Vanderbilt hasn’t scored a point in Gainesville since 2017.
After yesterday's performance, and Billy's what-I-most-feared/"deer-in-the-headlights"-version of a presser, I am thoroughly disillusioned...Neither "logic" nor "hope" remain for me at the moment: We could EASILY lose EVERY GAME LEFT ON OUR SCHEDULE.
In which case, no telling WHAT will happen with our Coach OR indeed WHOLE PROGRAM: Recruiting and everything ELSE could go south. Who knows? We could be a gutted, hopelessly floundering and completely irrelevant program by December, one that is a wrecked shadow of the mess it was when Billy GOT here.. We are teetering on the edge of just such a precipice.
Yes, it's that bad.
I have so many questions--the same ones so many OTHERS are asking! I am as tired of asking them as I figure most of us are tired of HEARING.
And there it is:
SO many terrible signposts as to where this team and program is and where it is headed.
There is just too much hopelessly wrong right now for me to join the ample descriptions online already thoroughly detailing it all.
You can simply go to Ali's latest and Gator Dave's Sunday expanded "Gator Breakdown" show on YouTube for a painfully accurate and complete deconstruction of the aftermath.
There's lots I could say, but the truth is there is little I can add. Bottom line: We just were not ready to play.
And our Coach's (sickeningly predictable) postgame presser really WAS one long classic NON-ANSWER. I mean, he DOES come straight out and take responsibility, but he continues to somehow keep that vague and impersonal.
EVERYTHING YOU SAY GOES BACK ON YOU, COACH! Where's the fire??! And WTF are y'all DOING about ANY of it?
And by the way: ANY "answer" has to begin ON THE FIELD!
I still can't get over the same kinds of careless mistakes out there week-after-week. You need to show a little concern, even ANGER for that kind of thing already, Coach! Between the endless missed tackles, crucially foolish ill-timed penalties, and stupid ORGANIZATIONAL failures leaving us repeatedly with the wrong guys, the wrong NUMBER of guys ON THE FIELD!
Then there is Special Teams. No...I have to simply stop there. It is this Coach's second season, when generally things COACHING can control shows great improvement--but in our case that clearly HASN'T come to pass. The "detail guy" is missing DETAILS.
And I'm sorry, but this Coach is NOT a real imaginative play caller. There's talent on this team now, but our Coach isn't really using it. Hell, he's somewhat inexplicably not even PLAYING some of them (Where is Wilson III? Why is Etienne not the lead-RB?).
My biggest fear going forward is that we could lose much of this recruiting class. In which case, the one thing this Coach has clearly been doing right will be gone--and so will he...and THAT, my friends, will mean at least ANOTHER TEN YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS.
Our one remaining hope goes like this:
Somehow do enough with the rest of the season to hold this class--SOMEHOW turn enough things around to win enough games and give enough a general impression of competence to let this latest embarrassment somewhat fade--add some talent and depth somehow on the O-line and see if the expected improvement comes NEXT season (against an even TOUGHER schedule, by the way)...After that, well, either this is all behind us or, "buy-out clause" or not Coach AND AD are probably gone--and beyond THAT, for Gator Football at least lies an empty void of unknown duration.
Like most Gators, I am left with an empty, gnawing feeling deep in my gut.
