OGT 2024 Week 10: World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party

[DRU2012]

13-6 Gators at the half, but the Bulldogs get their starting safeties back in the second half.

Yup, it don't look good.
Hell, Billy barely had a "plan to WIN" with DJ as his QB-1.
Now it'll be all dives, swing passes and bubble-screens on offense, try to get in fieldgoal range and hope our new found defense can somehow hold a meager lead.
Whatever hopes we really HAD went off this crap field on a stretcher in the first half.
I am turning off the sound entering the 2nd.

 

[DRU2012]

(The LAST thing I care to see are repeated replays of DJ getting hurt.)

 

[DRU2012]

Does this Warner kid have any real atm skills?
We already KNOW Billy won't put do anything "creative" with him regardless.
So much fir getting the ball first here in the 2nd half.
And now here we go.
UGA driving.
INT! I WAS JUST ABOUT TO SAY THIS WAS THE ONLY WAY WE WIN!
Now. GOTTA get TOUCHDOWNS.

 

[DRU2012]

We cannot simply run the ball, play for Fieldgoals.

 

[DRU2012]

What a waste. We cannot win with this kid at QB and Billy calling the plays.
Sigh. "Woulda/Shoulda/Coulda" again.
You feel it? That sick, clutching feeling in the gut?
Get used to it, if you're not already.
It is what it feels like to be a GATOR.
What it feels like to feel like we will find a way to LOSE.
"Here it COMES!"
THAT feeling.
And now we are dropping like FLIES out there.
Put too much on our defense...Still only early 3rd quarter and a banged up and tured D is starting to fade. Soon our lead will be gone.
Our whole secondary is now out.
Geez. I don't know that
I can't watch too much more of THIS.
Missed 4th INT there--1st abd goal instead.
There's the TD.
By fer now, Friends.
Giving us tge Gator Chomp fir getting tued--abd THAT only due to all the injuries--especially of course the big one to Lagway.
Yeah I hate UGA--but I am also starting to hate a Coach who keeps blowing smoke up all our *sses..
The one thing worse than getting killed on the scoreboard today was LOSING LAGWAY, then losing the lead, and now proceeding to fully surrender in the 2nd half.
I can't, WON'T watch.

 

[DRU2012]

Man oh man...pathetic.
Had the sound off, but game still on as I came back in room--just in time to see us turn a fg try into a wild snap and their ball down at OUR end!
This is exactly what I mean.
This is what happens to bad teams. "Natural Born Losers". That is what we have now completed our journey-to-BEING: A team that always finds a WAY TO LOSE.
DON'T wanna be around for the end of the 3rd:
Because now we DO "Back Down", damnit all to HELL!!!

 

[DRU2012]

We'll talk later, tonight or tomorrow, when we get some sort of idea of how bad DJs injury is.
That, and who the next Coach will be, for the moment THESE are the only two questions I am really interested in.

 

[DRU2012]

(NOTE: I have turned the game off in the 3rd quarter...I have only this to add:
This hole we are in continues to deepen: THAT ISN'T just "bad luck". The story may be different, but the general theme is sadly familiar:
"This is what HAPPENS to bad teams."
Things go from "bad" to "worse".
Bad stuff happens, but then they compound it by "royally screwing up"!
And THAT comes back to COACHING.
I'll be tempted to watch Billy's presser tonight just for an answer to inevitable questions regarding DJ's injury--but maybe I better not:
I was already tired of listening to him drone on
about "process", "responsibility" and "experience"...I wanna scream, "WHAT ABOUT YOUR RECORD, COACH??!"
Yeah, we lost DJ but we had the lead in the 2nd half. They tied it up but we were ABOUT to retake the advantage when your "SPECIAL" team AGAIN picked the absolute worst moment to instead turn that opportunity over to THEM! Sickening. You got more coaches over there than practically any other program in college football but you STILL can't execute the most basic things properly.
No, I better wait for word to trickle on through.
One of the online people, Ali or Gator Dave should have some word on ALL our injuries, especially DJ's, within the next 24 hours.
I thought I was ready for whatever this game brought our way, but I was wrong.
I find that LONG before it's over I am in truth already overwhelmed in frustration, a tense sadness I somehow DIDN'T see coming.
Losing a GAME is one thing. "Losing hope in our FUTURE", that's something else ENTIRELY--and THAT is in fact where I am AT.
It is now BEYOND a simple matter of "winning a few more games". We need to KNOW that "they" hear us--that "they" can and WILL do whatever it takes to address THAT, "Lost HOPE", first and foremost, above all ELSE.)

 

[DRU2012]

I am getting messages and emails from all over asking me, "Have you turned it off yet??!"...By that alone I gather we have fallen will behind late; sonexare asking ME how DJ is--as if as a well-known rabid Gator I would have extra-advanced inside word...Uh, no.
I've no such advance info; I'm guessing we lost by at LEAST a couple TDs, and that DJ is out for the rest of the season. If he just pulled it, maybe he might have made it back fir tge bowl game we WON'T likeky make...but if he outright TORE it, then that'll do it until NEXT year.
Tell y'all what:
I WILL be digging into every source I have to find out what I can. Soon as I discover ANYTHING I will pass it along somewhere here at GE.

 

[Escambia94]

Billy Napier has bad luck with QBs at Florida:

Emory Jones - Transferred after spring training 2022
Carlos Del Rio-Wilson - Transferred after spring training 2022
Anthony Richardson - Played through injuries in 2022
Jalen Kitna - Dismissed in November 2022
Jack Miller - Injured throughout most of 2022
Marcus Stokes - Offer pulled due to social media posts
Jaden Rashada - NIL issues
Max Brown - Played well in reserve duty then transferred
Micah Leon - Played adequately in a few snaps
Graham Mertz - Played well when not injured
DJ Lagway - Played well when not injured

 

[DRU2012]

Meanwhile, did you listen to his post-game presser? As long as he stuck to praising the character and effort of his team I was OK... but every now and then he veered into "moral victory" territory--and that just won't DO:
"Bad luck" or no, we are where we ARE now--ANY further victories are going to be difficult, to say the least. The main focus HAS to be on the future: "What comes NEXT?", and that immediately warrants a look at the current state of our 2025 recruiting class.
I suppose it is too early for the media guys there in the room to begin asking such questions, but we are in the mid-50s and sinking. Recruiting was supposed to be one of Billy's main strong points; I don't know exactly what he will do about it, but it damn well better be a clear and dramatic effort of SOME kind! Every feature in his resume needs to be on display now, and whatever lessons learned and improvements made in NIL have to kick in NOW.
Frankly, it has actually now come down to turning "reasons to fire" into "reasons to retain"--and without wins, somehow assembling a righteously-promising recruiting-class may be one of the only ways left for him to pull that off,
to at least offer a counterpoint to the by now strongly mounting evidence that things on the other side of the ledger have gone too far.
Personally, MY main interest (along with so many others) will be on the results of DJ's MRI, and the resulting prognosis regarding "How serious?", and "Time-frame for recovery and rehabilitation?".
In fact, a fuller picture of the severity and recovery times of ALL our injured needs to be fully addressed if we are to have any idea of how competitive we are likely to be in the remainder of the games left on our schedule.

 

[Escambia94]

Meanwhile, did you listen to his post-game presser? As long as he stuck to praising the character and effort of his team I was OK... but every now and then he veered into "moral victory" territory--and that just won't DO:
"Bad luck" or no, we are where we ARE now--ANY further victories are going to be difficult, to say the least. The main focus HAS to be on the future: "What comes NEXT?", and that immediately warrants a look at the current state of our 2025 recruiting class.
I suppose it is too early for the media guys there in the room to begin asking such questions, but we are in the mid-50s and sinking. Recruiting was supposed to be one of Billy's main strong points; I don't know exactly what he will do about it, but it damn well better be a clear and dramatic effort of SOME kind! Every feature in his resume needs to be on display now, and whatever lessons learned and improvements made in NIL have to kick in NOW.
Frankly, it has actually now come down to turning "reasons to fire" into "reasons to retain"--and without wins, somehow assembling a righteously-promising recruiting-class may be one of the only ways left for him to pull that off,
to at least offer a counterpoint to the by now strongly mounting evidence that things on the other side of the ledger have gone too far.
Personally, MY main interest (along with so many others) will be on the results of DJ's MRI, and the resulting prognosis regarding "How serious?", and "Time-frame for recovery and rehabilitation?".
In fact, a fuller picture of the severity and recovery times of ALL our injured needs to be fully addressed if we are to have any idea of how competitive we are likely to be in the remainder of the games left on our schedule.

- I listened to part of the presser. I am impressed with the team's attitude and willingness to play for one another. I loved everything Napier said. Despite that, I cannot take another moral victory.
- Statistically the Gators were going to win that game with Lagway. Somehow the Gator program is cursed with snake-bitten quarterbacks.
- Aidan Warner and Clay Millen need to be ready to get the Gators through three more SEC opponents. The probability of one or both of them getting injured is high.
- At this point I do not care whether Stricklin keeps Napier. He already failed my three-year test, but Stricklin is now in a tough position of firing a very nice guy who just lost both of his scholarship quarterbacks.
- If Lagway's hamstring is injured, the minimum amount of time to miss for a Grade 1 strain or Grade 2 partial tear is two weeks. The recommended minimum rest time is three weeks or a safe timeline of six weeks.

 

[DRU2012]

Again--I commend everyone's attention to Matt Hayes' latest posting on USA TODAY NETWORK (SUNDAY 10:02 pm, Nov. 2) entitled, "Flofida Played its best game of the season...and it's still over for Billy Napier".
I couldn't say it better OR more concisely.