COLUMBIA, Mo. — As the Florida band members marched down the stairs of the emptying stadium after the game was over, one Gator fan who would not quit was there to offer support.
“Go Gators … in all kinds of weather,” he said softly.
What would you have if a tornado, a hurricane, an earthquake, a tsunami and a hail storm all converged on the same football program at the same time?
The Florida Gators, the SEC’s worst team.
UF may not have the worst record in the conference, but the team that this school put on Faurot Field on Saturday was as bad as we’ve seen this year. It made you wonder how the 4-8 team from 2013 would fare in a game against this squad of depleted and demoralized Gators.
All we know for sure is we wouldn’t want to watch.
Florida made a team with zero SEC wins this year look like Alabama.
After his first game of what will be a short stint as interim head coach, Randy Shannon must have mentioned 20 times that he has to wait to watch the film of this game before he comments.
I don’t.
I’m guessing you don’t either unless your TV mercifully went on the fritz at around noon Saturday.
Florida was bad at offense, defense and special teams. Other than that, no problems.
The players did all manage to show up wearing the same color uniforms and nobody spilled pizza on the way to the bus when it was over. And they kept their scoring streak alive.
(Can I get a sarcastic “Yippee?”).
This lost season reached a new low. Getting hammered by Georgia is one thing. Getting dominated by a bad Missouri team is another.
Florida football has fallen so far there is no light where the Gators have landed.
“We didn’t come out with the energy we needed,” said linebacker David Reese. “We didn’t play as a unit.”
It shouldn’t come as a surprise.
These guys played like a team that had the rug pulled out from under it. They looked like a bunch of guys who had Melatonin milkshakes for breakfast.
Nice eight days, huh? Lost to Georgia, lost your head coach, lost to Missouri.
It’s a miracle they didn’t get lost on the way to the stadium.
“We weren’t playing as Gators,” said defensive tackle Khairi Clark, who has become the unofficial spokesman for this team.
You kinda are, at least this year’s Gator team.
“We had some good plays, we had some bad plays,” Shannon said.
Not enough of one, too many of the other.
Florida fans got a heavy dose of Shannon as a head coach Saturday when he went for field goals in a game that needed touchdowns.
He said he wanted points in a game where Florida had little chance to match Missouri if the Gators weren’t going to try something different or take some chances.
It was as simple as the first drive, and I use that term loosely.
Three plays.
Zero yards.
Out.
Same stale play-calling.
And after a defense that is a shell of its former self managed to get off the field on Missouri’s first two drives into Gator territory, of course there had to be a giant special teams mistake to set up the Tigers’ first touchdown.
It’s what these Gators do.
If this was truly an audition for players and/or coaches, a lot of them stumbled off the stage into the orchestra pit.
Was Malik Zaire a little better than Feleipe Franks has been? Yeah, but that’s not saying much. Zaire tried to be positive after the game, talking about how the Gators were able to move the ball (against the nation’s 113th-ranked defense) and, “we didn’t have as many penalties.”
Florida had 14 last week. The Gators had 11 Saturday.
(Can I get another sarcastic “Yippee?”).
Those penalties were part of a problem that feels like a runaway case of shingles. Florida football has been infected and it can’t stop scratching no matter how raw it gets.
There was a time when a season like this seemed unimaginable. But it’s real and it’s ugly and it feels like the season can’t end fast enough so everyone can move on to the next coach, the next staff and the next everything.
For now, the mighty Gators can take solace in one thing. They’re making the media boys work extra hard looking up the last time Florida was so bad.
Oh, and they’re No. 1.
As the worst team in the SEC.
Can I get one more sarcastic “Yippee”?
Contact Pat Dooley at 352-374-5053 or at pat.dooley@gvillesun.com. And follow at Twitter.com/Pat_Dooley.
“These guys played like a team that had the rug pulled out from under it.”
That’s because that is what happened.
When you fire a coach with 4 games left in the season you are bailing on the season.
This football season is officially OVER. Anyone interested in attending the UAB or FSU games? Didn’t think so. Time for some play by a well coached team. The basketball team. It starts Monday night on the SEC Channel. I will be watching. I will not be watching any more of this crap of an excuse for a major college team.
“We didn’t play as a unit”- LB David Reese.
Wow, you dont say, huh David? That’s right David, you didn’t just play as a unit, you F-ing QUIT. You and your teammates looked so bad that it looked like you were paid to throw the game.
When you and youre teammates stepped out on that field, you had zero intention of playing hard.
Gator Nation doesnt quit on you but you quit on us?
So tell us this Gators…. is this what we’re going to see the rest of the damn season? Watching you lating down amd getting your asses whipped on the last three games?
Tell us now and save us the trouble.
Dont blame the players , blame the coaching. When a team quits its a coaching problem. These players were conned just like Gator nation. they came here expecting to be well coached into NFL players and they were conned. Many had opportunities at other schools but chose U.F.
Shannon’s defense has hit a new low, we havent been this bad on defense since 1971! 46 years!! Yet just as late as last year we had a great defense and it kept us in games! Shannon’s 1st year as DC and this is what he gives us so I dont want to hear anymore of this “he’s great on defense. He sucked as a HC and also as our DC!
Last week McElwain purposely tanked the game by telling his players he might be fired at the team breakfast, knowing he would take the wind out of their sails. It was a move of spite!!!!!!!!!!
Football is so mental and the mental edge makes all the difference. Didnt look like the same team that almost beat A&M and played well against LSU. They continued that same lackluster play today!
daz wazlle……I hate to be so callous in thinking Mac was intentionally spiteful to spill the beans before the game at the team breakfast but you might be spot on
He had 13 tackles in the game and did not quit. That’s why he gets to speak his mind. You should probably watch the game before you call out individual players.
Frank, that does not excuse the ‘quit’ the players demonstrated. Arm tackling in the 1st quarter, no O-line push on a sorry defense, NO downfield blocking in special teams, D-backs Pulling up short when beat…these players QUIT, and I wish a lot of scholarships would be pulled tonight.
Don’t think you can excuse these players – they are QUITTERS, and gave the finger to their school, their fans, themselves…there was no pride out there today. Mac is gone, and he was an awful fraud, but that doesn’t excuse this.
I am just stating the obvious of the situation. I am not happy with it either but no point in pretending we don’t know why it happened.
Mac being shown the door does probably have something to do c it, Frank, but it’s not the only reason by far. Stick to your guns, though, I do admire that about you bud.
Wow this is a lot worse than just finding a new coach. The talent level stinks…going to take a couple of really good recruiting years.
They proved the old adage that “QUITTING gets easier every time you do it”. They have been quitting sooner with each of the last four games, until at last they QUIT before the game even started. This is a fantasy, I know, but hold campus-wide try-outs. Suit-up guys who really want to play the game and represent UF with pride and guts. Pull the scholarships. Start over. Absolutely disgusting. Players should be ashamed, but I think they have no idea what shame is all about.
The administration and Gator fans share the blame for quitting on the players and Coach Mac in the middle of the season. You reap what you sow.
Exactly.
The administration didnt “quit” on mac. When he made false death threat claims as a slap at the fans he signed his own pink slip. I said so on here when he did it. He hurt the University, recruiting(what parent wants their child to go to a school where the fans threaten to kill the coach and players) and he hurt the fans. It was clear it was a lie when he refused to give the school any proof and was too stupid to realize that would get him fired with cause, they shouldnt have given him any buyout!
In a real situation he should have told the police and the University and NEVER said anything to the media. Of course if he had told the police he could have been arrested for filing a false police report, and you dont tell the police if you dont have any proof, do you?
You dont damage your employer, your team and your players that way! What a moron! He left the school no choice!
Coach Mac signed his own pink slip and threw the Gator fans under the bus, much as he had the administration and the school since he arrived on campus. The fans didn’t quit on the players until after the players quit, progressively sooner with each game they played. The Georgia game was an embarrassment. The Missouri game was a disgrace. I think it was the players and the coaches that reaped what THEY sowed.
I have never seen a college football team QUIT like this one has. Arrogance and chest-thumping boasting does not win football games or fans.
Actually Mac established a toxic culture of entitlement. The end result is a total void of accountability and leadership. Who are the leaders on this team? Sad scenario for this program. Whoever is the next coach will have quite a challenge on their hands just trying to establish a championship culture. Won’t happen overnight that is for sure.
Buck, I see that entitlement reflected in comments like “we just got to go out there and have fun”. No, just do a good job. At the end of any day, how you feel will reflect whether you did a good job. Entitlement is a false, empty promise; it feels hollow.
Good work is satisfying; it feels right.
Sly & Frank – Are you Mac apologists? How could you keep the mentally broken-down yellow-teethed clown around? This has happened to a lot of teams over the years – losing a coach, but each player has to have the pride to play and represent U.F.
You reap what you sow – we are reaping what Mac sowed!
It sounds like you have some kind of personal beef with Mcelwain and are not blaming the people that hired him , extended him less than a year ago, then fired him effective immediately with 4 games left.
I had a choice of watching the game or watch paint dry. Thank goodness I watched the latter and it was much more fun.
Well, at least Ohio State got their asses handed to them today too, and Penn State got beat again. Just saying today wasn’t a total loss, that’s all. Two good games on tonight, too.
Does Foley get a deduct from his retirement to help make up the difference in attendance for USA and FSU? He’s liable.
They could do an entire yearly segment of “C’mon man” with this team. I am done for the year.
Dumb azz move by the AD and UAA firing Mac with four games left and an 7th ranked 2018 recruiting class hanging out to be picked off by the circling buzzards of coaches. Firing a coach is easy but timing is everything and the AD and UAA timing was worst than a 99 cent Chinese’s watch. Why would you fire a head coach now unless you had a new coach in your hip pocket. This has set UF back at least 2 or 3 years from being competitive; really, really a bad move.
When would have been a good time to fire him? The way the season was going and the team was being coached, it is questionable how many recruits would have remained committed anyway. The right hire, before the December early signing period could not only cement the existing recruiting class, but flip a few more who wold have otherwise gone elsewhere. By not waiting, we gain a step up on the coaching carousel that the SEC will be by the end of the season. There is never a “good” time to fire a head coach. There are just a number of difficult scenarios that have to be weighed and considered.
Dirt doctor, as I said above: The administration didnt “quit” on mac. When he made false death threat claims as a slap at the fans he signed his own pink slip. I said so on here when he did it. He hurt the University, recruiting(what parent wants their child to go to a school where the fans threaten to kill the coach and players) and he hurt the fans. It was clear it was a lie when he refused to give the school any proof and was too stupid to realize that would get him fired with cause, they shouldnt have given him any buyout!
In a real situation he should have told the police and the University and NEVER said anything to the media. Of course if he had told the police he could have been arrested for filing a false police report, and you dont tell the police if you dont have any proof, do you?
You dont damage your employer, your team and your players that way! What a moron! He left the school no choice!
Rock bottom, again.
I am watching the UCF SMU game tonight. Are we sure that’s the head coach we want? Not showing me much tonight on either side of the ball. I don’t know how others feel, but i want a kick-butt coach, one that can go head-to-head with Kirby Smart and the others in the East and West of the SEC.
Yeah that’s the guy I want…I think UCF won. I want the guy who wins when his team has a subpar game.
good grief, you guys are freekn horrible …. go dawgs baby !!!!
Mind your own bidness, bub.
As bad as the 2013 Gators were, I think they would have easily beaten this team. This squad couldn’t move the ball on that defense.
Only a great new head coach and his staff can reverse this shyteshow. For the remainder of the year I would bench all of today’s starters and start the 2nd string, with relievers 3rd string. We will lose anyway with these career losers so why not. No solution will be found this year it’s too late. We are a national embarrassment and I wonder if the coaches or the players even give a shyte. Flush em, free up jobs and schollies.
Gators93. This squad has clearly proven that they cannot move the ball on anyone’s defense. Unfortunately, this squad has also proven that every opposing offense can easily move the ball on this squad’s defense.
“We never failed to fail, it was the easiest thing to do.” The new motto from an old tune, Pat.
The one positive I see from this game is that Randy Shannon flunked his audition. I had some fear that, with relatively weak opponents ahead, there was a chance that the Gators might win out under Shannon and momentum would build to keep him as head coach, like Galen Hall in 1984. But it is obvious that the defense went way downhill under Shannon and the offense has continued to regress. Plus, he still has the stank of the Canes on him.
No Gator fan wants Nussmeier running the offense. The pathetic coaching in general this year would take the fight and spirit out of any team. Even with all the injuries and suspensions, we should have been able to hang with Missouri. The team was unprepared and listless. Bad, bad coaching. No excuse for kicking field goals when so far behind. Not going all out to win is not Gator football. A hard pill to swallow and embarrassing. These coaches are so inept I doubt they could even change a flat tire if they had to.
Yeah…………………. I think I am done watching this year’s team. When the players quit on the fans, it’s only fair the fans quit watching. To continue watching is the definition of insanity. Watching the same Gators over and over again, expecting a different result. Here are a few reason why I am not going to watch another game this season. All of these sources are form online so I haven’t vetted them 100%. Most are from ESPN so I imagine some of their stats folks did the vetting.
For context, this is the worse I have ever seen the Gators program in. I began watching as a kid in ~1990.
ESPN – “With the loss, the Gators have lost four straight and dropped to 3-5 on the season. It marked the fourth straight game in which the Gators scored fewer than 20 points, their longest such streak since 1988. The 29-point loss was its largest against a team that entered with a losing record since 1946 (Mizzou was 3-5).”
ESPN- Paraphrasing the tweet as follow: “This is the first time in 100 years the Gators have given up 42pts in consecutive games. Not since 1917.”
GatorBait.net (247 Sports) – “The Gators are allowing opponents to score 28.4 points per game. If the season ended today, that would be the worst scoring average allowed since 1946, when Florida gave up 29.3 points per game.”
GatorBait.net (247 Sports) – “Florida’s also now surrendering 372.1 yards per game, which would be the worst since allowing 384.0 yards per game in 1971.”
These are epic bad numbers, and I don’t want to hear any of that chatter about this team had the carpet pulled out from under them. Mid-season coaching changes aren’t anything new. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last time it happens in college football, much less to this team in particular. Never have I seen a team collapse and have things occur so frequently to set the team back decades as far as performance.
Pull scholarships? Hold tryouts? You people are nuts. This team didn’t have what it took to really compose themselves after 2 strange and embarrassing weeks and down 15% of their roster due to suspensions. Sure I wish it would have been better but these dudes are mostly going to learn and grow from this. The ones who don’t will be left behind by the new program and coach next year. Mac built this cluster and Mac caused all his own problems. We made the right move. Period!!
Lighten-up man, I said it was a “fantasy”. Just a way of trying to illustrate the bizarre season this has become. However, I do seem to recall a campus-wide call-up of volunteers to fill a walk-on place kicking position a couple of years ago. Didn’t some guy in Dental School suit-up? The farce continues. You are 100% correct – “This team didn’t have what it took…”
What are the incentives? The coaches know they’re gone and the players are void of player leadership and have no motivation.
They reponded like most kids their age. They followed the path of least resistance. Also, there are too many changes for everyone to handle. In fairness, play both QBs are go with Franks. Simplify everything.
Our secondary is mostly young and therefore overwhelmed. We all saw them literally take themselves out of the path of the ga and Missouri running backs to avoid one on one tackles. They’re pretty good on coverage but they’re really intimidated when it comes to contact…tackling.
Might have been better had all coaches kept their original duties with Shannon dual hated. I hope Coach Shannon will continue to seek answers. They need some hard coaching. They are very soft. Also, Shannon must motivate and challenge the coaches. Go Gators!
I was glad for the field goals. I wasn’t under any illusion that we would all of a sudden wake up and miraculously make those 4th’s and whatever, and instead we’d most likely keep getting zero points. Look at our game against UGA, we passed up on several FG’s on the “hope” that we’d be successful on the 4th down but failed on all of them, at least for the first 50 minutes. I was concerned that we’d get skunked for the game and for me that was worse than having at least 3 on the board. OMG, is that what we have come to?
Does anyone on here recognize the cumulative effect of all our injuries? Add them to the suspensions and you have a team that’s playing at 60% with only 30 to 35 scholarship players. This adds up to a deadly deficit of depth, which hurt us particularly bad against that fastbreak offense today and is killing us on special teams. Lighten up on these players folks. Morale-wise, they’ve been gutted by cheater teammates, quitter coaches, poor coaching (especially offense), questionable leadership by the AD and UAA, injuries as mentioned, etc…It’s a sad day and a disappointing season…But it won’t always be this way. The pendulum will swing back our way, sooner or later, hopefully sooner.
We have 58 scholarship players available, which is equivalent to an FCS team, but we’re playing much worse. Most FCS teams look better against the SEC. Mercer lost 24-10 to Auburn, so they’d likely smack us, too.
Football and all such sports past Pop Warner is nothing other than an Opiate of the Masses. The UF flailing lizards are the offspring of today’s social justice liberal mental construct/world view. I would imagine that a testosterone test of the male athletes, faculty, administration and coaches would yield surprising results. These are not young men; these are what we would call “candy a**es”, wussies…products of a PC, social justice Communist/femenist/anti-man mental disorder that is determined to undermine everything manly, male, masculine – or remotely resembling God’s intended design and order. The U of F as are most schools, is part of this sickness; thus we have emasculated crybaby candy-a**es running the show, and trying to play a game for men.
I would love to see you put on pads and go take some hits. Go listen to more info wars you piece of human trash. This guy probably retweets the russian alt-right accounts. Sincerely a veteran
Weird…most vets I know don’t like the SJW stuff.
Hi Commie! I played the game for 11 years, including two for Buchholz. I was a Gator when Gainesville was called Hogtown and most roads were still dirt. I am also a Marine and a Soldier. I stand by my statement, and you partially validated my prognosis with your reply.
Nice rant. Reminds me of Zero Hedge. Unfortunately, you are ranting about the white metrosexual male students of UF and colleges everywhere. I don’t see our football players mingling much with those types.
Unless you’re Sgt. John Basilone, the hero of Guadalcanal, and who joined the Marines after serving in the Army, you’re full of Gator cookies is what you are. Marines and soldiers consider themselves two different animals, and members of the either branch of the service would be the first to point that out to you.
So again, your take ill-informed, hateful political ramblings to a political site.
You ever heard of someone serving in more than one branch of the military, or is that concept too much for you to comprehend? I made the distinction for that very reason you mental midget.
This is the sports page, which is supposed to be (at least during more successful seasons) a respite from things that really matter in the grand scheme of things.
Please take your pointless political crap elsewhere…
Waaa, waaaa, waaaa.
Geeeezz! I clicked on the wrong website. I thought this was about football! Where did the Gator sports website go? Help is available for those with anger issues. Hopefully before they hurt themselves or someone else. Please consider a VA hotline before it is too late…..I am not kidding here. The above is some serious stuff.
You need a safe space there trooper? This is about football at a University that has succumbed to the mental insanity of the deviant leftists in this nation that creates “safe spaces” and offers “crisis counseling” for those that even hear the name Trump. It is all very relevant to the quality of the persons being put on the football field, as they’re all products of the incessant brainwashing and erroneous and eternal victimhood and “woe is me” mentality that leftists institutions instill in our largely emasculated young men.
Never mind. I think it is already too late. I am not sure how you escaped from your treatment facility, but I sure hope they find you and get you back in your padded room in a jacket that buttons in the back.
I do not want Randy Shannon retrained on the new coaching staff. About the only coach I would want to see retained is the DL coach. The talent is absolutely not there on this team especially at LB and DO on defense, let’s not forget the injurys we have either. The OL is absolutely atrocious, seven against four with a blitzing LB and run goes for a loss. This team needs a talent injection and a off season in fundamentals 101 on both sides of the ball. What could the coaching staff possibility dangle in front of the players to make them wantto finish strong?
Every other team in the country is playing with the loss of injured players and with freshmen. No excuse. This all was exposed in the spring when our first team only barely beat our second team.
The cause is very poor coaching and the Administration did the right thing getting us first in line for the next best coach available. Regrettably this year is lost but as I say, it was lost in the spring when we were lied to about the greatness of our team.
This will be a long painful journey but it is necessary.
By the way – did you see the fire of the coaches in last nights’ game? Mac never had the fire and never made good coaching decisions.
Four words………”Thank you Jeremy Foley”
I also thought Shannon should have kept himself DC. I’m a history guy. Now I know how Lee felt on the evening of July 4, 1863, when he calmly told Longstreet “its time we return to Virginia”…then it pour down rain all that night as their 20 mile long wounded laden mule train struggled through the mud. We are college football wise in the same wagon train.
BUT at least we are Baseball reigning National Champions and #8 Basketball with a young bright coach and good players! Lets feel happy, spring is only 4 months away!
Thanks DeWayne. Funny and uplifting post.
This is a bad football team. It’s bad from coaching (including interim) all the way down. My TV didn’t ‘go on the fritz’, but it was turned off at the end of the 1st quarter, and it won’t be back on for Gator football again until next season. I’ve got better things to do. The Gator team we saw on the field Saturday seemed to have that same sentiment.
Mac was right. He simply told the truth in public about the administration’s total lack of commitment to football, and questioned it. He questioned why 17 out of the 21 sports are perennial winners, most always in the top 10 in the country and questioned why football was lacking way behind. It cost him his job.
There is no coach in the country that could fix a program where the architects are void of any care or commitment. There will be loyal fans that will continue to pay exorbitant prices for tickets to see this disgraceful train wreck, and listen to the dribble from the new HC about getting it corrected. And on it will go for years to come. My guess is the new HC comes from Howard Payne College after serving as special teams coach for two great years.
Four words: “Thank you Jeremy Foley”
agree with the quitting comments, gets easier each time for these “scholarship” athletes. We need a barometer on character in recruiting even if we are never great again, cause the best athletes often have issues anymore. Look at the nine and the repeated violators coddled cause they can catch a pig skin or outrun a defender or the Police – which ever the situation calls for at the time… sick of so much in the division 1 glamour sports!
Spot on Gary! The administration doe not invest in the football program, coaches players, facilities,even the football field! They have somebody on the cheap maintaining the football field because it is in really poor condition after warm ups at a Gator game! It is a cheap program not for the fans they pay thru the nose for tickets! The administration says they will bring in a coach that will make Florida football fun again! Gator fans don’t drink the kool aid! They will bring in someone who is not going to cost them very much money and a coaching staff that will not ruin them financially so they can continue to get Gator fans believing they are fixing Gator football when they are the ones creating the problems! The administration quit on Spurrier,Meyer,hired Muschamp,and coach Mac and relieved Mac after he called them out after last years bowl game by saying “maybe the administration will invest in the football program” it is cheaper to pay buyouts than invest the money into the football program. So Stricklin will hire a young stars in the eyes coach who cannot see what he is getting into and he will have Gator fans drinking his kool aid and the motto will be wait til next year! It is cheaper to run a basketball, baseball, track and field program, women’s volleyball, women’s soccer program. Than operating a football program, but the football program generates three fourths of the revenue for these other programs, and the administration feels if the football program doesn’t pan out every year the fans interest will be soothed by these other programs! Put the blame where it belongs on the administration! They have been hood winking Gator fans all these years!
As bad as I have seen since Pell’s first year, this is awful, for a programs as big, with so much money, I never want to hear of Foley again………..They better hire a great coach and get that stand alone built….so disgracefull.
i watched some of the smu ucf game, and while I see some enthusiasm for hiring one of the coaches of that game, fans need to realize that the leagues these teams play in aren’t that good. its like the minors and the majors in baseball, sure some star minor leaguers make it big but many don’t. against an opponent that doesn’t shoot themselves in the foot, ucf loses their game last night and a bunch more. sure they had a turnaround but they had a weird collapse the year before..they had been and won a bowl game. the gators are like the san Francisco giants of college football, they can win championships when things are right. but when they are not its a tough climb. take away meyer, spurrier, some of ray graves, and pell’s talent (not his coaching, which was not always great), we are not as good as we think we should be. at heart, the next coach has got to get kids that will play for one another, not 50 talented guys that end up in legal trouble. that may mean less talent on the field but more in other places. we as fans have to support that, and quit expecting more than the situation has to offer.
Take away Saban, Bryant and Stallings…you could make the same argument with any program. I agree that our fans are a bit whiny, but overall the last 2 coaches just seemed to have poorly coached teams on offense (tack on the defense in 2013 and 2017). Lets hope they get the next pick right.
Should be time for us gators to get over it and lets do our part in help rebuilding our team. It starts now. These young men playing need our love and support instead of flushing and starting over next season. Who knows which one of these young men will be really good in three or four years if given the chance? Don’t need to boycott the two remaining home games. Show your love for your team by coming to the game to show you support them no matter what. It’s up to us to be true gators! Pat, along with Robbie and your other beat writers, who has the platform to spread the word, why not write and talk about supporting your team? Not of all the negative stuff. Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to get a great coach who sees that gator nation does support their team, through all kinds of weather.
See ya at the game!
Buddy – Very well said! We know how bad we can be and why. Time to move-on to the next step in recovery, and that is to link arms and really mean it when we sing “In all kinds of weather…” It’s got to be more than just a song. It needs to be a statement of resolve. Spread the word. Let’s get behind this team and show them some love. Inspiration can go both ways, and it is time for the fans to teach this team what it really means to be Gators. No quit. No excuses. No finger pointing. Give it everything you’ve got. Leave it all on the field. It is time for the fans to lift the team. If we do, it can make recruiting the right coach a lot easier, help keep our recruiting class intact, and provide the positive MoJo we need to weather the storm while we turn this program around. No delusional “Rah Rah” here, just the recognition that it is time for the fans to lead where we want the team to follow. Go Gators!
Practically all of the comments here fail to acknowledge the real blame for the football misfortunes. The team for the most part is devoid of talented playmakers on both sides of the ball. It begins with recruiting. The staff has been average in this category the last three seasons. On the offensive side at the skill positions, only Calloway and Cleveland are legitimate threats at wideout. The QB position is a disaster. I watched Franks run out of bounds and take a five yard loss against Georgia instead of throwing the ball away. A good QB’s mentality tells him to not take a loss on that play. Except for Malik Davis there is no pure difference maker at running back on the current roster. McElwain led us to believe the offensive line would be the strength of the team. We now know that was an outright lie. These weaknesses result in an offensively challenged team. On the defensive side, good offensive teams are exposing the weaknesses. Lack of a pass rush. Lack of playmaking LB’s and depth at the position. DB’s inability to play man coverage. This is reflected in big play after big play in most of the games. So in all the finger pointing, in my opinion the problems lie with a team that is devoid of talent and the responsibility for that lies with the failure of the coaching staff to bring in talented players.
I watched Ohio State and Iowa replay today and I feel a little better.
One of the things I’ve noticed this year is that some of the DBs and linebackers act so cocky after making a routine play then get smoked for most of the game, one example is Wilson, he makes a routine pass breakup early makes big deal out of it and then watches his opponents running away for gains the rest of the game. He has his brothers’ cockiness without the talent to back it up and he’s not the only one others have been doing it all year.
Coaches cant teach effort, that comes from within the players themselves. Atleast play like you care about being a Gator and the fans that support this great university. This loss WAS on the players because you knew the coaching would still be horrible, no excuses for losing, to Missouri no less.
I Agree with Frank, Sly, and Dewayne and others like them.
I believe death threats were made by a several in our fan base. I would not be surprised if some foolishly and unwittingly left death treats on answering machine messages.
Where fools rush in!
Murphy’s law has now taken full hold on Florida Football.
Has there been any verifiable proof of any death threats having been made? Not saying they weren’t and in today’s world it would not be surprising, however, without proof, it is all conjecture.
I do feel sympathy for 18, 19, 20 year olds who just had their leader/father figure taken away. But as is often the case, if they loved Mac so much why didn’t they play better (and stay out of trouble)? Still, going forward, who other than Eddy Piniero thinks “their job” is safe? Who isn’t looking over their shoulder next training camp? Can you say “22 new starters”? Sure you can.
What is the common denominator between the Jim McElwain coached team and the interim Coach Randy Shannon team? Doug Nussmeier! Period!! Enough said!!! His offensive philosophy is that of a Pop Warner Football team .. run right, run left, attempt a pass … punt. Pathethic! If I was the coach, Nussmeier would have already been fired.
Whoever the new coach is, he needs to change the culture of Florida Football. Id bring in a USMC Drill Instructor and make every player go through a Paris Island six week discipline program. Haircuts for everyone. All positions are open for competetion and if one player makes a mistake, every member on the team is held accountable until they all learn to play as a unit. Time for a change!
Of the coaches out there, I’m for Scott Frost. Offense scores points, quick turnaround at UCF, young and energetic. I hope UF can get him. None of the other supposed candidates seem all that great. What are the other thoughts out there?