the part about his being "the second-coming of Steve Spurrier" needs to be set aside here for the time being...), but the points about him being strong in many of the same areas Billy has shown a talent for (talent evaluation and team -building) PLUS the crucial ones that Billy is NOT (play-calling, delegating hands-on responsibilities, and firing friends not getting it done) are attractive, even potentially reassuring ones. Above all, for me, it is the idea that LANNING might actually be able to keep most of this TEAM, maybe even it's pending recruiting commits, TOGETHER here throughout and despite what may be about to be at best a very "mediocre or WORSE" season after all, is the one tiny crack of HOPE, just for an instant, through which a sudden bit of light burst through.
Of course, on its heels, the realization that this is no doubt just one more desperate rumor among the VERY MANY that are no doubt FLOODING podcasts and social media now, amongst all the crap I continue to ignore and avoid...But it IS the first (the ONLY) one that had ANY reflexive positve appeal for me--if only, as I say, just for a moment.
So: WHAT DO Y'ALL THINK?
Again, I wonder of course what I'm no doubt missing here (besides any idea whether we would have ANY shot at wooing him, to start with)? SI of course gives seemingly solid logical arguments as to why we would--but they wouldn't have an article WITHOUT such assumptions, right?
Also "Again", I'm not following (closely, tangentially, at a distance or any OTHER WAY) much in the way of college football generally, nor our Gator team and program news specifically, at the moment. Even though I somewhat warned about the USF game, in truth its actual manifestation, its timing and the WAY it happened disturbed me greatly--fir ME a "Worst Case Scenario".
From MY point-of-view and current ongoing experience and frame-of-mind, this latest is an isolated "fragment", an island in a dark and storm-tossed sea that I have lately retreated from.
So as a single random thought that made it through to me, I rely on YOU now to give it proper context, some semblance of an IDEA of its validity.
And one more thing:
I want to say how SORRY I am that it has come to this, the possible (perhaps now even likely) discussion of "What NOW?", and/or "Where do we go from HERE?".
I LIKE Billy. If only he could have recognized and limited his own limitations...maybe hired a proper OC, a hot young innovator ready to maximize strengths and "hang half a hunnert on 'em" around the SEC!
As Escambia has proposed, only the kind of (seemingly unlikely, near-impossible) "sudden miraculous recovery and reversal on-the-fly" now (and not "late-season" this time but nearer it's BEGINNING, the "really hard part", that "GAUNTLET", still ahead) seems like to save us from the WORST of it now.
And hence my plaintive query:
Is there a guy out there who can save us (in this case, Dan Lanning--but perhaps someone has a "better" candidate)? Can we get him? How and above all WHEN, at what point here do those charged with such a responsibility so fraught with dangers and pitfalls, make their move?
I won't go elsewhere in search of an answer.
You know the saying:
"Opinions are like asses and elbows--Everybody's got one!" (Every "BODY"-- Just realized that one's more accurate than I realized. Ha.)
But WE have watched game after game, analyzed and commiserated "together"; if there were anyone with whom or any WHERE that I would pose such questions, it is here, ONLY here.
Sports Illustrated INSISTS that there is serious interest in, and even now movement towards an active effort to effect the buyout of Billy Napier's contract and bring in Oregon's Dan Lanning to replace him.
They make unexpectedly somewhat convincing arguments as to how it would happen and why it makes sense ("up'n'coming, proven", "innovative, frank and unafraid" and more--sure, all true, though the part about his being "the second-coming of Steve Spurrier" needs to be set aside here for the time being...), but the points about him being strong in many of the same areas Billy has shown a talent for (talent evaluation and team -building) PLUS the crucial ones that Billy is NOT (play-calling, delegating hands-on responsibilities, and firing friends not getting it done) are attractive, even potentially reassuring ones. Above all, for me, it is the idea that LANNING might actually be able to keep most of this TEAM, maybe even it's pending recruiting commits, TOGETHER here throughout and despite what may be about to be at best a very "mediocre or WORSE" season after all, is the one tiny crack of HOPE, just for an instant, through which a sudden bit of light burst through.
Of course, on its heels, the realization that this is no doubt just one more desperate rumor among the VERY MANY that are no doubt FLOODING podcasts and social media now, amongst all the crap I continue to ignore and avoid...But it IS the first (the ONLY) one that had ANY reflexive positve appeal for me--if only, as I say, just for a moment.
So: WHAT DO Y'ALL THINK?
Again, I wonder of course what I'm no doubt missing here (besides any idea whether we would have ANY shot at wooing him, to start with)? SI of course gives seemingly solid logical arguments as to why we would--but they wouldn't have an article WITHOUT such assumptions, right?
Also "Again", I'm not following (closely, tangentially, at a distance or any OTHER WAY) much in the way of college football generally, nor our Gator team and program news specifically, at the moment. Even though I somewhat warned about the USF game, in truth its actual manifestation, its timing and the WAY it happened disturbed me greatly--fir ME a "Worst Case Scenario".
From MY point-of-view and current ongoing experience and frame-of-mind, this latest is an isolated "fragment", an island in a dark and storm-tossed sea that I have lately retreated from.
So as a single random thought that made it through to me, I rely on YOU now to give it proper context, some semblance of an IDEA of its validity.
And one more thing:
I want to say how SORRY I am that it has come to this, the possible (perhaps now even likely) discussion of "What NOW?", and/or "Where do we go from HERE?".
I LIKE Billy. If only he could have recognized and limited his own limitations...maybe hired a proper OC, a hot young innovator ready to maximize strengths and "hang half a hunnert on 'em" around the SEC!
As Escambia has proposed, only the kind of (seemingly unlikely, near-impossible) "sudden miraculous recovery and reversal on-the-fly" now (and not "late-season" this time but nearer it's BEGINNING, the "really hard part", that "GAUNTLET", still ahead) seems like to save us from the WORST of it now.
And hence my plaintive query:
Is there a guy out there who can save us (in this case, Dan Lanning--but perhaps someone has a "better" candidate)? Can we get him? How and above all WHEN, at what point here do those charged with such a responsibility so fraught with dangers and pitfalls, make their move?
I won't go elsewhere in search of an answer.
You know the saying:
"Opinions are like asses and elbows--Everybody's got one!" (Every "BODY"-- Just realized that one's more accurate than I realized. Ha.)
But WE have watched game after game, analyzed and commiserated "together"; if there were anyone with whom or any WHERE that I would pose such questions, it is here, ONLY here.
