The Gators are 5-5 entering their final home game, which will be against the 8-2 Ole Miss Rebels. The series is tied at 12-12-1 going back to 1926. The Rebels are favored by 9.5 and the over/under is at 55.5.
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OGT 2024: Week 13 Florida Gators vs #11 Ole Miss
- Thread starter Escambia94
- Start date
Well, this is probably a tougher challenge even than LSU...yet somehow I now come into it with less a sense of "impending doom" than last week.
Hardly a "ringing endorsement", I'll grant you, but if Lagway is a bit more mobile, we continue to get healthier on BOTH sides of the ball, and our defense continues to come on, HEY--Who KNOWS what THIS "Gator squad on-the-rise" might be capable of achieving?
Hardly a "ringing endorsement", I'll grant you, but if Lagway is a bit more mobile, we continue to get healthier on BOTH sides of the ball, and our defense continues to come on, HEY--Who KNOWS what THIS "Gator squad on-the-rise" might be capable of achieving?
I am not 100% sold on this turnaround, but after the collapse against Miami and Texas A&M I changed my preseason predictions from W29-21 --> L10-36. I would love to be wrong.
Yeah, I can't help but seriously qualify any nascent public optimism I might be feeling with cautious caveats in my private offerings...
I see us now with the POTENTIAL to show well in our last home game of the season, but all remains dependent on far too many unknowns:
Will DJ reclaim sufficiently more mobility? Will our general health continue to improve?
The same guy is preparing the gameplan AND calling the plays...Has he learned anything?
The defense MUST rise again--if anything must rise HIGHER, this time against an imaginatively aggressive offensive mind in Lane Kiffen, whom (along with HIS coaching braintrust) has seen and had a week of practice to prepare an effective gameplan. There were sound reasons I was far from alone in thinking he and his guys might well do more with OUR squad than the present crew.
But here we are. Like you, I SO "want to be wrong"! After so many letdowns and disappointments leading up to and INTO this harrowingly painful up'n'down season (small "ups" setting us up for multiple, enormous "downs"), last Saturday's win just felt SO good;
Oh, to just see us sustain it, keep things going right through to the end!
I make no predictions--though I admit to the same old fears. We've pretty well been convinced to expect the worst by now, after all.
The sooner that begins to change, THE BETTER!
TP could not have GIVEN us a better rallying song and cry.
Lets face it...Gotta be honest: Ol' Miss is currently the better team. Even if we were fully healthy, that would have to be the frank assessment overall.
But if the defense continues to come into its own, DJ does give us "a puncher's chance" against just about ANYONE right now.
But all the mistakes, the constant, gnawingly self-destructive errors MUST stop.
Our ONLY chance at winning THIS one comes with our finally executing cleanly from start to finish. That isn't the only requirement, but it IS a prerequisite.
I began this post by proposing, "Let's face it...", and proceeded to outline my honest views.
So here in conclusion I can do no less...
And here's my summation:
Lets be CLEAR. The commitment has been made--Billy will be back in 2025, no matter WHAT happens here. It would help in endless ways to see us finish this season strongly.
But no matter what, we must contend for the playoffs NEXT year or he is GONE, regardless of anything else. The new President comes in and fires him AND Strickland.
It'll be a major mess--essentially the same "major mess" we'd have faced had we fired the Coach before NOW. But EVERYTHING that happens, from here until whenever our 2024 season comes to an end, will to a great extent be a part of how we are to assess this supposed "maturity", some "corner that has been turned"--all part of what we are theoretically beginning to see in this program here late, and how it might affect recruiting and everything ELSE as we go to the post season's extra practices and into 2025.
(OH--And I STILL think that Lane Kiffen is the better Coach by FAR...and that he'd be the better Coach for the Florida Gators. But after all we've been through, at this point I'd MUCH rather be proven wrong!)
But if the defense continues to come into its own, DJ does give us "a puncher's chance" against just about ANYONE right now.
But all the mistakes, the constant, gnawingly self-destructive errors MUST stop.
Our ONLY chance at winning THIS one comes with our finally executing cleanly from start to finish. That isn't the only requirement, but it IS a prerequisite.
I began this post by proposing, "Let's face it...", and proceeded to outline my honest views.
So here in conclusion I can do no less...
And here's my summation:
Lets be CLEAR. The commitment has been made--Billy will be back in 2025, no matter WHAT happens here. It would help in endless ways to see us finish this season strongly.
But no matter what, we must contend for the playoffs NEXT year or he is GONE, regardless of anything else. The new President comes in and fires him AND Strickland.
It'll be a major mess--essentially the same "major mess" we'd have faced had we fired the Coach before NOW. But EVERYTHING that happens, from here until whenever our 2024 season comes to an end, will to a great extent be a part of how we are to assess this supposed "maturity", some "corner that has been turned"--all part of what we are theoretically beginning to see in this program here late, and how it might affect recruiting and everything ELSE as we go to the post season's extra practices and into 2025.
(OH--And I STILL think that Lane Kiffen is the better Coach by FAR...and that he'd be the better Coach for the Florida Gators. But after all we've been through, at this point I'd MUCH rather be proven wrong!)
This will be the final home game for the following Gators:
QB Graham Mertz
RB Montrell Johnson Jr
RB Cam Carroll
WR Elijah Badger
WR Chimere Dike
WR Ja'Quavion Fraziars
TE Keon Zipperer
OL Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson
DT Cam Jackson
DT Desmond Watson
DT Joey Slackman
Edge Ja'Markis Weston
LB Derek Wingo
LB RJ Moten
CB Jason Marshall Jr
S DJ Douglas
S Asa Turner
S Trikweze Bridges
P Jeremy Crawshaw
CB Ethan Wilson
LB Justin Pelic
Edge Tyreik Norwood
QB Graham Mertz
RB Montrell Johnson Jr
RB Cam Carroll
WR Elijah Badger
WR Chimere Dike
WR Ja'Quavion Fraziars
TE Keon Zipperer
OL Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson
DT Cam Jackson
DT Desmond Watson
DT Joey Slackman
Edge Ja'Markis Weston
LB Derek Wingo
LB RJ Moten
CB Jason Marshall Jr
S DJ Douglas
S Asa Turner
S Trikweze Bridges
P Jeremy Crawshaw
CB Ethan Wilson
LB Justin Pelic
Edge Tyreik Norwood
There's a lot of talent there--again, an ongoing indictment of Billy Napier as a Coach, if not so much as a recruiter of talent.
But neither is the issue on the eve of this potentially momentous game.
And yes, OH how I would love to see us somehow win this one. Tentatively but originally scheduled for a prime time kickoff, that has been sadly TV-shifted to the dreaded noon-kick-off...
"Sadly" MAINLY because we ALL know things have more and more returned to being ROCKIN' IN THE SWAMP, for one thing--and that goes double, triple, QUADRUPLE at night!
And we haven't shown well generally in EARLY games under Billy, either...but I find it "sadly" for personal reasons too: I have a number of responsibilities that MUST be attended to OUT THERE IN THE WORLD tomorrow morning-into-mid-afternoon (...culminating in a long-scheduled appointnent to see my brand new custom laptop being assembled, tested, and taken possesion of). Not a "problem" for anything BUT a "Noon Eastern Kickoff" in The Swamp.
Sigh. Maybe, applying my superstitious "reasonable unreasonability theory", I should look at this as a possible "GOOD thing":
According to the convoluted non-logic that I have found some comfort in these last few unhappy years as a Gator, the thought occurs that of COURSE the kickoff time would get switched just this way, but its greatest impact would come NOT in the event of another Gator SEC home beat-down that I am forced to MISS, but in me NOT being there to see a true program-changing WIN!
Now THAT is "misfortune" I can get behind!
Not sure how I further phrase it, except to say
"GO GATORS!", DON'T BACK DOWN...and I'll be "there" as soon I possibly CAN.
