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Week 5: #10 Florida Gators at Kentucky Wildcats 10/2/2021

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DRU2012

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We are KILLING OURSELVES here today. Mistake after mistake.
BLOCKED FG—they run it back through a bunch a missed tackles, of course.
We are going to lose lose—unless maybe THEIR blocked extra point saves us somehow.
This is just depressing now.
This is what Mullen’s gets us for playing it so close and careful all evening...Now we are in deep doo doo!
 

DRU2012

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Alright. I am so disgusted...no one ELSE is commenting; so I will leave it to YOU to break that silence.
 

DRU2012

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We really found a way to show our true “not readiness” in this one. I’ve turned it off, and told folks not to bother me unless we get the lead back...
So far nothing, no calls or texts, so I know things aren’t changing so far. Must be the 4th quarter by now.
There IS time, if we can just come together and put together a drive. Not that I e Percy it, the way this team keeps self-destructing today—especially ON OFFENSE.
 

DRU2012

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I just can’t get over how badly we played today—and it got worse and worse...Who ARE we? The first REAL adversity and we crumble?
Sad.
 

Escambia94

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The Gators have more yardage in penalties than Kentucky has in offense. Granted, some of the penalties are crap calls.
 

DRU2012

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Yeah. Friend just called me (I’m out for a walk) and said that UF drove it to 20 yd line—but settled for another fg.
I figure that’ll be it:
Nothing short of a miracle finally brings us a bolt:mad:-from-the-blue TD and ties this one up so we get a shot in overtime.
But the way things have gone, way Mullens repeatedly “settled” ALL GAME pretty well condemned us to this loss, with all our mistakes and penalties ?yes, “crap calls”, but never shoulda COME to this.
Moments left to any hope for THIS season. I am no longer sure that until we get a new DC AND AR15 is the undisputed starting QB1 we will ever truly ascend to the CFP elite after all.
Sigh. Sorry, Gator brethren.
 

DRU2012

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I’m outside my house. Is it over yet? I figure I would have HEARD if we’d come back.
This one really hurts—but now clear we woulda fallen somehow sooner or later.
This was a real downer.
 

DRU2012

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Just came in and saw last play.
All those downs, inside their 10 yard line TWICE, and all we could manage was 3points???
I am just disgusted with play AND coaching tonight!
So much for “the great play caller”...the “great offensive mind”.. the “QB guru”.
We had every chance, and BLEW it.
I may not have much to say for a while, guys—I had come to expect so much MORE from this Coach and his team.
 

Escambia94

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Lots to unpack here. Overly conservative play calling. Penalties galore. The kick-6.
 

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Leakfan12

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Just came in and saw last play.
All those downs, inside their 10 yard line TWICE, and all we could manage was 3points???
I am just disgusted with play AND coaching tonight!
So much for “the great play caller”...the “great offensive mind”.. the “QB guru”.
We had every chance, and BLEW it.
I may not have much to say for a while, guys—I had come to expect so much MORE from this Coach and his team.

We all did (the three of us) in Mullen and company. Now, I'm not sure. Grantham will be the first to go. Mullen has one more year before he goes. I should have been a lot worried. I underestimated the Wildcats.
 

DRU2012

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We all did (the three of us) in Mullen and company. Now, I'm not sure. Grantham will be the first to go. Mullen has one more year before he goes. I should have been a lot worried. I underestimated the Wildcats.
Agreed, LF. On ALL of it.
And yes—with the tools he finally has here now, especially at QB, what happened tonight seemed the LEAST of our worries coming IN.
If we were so wrong, what does that SAY about all we’ve seen, heard and have been promised by and REGARDING our Head Coach before now?
So. This season has suddenly been reduced to “another exercise in growth-through-mediocrity”, our only remaining “hope” lying in somehow “NEXT year” eventually arising from its ruins once more. But CHANGES must be made—fundamental ones, as you suggest. Thing is, I don’t know that our Head Coach will MAKE them; what’s more, like yourself I suddenly find myself wondering even about HIM: How could he bring this team into this game so ILL PREPARED??! Why was his hand-picked and personally-trained QB duo so devoid of answers and/or options, given adversity, resistance and confusion that SHOULD have been somewhat EXPECTED, at least? Why did HE have so little in the way of a seeming plan in the first place, or any real answer or response when it DID show?
That last may be the most worrisome question of all to ME. I really thought we had “The Best Out There”...If not, then WHO?
I am too tired and down now to think it through, let alone answer with clarity. I suppose I will have to let it go for at least a night and a day or two before again returning to all of this and maybe trying for a coherent and comprehensive answer. Right now I am just aching, too disappointed and angry yet.
Despite it all, though, I WILL return with some sort of thoughtful response—soon, I promise.
 

DRU2012

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Lots to unpack here. Overly conservative play calling. Penalties galore. The kick-6.
Yes—“much to unpack” is ONE way of putting it. I know that yours (and LF’s) absence during much of gameplay was itself a symptom of your OWN frustration and sinking hopes as all the mistakes, poor choices and sloppy play unfolded...
By the end, the sheer VOLUME of error, poor preparation, and the rest was overwhelming.
There is so much more that must be faced, its consequences clearly recognized and absorbed before its effect can be measured and finally accepted. Personally, at this point I am still a long way from allowing “what does not kill me” to “make me stronger” at ALL in any way here right now; For the moment, I can only hope that somehow time, experience and subsequent behavior and EVENTS will help us gain knowledge, perspective and eventual insight and success as a result. Beyond that I have no ANSWERS—for me or anyone ELSE right now.
 

DRU2012

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At best, the Gators will be 9-4. I think the LSU and Georgia games will be losses.
I’ll have a more (sadly) “final” summation on my own feelings here soon, but for now, in an effort to “complete” for the moment my THOUGHTS, I will say this:
The truth is, my friend, I am so sorry to say, that while I am sure now that your analysis is no doubt accurate, the source of my profound sadness at this point is that personally, I JUST DON’T CARE ANYMORE.
Here it is the very start of OCTOBER, the season barely begun, and as Gators we have been plunged into darkness: suddenly and with little warning had all our patient hopes, our long and painful journey down dark and dead-end roads, YEARS of hard trial and error to finally find what we THOUGHT was the right Coach, along with the bright future we longed for once again on the horizon—now ALL OF IT DASHED, broken to pieces and left in ruins.
This is the same team and PROGRAM that I have long loved, and had finally come to believe had built a proper foundation after all—was now, with Coach and basic tools in hand to mount a truly honorable and promising campaign that would return us to the very pinnacle of college football once more...At the very least give us every opportunity to compete annually for it all.
But now we have been robbed of that, had it ripped away—in a sense blithely sacrificed, carelessly allowed to slip away in a moment of proper preparation missed, thought and planning ignored; fumbled away by the very folks we most trusted to hold it dear.
And THAT is what hurts most:
To be suddenly and completely stripped of that hard won “new beginning”, that sense of the good fight AHEAD—now all reduced to ashes, leaving us to start over, I’m afraid.
I just don’t have the energy right now. I just cannot find it within me to suck it up and start that long uphill walk all over right now: Who leads us? What are we to BELIEVE? When will we likely, truly and properly “COMPETE WITH HONOR”?
“Compete” for what? After everything, what’s it FOR?
I really don’t KNOW anymore.
We’ve been robbed of even that, you see?
Maybe that’s what I’m REALLY angry about: our years of faith and loyalty, our serial TRUST in a succession of Coaches and players. I really thought we had it RIGHT this time! I STILL believe we have so many PARTS of the “proper whole”; we’ll need now to pick up the pieces and go on—but at the moment as I say I am far too tired and disappointed in ALL OF IT. I just want to get away from this ACHE, let the fresh wound at least BEGIN to heal.
I just didn’t EXPECT this—neither to suddenly find ourselves here again so soon (the first days of OCTOBER, for God’s sake!), nor it all being the result of our complete and thoroughly humiliating collapse—FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE!
And in the end maybe THAT’S the biggest disappointment, the final “nail in our spiritual coffin” after all: That we had to endure this with “everyone WATCHING”. There is no escaping ANY of it this time.
We broke down, in clear and obvious fashion and in the full light of day for everyone to see—the vultures themselves all there to SEE IT! And in the end, in front of US as well; The TEAM couldn’t even manage to gather themselves, find some remnant spark of greatness, once shining so brightly and clearly from within, now the slightest trace any longer recognized...!
What has happened to the passion and power that once was so important, that so fired and enflamed us ALL THROUGHOUT THE YEAR??!
After all the build up, is it now GONE? Slipped through our fingers, and so SOON this time?
Let’s face it: MOST folks don’t understand how it isn’t just ABOUT “WINS” ︅and/or “LOSSES” for those of us who have BEEN to the “Mountain Top” and long to climb it (at the very LEAST) once more!
As for our Coach—“We’ll just have to wait and see...” is for the moment the best we can do as far as HE and US are concerned, don’t you agree?
Sigh...My “a few words for now” has somehow so easily swelled to “all-of-the-above”...! I can and WILL now SOMEHOW, for the moment, “gracefully withdraw”.
 

Escambia94

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There is still something to play for if we are willing to admit that this is not a championship caliber team and we are willing to settle for a Gator Bowl.
 

DRU2012

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There is still something to play for if we are willing to admit that this is not a championship caliber team and we are willing to settle for a Gator Bowl.
Oh yes—to be sure...but I, unfortunately, AM NOT (at present at least) “willing” to “settle” for anything of the sort.
As I granted, that’s no doubt where we are (at best) headed for, as a team now—and quite possibly as a PROGRAM, as it turns out??!
This was MORE than “just another loss” then, you see.
As I said to LF here (above), the my “final thoughts”, and therefore any “last words” to complete the post mortems for not just this game but our team, season and (as I noted) our whole PROGRAM—it’s Coach and FUTURE, anyway—will have to wait a bit longer...
Too much has happened, too many unexpected twists and unforeseen disasters have collapsed upon us ALL in too short a time here.
I don’t know about YOU, it I at least need a couple/few days to absorb, contemplate, judge and reflect upon before I MIGHT have the wisdom and perspective to comment properly—here or anywhere else.
 

DRU2012

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Last “word” (for NOW):
“AAARRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!! “
(Until voice trails off and specks of spittle and blood spatter walls and window glass about me)
 

Escambia94

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To put things in perspective, here are the winning percentages for recent Florida head coaches:
- Spurrier 79%
- Meyer 79%
- Mullen 74%
- McElwain 65%
- Zook 62%
- Muschamp 57%

Mullen’s winning percentage before last year’s LSU and the beginning of his 1-4 skid against Power-5 teams was 79%!

The 2020 LSU loss appears to have broken Mullen’s mojo.
 

DRU2012

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To put things in perspective, here are the winning percentages for recent Florida head coaches:
- Spurrier 79%
- Meyer 79%
- Mullen 74%
- McElwain 65%
- Zook 62%
- Muschamp 57%

Mullen’s winning percentage before last year’s LSU and the beginning of his 1-4 skid against Power-5 teams was 79%!

The 2020 LSU loss appears to have broken Mullen’s mojo.
Interesting. I suppose I kind of “FELT” that, knew it intuitively somehow already, had I been asked.
As I said earlier though, this WASN’T “just another loss”.
Where the LSU LOSS and subsequent slide to end our year seemed a kind of “turning point” then, perhaps even a warning, it WAS at the END of a season and there SEEMED every opportunity to change direction—to adapt and evolve!
And in every way that appeared to be exactly what ensued:
Even if it appeared a little sloppy at times, the TWO “new” QBs, the wholesale shift in the KIND of offense Mullen so quickly adapted, even the at least SEEMING improvement of our Defense and a number of personnel stylistic moves on BOTH sides of the ball far as I could tell had us heading higher, FASTER than the usual shallow “window dressing” of any “half-HEARTED” effort to satisfy casual fans, to just LOOK like we MIGHT be getting better...I BELIEVED, man!
I bought and DRANK “the Cool-aid”!
And so now, after last night, I just can not go BACK to “settling” again! I can’t just let go of “The Dream” with a flick of the switch. So far, in fact, I can’t even go on YouTube to see and hear Mullens’ rationales and ipso facto explanations designed to minimize the apparent consequences and repercussions...As far as who we were SUPPOSED to be, what we’ve been through, how long we’ve been THROUGH it, how far we had gotten and where we were supposedly HEADED, well, all that has been smashed and is lying by the wayside!
October 3 and we’re now supposed to gather what we can and “hope for The Gator Bowl”??? That may be the sane and realistic “fall back position”—but are we really supposed to simply wave the white flag and shift our goals, now aspire to mediocrity because we somehow bumbled our way into losing to KENTUCKY??? A team we have made a long habit of BEATING and whom we KNEW and ACKNOWLEDGED COMIMG IN had made us the measure of their OWN progress.
We weren’t ready...and it is now (among a whole RAFT of other things) up to players, Coaches and staff to look deep inside themselves, make whatever CHANGES (among MANY no doubt required) and APPLY them on the way to SOMEHOW making this NOT simply a “SETBACK” but a fundamental MOMENT OF CHANGE.
It is the only way any of us can find hope and a return to our positive journey. I am NOT ready to just “aim lower”...
If that’s all we aspire to, that is all we are likely ever to ACHIEVE! And oh, by the way?
THAT (along with mainly just their OWN self-centered fantasies) is all the caliber of RECRUIT we’ll have to settle for will likely be aiming for too!
Not a pretty picture:
Players, coaches, fans ALL shooting for their own short-term, STILL probably “unrealistic” goals...soon consigned to the “Sleeping Giant” roll once more.
NO! We can’t let that happen!
—And by the time it becomes clear that THAT is where we are headed it will take YEARS for us to come BACK from!
So we MUST, all of us but ESPECIALLY starting at The Top, one would HOPE with this COACH but if necessary the AD and BEYOND to our HISTORY, our “Legacy-at-Large”—Spurrier, Tebow, even Smith and others who’v been quiet but are OUT there...
In happening when, where and HOW it did, we now are left with the better part of a WHOLE SEASON to solve and learn from whatever has broken in our Program; We can find, learn and come back STRONG NEXT SEASON. That HAS to be our aim and focus now, I truly believe.
We are not who or WHAT we THOUGHT we were. Instead of forcing Mullen to “salvage what he can” from THIS season, as you suggest and would normally, inevitably be the “only way forward from here”,
here’s a vote for a BETTER, a SANER and more POSITIVE one that could have us BACK ON TRACK THIS YEAR, even if we don’t see it (in any dramatic way) so much on the scoreboard or rankings until NEXT SEASON.
Mind you, it would take courage, independence, trust and GUTS on our Coach’s part to MAKE that choice, to WALK that road. Many fans would fail to see or recognize what he was doing—what the long term benefit to the team and program would be. Even the Boosters and UF Administrators might have problems with it—They tend to think short term by definition themselves...
So I’m not even sure if he could DO, from a practical P.O.V., what I am recommending he OUGHT TO DO...What I AM recommending though I truly believe is the one TRUE AND BEST WAY OUT OF THE BIND WE ARE IN—Our way out of “almost”, a way finally AWAY from “Close—but NO CIGAR!”
Sadly, it is BECAUSE it is unlikely, that no one ever FACES this sort of thing squarely, that I remain pessimistic, down, even “HOPELESS” now!
Whatever happens from here, the one path I DO NOT expect us to embark upon is the one that I believe is best true and effective key to our quickest, most dramatic mid- and long-term recovery!
Saturday’s loss at U.K. was MORE than “just a bad day for UF football”, like I SAY:
It was a SIGN...either a Dramatic One DOWN, OR a marker on “the Way OUT”.
We were/are “sicker”, more troubled than we realized—but still eminently FIXABLE...
Otherwise we wouldn’t have still been so close to catching, even BEATING them (at THEIR place, packed with fans, playing their best game and—despite their whining throughout—EVERYTHING going their way) there at the end but for our OWN REPEATED MISTAKES, PENALTIES, OVER-CAUTIOUS and UNIMAGINATIVE PLAY CALLING and all the rest...
(For example: THAT’S when we needed that trick play/double throw—NOT to beat Tennessee (whom we are WAY more talented than) but on a day like yesterday, behind one score and with TWO trips inside the red zone to at LEAST give ourselves a proper chance in overtime!!!)
It has been a while since I have experienced extended angry frustration like I had to endure last night! Even last season’s LSU loss, bad as that was, didn’t take me down as far as THIS one.
I understand if Coach feels constrained to try and avoid a similar collapse, this early in our season, comparable to how we fell off the table LAST year...
But it is my fervent HOPE that he is smarter, BRAVER than that. Try being STRAIGHT, Coach—with yourself, your players, then even with US:
Explain what you’re trying to do to “get back to playing Gator-ball”—NOW, in the course of THIS season as (at this point and from here onward) a run-up to a Championship run NEXT year, we more or less look at the balance of THIS season’s schedule in EXACTLY that light.
I know it’s “Out There”...Whether it has actually been DONE, or at least in truth done so surreptitiously, is another discussion. But “SHshshsh...” Be very quiet...
How bout we give it a shot, not SAY anything while we TRY this? It might LOOK a little strange, a little different in the way some of our games play out—especially if you don’t KNOW or GET that this is what we are doing, how we are approaching these games now, but in this way we remain PATIENT with some of the stranger moves and decisions—all aimed at maximizing the growth, health and eventual success of NEXT SEASON’S TEAM and program, you see?
“Crazy—Like a Fox!” Right?
I doubt this is what happens, but I mention it—for HOPE’S sake, yes, PLUS the idea I guess I put out there now “just in case”:
WE’LL KNOW IT IF/WHEN WE SEE IT!
 
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