Week 5: Early "Midterm"

[DRU2012]

That's how I see this Kentucky game:
We go back out on the road for our 2nd road test, against a fairly strong and rising unit whose Coach has had them generally playing disciplined football last few seasons--playing well enough to beat US, at any rate.
WE have obviously been "up'n'down" ("down and UP"?) so far--even within the same GAME.
Not that playing AT HOME has necessarily been "the difference" against THIS opponent lately, but if healthy and composed, we do now appear to have the components once more to BEAT these Cats--no matter WHERE the game is played. Above all, we REALLY need to get healthy for this one--especially at center and WR.
This would be a very good time to break open the two glaring statistical deficiencies on offense and defense:
Aside maybe from some "stripping drills" (?), there isn't a whole lot COACHING can do (besides heightening awareness) to boost our defense's chances at turn asovers...but Coach can sure as HELL make quickstrike downfield plays more a part of our OFFENSE...Of course, "opening up" gets a WHOLE lot more doable if we have Wilson III running downfield along with Piersal & Co.
Hit a couple of "long ones to the house", win the turnover battle, and we take this game, pass the "Early Midterm", come home and take care of Vandy. THEN we can look at the rest of this season.

 

[DRU2012]

As follow on to above:
(...am watching Billy's Monday morning presser RIGHT after finishing suffering through the 2nd half of the replay of the Charlotte game:
Even with his calmer, more detailed and thoughtful responses to many of the same questions as were asked (to a more "feisty" Coach N.) on Sunday, I am still left wondering at how HE can be describing the same action as I just viewed. Oh well--I DO hope he is right in the mainly positive spin our Coach puts even on a number of seeming breakdowns.
We AREN'T getting much clarification either WAY re injuries--we "might" get our starting Center back ("We'll have to see...hoping to get him back at practice TOMORROW..."), but no one asked him again about Wilson III. Those two ESPECIALLY are crucial to our chances, IMO.
He is again "mainly positive" in assessing the progress on Special Teams--but sort of talks AROUND those two additional instances of not getting the right people on the field for the 4th down kicks after our defense got stops.
Ridiculous as it is, THAT'S "correctable", Coach. A matter of PREPARATION and COACHING, right?
Get it FIXED, fixed for GOOD, so we can drop it and move on.
With inevitable questions after going 1-for9 on 3rd downs and "0-fer-the-game" after that solid 95-yard drive for a TD our first possession, having to settle instead for FIVE FIELD GOALS time-after-TIME inside the TEN, the predictable "cup-half-full" response was "Well, we got our FIELDGOAL kicker..."
To be fair, Coach then returned to the whole "gotta do better in the red zone" discussion he lead with again here. No real concrete proposals as to how they'll DO that--but that isn't surprising: the main hope here is that they'll get some pieces BACK and be ABLE to go downfield...Hit on even ONE of those fairly early and it'll open everything ELSE up.
So we're basically back to where we were before the Tennessee game--and THIS time we won't have our Swamp HOME advantage.
What we CAN have is a chip-on-the-shoulder, go on the road and "SHOW THE WORLD!" attitude that our playmakers might use to (finally) break out and RUN IT UP on somebody!
In the recent past we've let things like these early start times throw us off, come out slow.
Be a good time to throw all that ASIDE.
Go out and THROW THE FIRST PUNCH! Then a couple more.
We're still a young team; we can FEED on this kind of thing. I would just LOVE to see Billy take his gang in there and REALLY "Have some FUN!!!" Talk about "the fruits of your LABORS"...
Perfect time for it.

 

[DRU2012]

STILL no "feedback" on this thread?
I was pretty sure there'd be SOME reponse by now, pro or con.
The closer this one gets, the less confident I am about its outcome. Things WILL get physical...Stoops will no doubt use the media attention UF has coming into their place, their (albeit minor) "win-streak", to try and have them angry: We will prob have to absorb and weather the early "punch to the head".
Although I think we can prepare properly and RESPOND ACCORDINGLY, what I'd REALLY love to see is a gameplan that somehow has US HIT THEM, EARLY AND OFTEN:
Turn Mertz loose early (if we have Wilson III back, sending 3 WRs downfield could be the plan in the early going), jump to the early 2-score lead an<yhf$$d shut the crowd up...Play tough defense all day, establish the run in the 2nd quarter and make the rest of the game an uphill battle for a BEATEN Wildcat squad.
There's MY "prescription for victory".
I have no prescient vision of "reality"...just my fervent HOPES.

 

[DRU2012]

I have been filing my "anticipatory remarks" regarding this one since the Sunday after the Charlotte game--most can be found on my "Early Midterm" thread in the form of gut-level reflections on the pros and cons of our play thus far, our strengths and weaknesses, as this team begins to find and establish its identity.
There is much talk of the game mainly shaping up to a great extent as our running game confronting their defensive front seven. There are other factors, of course--their improved offense and homefield advantage, questions as to our overall health, and much more--but I really see another point entirely determining the outcome:
I anticipate Coach Napier's imagination, vision and resulting creativity in his offensive GAMEPLAN as the potential "difference maker" here. It doesn't require some wholesale change in outlook, obviously--just a few surprises, aggressive additions and changes in what we do when, especially in the early going.
Let's punch THEM in the mouth early.
Then do it again.
With Armstrong's much improved defense we can shut them down, quiet the crowd and make it stick. This is a Gator team that CAN "get a lead and make sure it STANDS".

 

[Escambia94]

The thread title was confusing so I will treat this as a quarterly review of the season and compare preseason predictions against current progress.

On this thread (https://www.gatorenvy.com/threads/gator-envy-predictions-for-2023.21161/) I made the following predictions through week 5.

“The Utes will roll over the Gators in a close game, 28-21.” In the official game thread I changed my prediction. Silly me. The Utes won 24-11. It was not the loss that hurt Florida, but the way the Gators looked bad in every phase of the game. Napier was out-coached and his team played like a bunch of drunken sailors playing a pickup game at an elementary school.

“Gators get some confidence in a 48-10 win over a Louisiana-based [McNeese] team that Napier is somewhat familiar with.” Not bad. Gators won 49-7.

“Gators eke out a win [against Tennessee] at home, 27-21.” Gators dominated this game and won 29-16. I was expecting a sloppy win.

“[Charlotte] is the last cupcake on the team, not counting Vanderbilt. Gators roll, 51-3.” Florida won 22-7 in a disappointing victory.

I am not sure why Gator fans are surprised at where the program is right now. This is not just about Napier fixing Mullen’s program—this is about Napier fixing a program driven into the ground by Urban Meyer, Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain, and Dan Mullen over a decade and a half. From a program perspective the Gators are as “bad” as Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Missouri until they start beating those teams 75% of the time they play. Delusional fans still think the Florida program is as good as LSU, Georgia, and Alabama. Newsflash: check the score boards in those games since 2009. Before UF can compare itself to Georgia and Alabama it needs to be as good as LSU, and before it can do that it needs to be as good as Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Missouri. Florida beat Tennessee this year, but is not yet equipped to beat them three times out of four in the next decade.

We shall see what happens with Kentucky. Even if Florida wins this week, we should be looking for signs that the Gator program is better in the long run than Kentucky’s.

 

[DRU2012]

The thread title was confusing so I will treat this as a quarterly review of the season and compare preseason predictions against current progress.

On this thread (https://www.gatorenvy.com/threads/gator-envy-predictions-for-2023.21161/) I made the following predictions through week 5.

“The Utes will roll over the Gators in a close game, 28-21.” In the official game thread I changed my prediction. Silly me. The Utes won 24-11. It was not the loss that hurt Florida, but the way the Gators looked bad in every phase of the game. Napier was out-coached and his team played like a bunch of drunken sailors playing a pickup game at an elementary school.

“Gators get some confidence in a 48-10 win over a Louisiana-based [McNeese] team that Napier is somewhat familiar with.” Not bad. Gators won 49-7.

“Gators eke out a win [against Tennessee] at home, 27-21.” Gators dominated this game and won 29-16. I was expecting a sloppy win.

“[Charlotte] is the last cupcake on the team, not counting Vanderbilt. Gators roll, 51-3.” Florida won 22-7 in a disappointing victory.

I am not sure why Gator fans are surprised at where the program is right now. This is not just about Napier fixing Mullen’s program—this is about Napier fixing a program driven into the ground by Urban Meyer, Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain, and Dan Mullen over a decade and a half. From a program perspective the Gators are as “bad” as Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Missouri until they start beating those teams 75% of the time they play. Delusional fans still think the Florida program is as good as LSU, Georgia, and Alabama. Newsflash: check the score boards in those games since 2009. Before UF can compare itself to Georgia and Alabama it needs to be as good as LSU, and before it can do that it needs to be as good as Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Missouri. Florida beat Tennessee this year, but is not yet equipped to beat them three times out of four in the next decade.

We shall see what happens with Kentucky. Even if Florida wins this week, we should be looking for signs that the Gator program is better in the long run than Kentucky’s.

I must quietly accept that you are essentially correct in everything you say...I keep hoping we get the right guy to undo/rebuild--and at this point we just gotta have patience and a modicum of faith that this time we DO, because only in letting that "right guy" have the time and room to get it done will we finally ascend through the very levels you identify.
NO one is perfect, so I may find flaws in various aspects of his own "learning process", after all. But overall I remain more certain than ever that Billy is a builder who is executing a plan that appears to be well-designed for and adaptive to the changing terrain of modern college football. There are other, more "immediate" approaches--others have been more aggressive in their use of the transfer portal, for example, whereas Coach is deliberate and judicious so far in its use (but as we saw with Graham Mertz, he knew what he wanted when it was there, never MIND what anyone ELSE thought)--depending instead, given the new realities of player freedom and the particular depths to which OUR program had sunk, upon recruiting accumen--ie. finding and PLAYING young talent, no bs.
It is already paying off, in immediate AND longterm ways. Decent recruiting is beginning to snowball into GREAT recruiting: Young prep players are taking notice, and we are at least drawing interest from anyone our staff themselves have an eye on. That interest is far and wide, too, national in its scope...but perhaps most encouraging of all, we are starting to get back our IN-state recruiting MOJO.
But we'll need just as steady a rise in wins to make all this MEAN something. We have GOT to begin showing a more reliability in the ONFIELD product, as you say. Otherwise the whole thing ends up deflating before it ever gets NEAR being fully realized...another disappointment.
We NEED some undeniable milestones, signs of a certain level-attained. Right now, that means beating teams at THIS level around us in the SEC, just as you say. Before we turn to competing dire try with the sub-Georgias, we need to not just compete with, but once again regularly EXPECT to beat all the rest!