Cool It, Gator Fans

[DRU2012]

With all we've seen with the way the season wound down, culminating (bam, bam, BAM!) with closing losses to VANDERBILT (!) and FSU, then the weak effort in the Vegas Bowl (again, with all those missing pieces, NOT the loss so much as the disappointing lack of sustained effort), and finally the perhaps relatively minor but nonetheless ill-timed counterpoint of losing out on ANOTHER 5-Star recruit (this time an OL) to Miami, has a certain loud portion of Gator Nation in full-on PANIC MODE. There's even an online crowd-fund movement to "Fire Coach Napier NOW"...
It is, quite frankly, ridiculous imho--if anything emblematic of our general "Gratify ME NOW!" culture...and perhaps a specific weakness in our somewhat EXTRA-entitled UF fan-base in particular.
Perhaps not. Maybe it really IS "just the way things are" in the world-at-large nowadays.
Look: I too have certainly found myself progressively more and more frustrated and disappointed in how things have played out for our team and program over the course of 2022. While there are and continue to be some hopeful signs, these have seemingly been surrounded, at times even drowned, in bad news.
But little of it can be laid at the feet of our (still-) "new" Coach. I'm not going to review, nor debate the litany of "point/counter point" here. The simple truth is that I believe we've got ourselves the right Coach for the Florida Gators at the right time...
But no matter what, he gets AT LEAST 3 SEASONS before one even begins to second guess his own OR the staff, team and culture's real success and/or even progress.
Coach Napier is not just "collecting improved talent" for the UF Football program; he is rebuilding it from the ground UP with a definite eye for what makes a WINNING TEAM CULTURE.
I am pretty confident we'll see strong, positive forward momentum and at the very least the PROMISE of imminent Championships (note the plural) in our future by then. In the meantime, given the realities of social media and the very process of team-building IN that very environment, this background of loud and clanging negativity from amongst the program's presumed FAN-BASE actually makes that all the more difficult: Prospective recruits READ, hear all that.
Each of us is entitled to our opinion. No point in fighting it: People will talk. Some will OVER react.
I simply ask the majority of Gators, whom I still believe are reasonably insightful and level-headed, to step back, take a deep breath, and then together from here we take a calmer, "wait-and-SEE " attitude.

 

[Leakfan12]

In fairness, it isn't just Florida. There are other programs like that like Texas who wanted to fire a coach after his first game there (Tom Herman lasted four seasons). FSU fired a guy after not even two seasons in the program like Arkansas did as well. Like it or not, once the program reaches a level of success, fans/students want more and not just them but the School Administration as well. They bring in people who they think could give them more success and once they don't it's bye-bye and find another guy who can and the School Adminsitration is just as impatient if not more than us the fans. It stinks but it's the nature of college sports, especially for top-tier teams. People want their school to be Bama or a Ohio State or a Clemson and that's just for football. I do believe right especially considering it might be a long time before the Gators to do anything with Georgia in the division and Bama still freaking Bama. It would depend on whose the starting quarterback is. Can Jack Miller improve? Is there another quarterback coming in either through HS recruitment or the transfer portal?

 

[DRU2012]

In fairness, it isn't just Florida. There are other programs like that like Texas who wanted to fire a coach after his first game there (Tom Herman lasted four seasons). FSU fired a guy after not even two seasons in the program like Arkansas did as well. Like it or not, once the program reaches a level of success, fans/students want more and not just them but the School Administration as well. They bring in people who they think could give them more success and once they don't it's bye-bye and find another guy who can and the School Adminsitration is just as impatient if not more than us the fans. It stinks but it's the nature of college sports, especially for top-tier teams. People want their school to be Bama or a Ohio State or a Clemson and that's just for football. I do believe right especially considering it might be a long time before the Gators to do anything with Georgia in the division and Bama still freaking Bama. It would depend on whose the starting quarterback is. Can Jack Miller improve? Is there another quarterback coming in either through HS recruitment or the transfer portal?

You're right of course Lf...It's different in the SEC to start with--and with Oklahoma and Texas coming in (now possibly even sooner than originally expected) things will only get tougher:
Meanwhile, the record shows that the last EIGHT CFB National Champions have all been from among the top 5-star recruiting classes.
Period. No running away from it or sweeping it under the rug. No matter what all ELSE we tell ourselves about "other paths to excellence", the truth it seems is that at least in the SEC and/or among the elite programs nationally, when it comes time to match up against THEM in the Playoffs, "very good" just doesn't take you all the way. You might make it into the playoffs themselves (especially with the coming 12-team system), but not ultimately as Champions...Indeed, the trend thus far is that you won't make it to the FINAL: Only the "Elite" teams built with the very best players from recruiting and (I believe to a lesser extent, as we'll see) the transfer portal will eventually, inevitably and ultimately get to and WIN Championships.
So. What does this tell us? What do these repeated last-moment disappointments as we approach NSD/ESD really mean regarding our progress and future?
Well, for one thing I think we may have to reevaluate and possibly make some big decisions regarding our approach to NIL.
I think it is pretty clear that behind the scenes we are getting undermined by last-second "Big Buy-Outs" from certain programs in the NIL.
As I hope to have stressed, we'll NEED to be grabbing a more representative share of the top (as in "FIVE STAR") talent out there, and that looks to mean at least in certain cases being ready and willing to go "All In" with NIL money.
I am certain Billy Napier sees and will adapt accordingly to the new realities: He is an intelligent, thorough and detail-oriented guy.
He will recognize and accomplish whatever needs to be done in order to get the pieces he needs to get there--get the job DONE..."The Job" being to get to and win CFB National Championships.
If I (an amateur "guy in the stands") can see what it takes to build an "Elite Program", then eventually get to and WIN Nattys, Billy Napier has long since recognized the same things and by now has his own detailed and somewhat flexible BLUEPRINT for getting there--complete with alternate contingencies depending upon whatever his likeliest competition does (whether expected or UNexpected).
There are no guarantees of course.
In the final analysis, there is little one can do to ultimately control or predict the thoughts, choices and/or actions of excited teenaged young men. Money is now a clear and open factor, though--and we must be ready in certain cases to OFFER MORE. Sorry. It may be uncomfortable, even somewhat ugly to us "old school" types, but nonetheless TRUE.
There may be other approaches in some cases, possibly even totally "ALTERNATE PATHS" involving other incentives and appeals--but more and more, in a majority of such cases, it will come down to some version of "SHOW ME THE MONEY!".
Now, this all may eventually turn out to be the thing that finally KILLS the "goose that lays the golden eggs"--the END of college football, at least as we know it. I myself have a lot of reservations as to where all this is headed.
I have long felt that with everyone ELSE making so much money off of their names, likeness, not to mention the extreme risks players take with their bodies and future LIVELIHOODS on EVERY PLAY, but that doesn't make me totally comfortable some of these latest trends either.
Here we are, however, and I want our team and program to be among the competitive "Elite" once more! So we must be aware of the rules, the realities of the "modern playing field" upon which we each compete as institutions, and thus our Coach himself must recognize and exploit whatever advantages he can find there.
Perhaps another time we can discuss the ethical "rights and wrongs" of it all--but not here, not now.
We are at a very real and crucial crossroads, a potential "key point" in this cycle's "road to recovery". How it turns out, positively or negatively, is in the balance at this very moment.
I do not envy Billy Napier. But I do TRUST him:
I have to believe he has a detailed plan, full of contingencies and alternatives.
It appears that THIS round could have gone better, but it isn't over yet either--and its true value, it's ultimate success or failure, cannot be judged for some time in ANY event. So no matter what, I will resist my worst instincts and for the moment reserve judgment.
GO GATORS.
WON'T BACK DOWN.

 

[DRU2012]

As we watch and (slowly) witness the very "continued development"/shakeout continue in this brave new world of NIL/Collective recruiting and transfer portal slight-of-hand, certain latent revelations are indeed revealing, coming to the fore. This frantic game of "musical chairs" STILL isn't over!
One thing I DO like, even admire and have growing appreciation for and faith in is Coach Napier's strong commitment to and appreciation for a separate sense of "family"--a sense of honor, loyalty and mutual support, not just in the background of the incoming individuals as "new Gators", the fundanental way they were raised, but in stressing those same values and overall structure and basic common decency and mutual support among members of the team and program he is building here now.
He means to set us apart in a way that I definitely believe will serve us well. In this way, players, coaches, students, alumni and fans together can and will be more and more PROUD of all that will come to set us apart in a very real way.
It can't be purchased, nor contrived by promises or slick rhetoric. Not for long, anyway.
I'll go with our Coach's approach here, back his play. In the long run, it will succeed I think, and do so honorably.

 

[DRU2012]

At the same time, my being effectively alone here now, with little dialogue to provide "civil, respective counter point" (at this moment, in fact, NONE), does offer several different paths from here...
To start with, I suppose if I am looking for "civil counterpoint" it'll be up to ME to provide it here now. So I think it's worth noting (as I DID, above) that although we back our Coach and the pervasive PHILOSOPHY underlying this "program rebuild", the current ongoing concern involves outer continued trend in MISSING ON 5-Star recruits. It has been the difference between our team and the so-called "Elite" ones in recent years (pretty well going back 10-plus SEASONS, pretty well post-Urban Meyer), and has gone that way again for Billy and Co. THIS time, at least so far--and there is at least so far little mention of our being in the race for any of the remaining unsigned 5-stars still out there. No matter HOW great the "vibe" around our program, it won't really pay off that large on the field until it somehow impacts the quality of PLAYERS joining in, CHOOSING to come here--which it very well might DO "eventually"...it just hasn't really shown up there YET.
As the sole provider of BOTH sides of the "discussion", one hopefully thus FAIRLY PRESENTED, I can make BOTH points without rancor.
There is a whole BUNCH of "rancor" out there nowadays--and NOT just among college football fans. I will NOT venture down THAT path (better known as a "tangled, slimy can'o'worms"!); I'm not at all happy, nor anxious to address its various current manifestations among us all OVER the online CFB world...but it IS pervasive, and in its more extreme forms is poisoning dialogue, taking the fun out of what to many of us is the last bastion of "fair play" and relatively innocent "good clean fun"...OK, well, maybe we'd already LOST the "clean" part (now more than ever, with full-blown, unrestricted tampering and "pay-or-play" so far), but it was still "fun", and, on the whole "good", I think.
Personally, though, I have no patience when I encounter its direct attacks. Trolls have always been a fact of life on public forums, but the breakdown of any last semblance of honor and/or mutual respect among participants in ANY and all social exchange now is truly an assault, a pox upon our society and culture at every level, and certainly bodes ill for the future, ANY future--whether that of CFB or the larger, wider public world of which it is a particularly emblematic part.
Sorry to get so serious, even somewhat apocalyptic here now. It's just that I see and FEEL the air going out of the enormous pillow of thrills and chills FUN that CFB has been for so long, at least in MY life--I fear and resist its threatened existence. All WE can do is to individually CHOOSE ANOTHER WAY.