There is a difference between the coach motivating players and fellow players motivating players. Kyle Trask is not Tim Tebow. In terms of vocal leadership, the closest the Gators had since Tebow graduated was Feleipe Franks. This team will succeed or fail in a very different way from the Tebow teams. As a matter of fact, this team will succeed or fail in a very different way from the Urban Meyer teams that Dan Mullen was part of. Mullen does not coach the same way as Meyer.
Can’t argue with you there.
It’s EXACTLY why I made that implicit distinction...But like it or not,
(1) It sure seems this group NEEDED some proper “motivating”—if only just to truly begin to come together as a TEAM, and (2) You’re right: Trask, while a “leader” on the field, a true “field general” in terms of his talent and performance—in-game, clearly, is where he lets his PLAY do his “leading”; on and OFF the field he tends to be quiet, humble, low key...
If someone were going to do any “emotional button pushing” on this team, at this time, considering what is required (the “pulling together” and “standing with and FOR each other”, all three squads that COMPRISE a football TEAM), who else in this particular case was that going to be BUT Dan Mullens??!
Emotion is ALWAYS a part of “success or failure” in college football. Isn’t that a big part of why we love it?
Sure is for ME! It’s a major part of how and why I lost interest in the pro game (but I won’t dwell on all that here and now)...Suffice it to say: We have a special and complex attachment and loyalty TO this institution, one we all share with the young men who play for them/US—and (we HOPE) the men brought in to Coach, at least to SOME extent.
The degree to which that “wears thin” or proves to carry on after their tenure here is up, has a bearing not just on how we continue to feel about them, but I believe to a great extent reflects on how successful they are or were when they were here!
My point here and now is that I think we can at least agree that Dan Mullens is fully invested in and committed TO “BEING a Florida Gator”!
WE feel it; his players feel it too. And one of the things that is becoming all the more clear about our Head Coach is that in addition to being a very good Coach, he knows and CARES about his guys. In the EMOTIONS on Saturday, in the “College Game”, THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE.
For us, it appears to be “making a difference” NOW.
I don’t know if it will be enough.
It’s just one factor in a SEA of variables that comprise, at best, “a process”:
Even if we keep ON “improving”, will we get “ENOUGH BETTER” by the time we face Alabama to BEAT THEM? Will we, CAN we be “the better team on that field, on that day”?
I don’t know.
That’s exactly why our Coach is exactly RIGHT in making sure he sets the example he does, in every public appearance now and postgame pressers, when he insists as much as possible even NOW in not looking past “the NEXT game” and IT’S challenges, the proud SEC team that is bent on maintaining its OWN pride and tradition.
As things stand, we gotta go up to Knoxville this coming Saturday and whip a Vols team that at this point has had its whole season (and sense of themselves) narrowed down to their performance in and outcome of this next game.
This IS in effect their “bowl game”.
By all accounts it will be “wintry weather”—not exactly an “advantage” for US! And with the late-afternoon start, it will be getting colder as the game goes on. From every “emotional” AND “practical” standpoint, this would be a good time for our QB and the offense to put a big score up in a fairly lopsided WIN—and exactly the wrong circumstances for it, or so it would seem.
Personally, I will be satisfied with a commanding victory—a balanced and composed effort, beginning to end.
We are the better team. The same is true for the final scheduled game against LSU. Let’s see how THOSE ones go; like our Coach, THEN I will be more inclined to evaluate our chances against the Tide.
As much as “proper emotional preparation” THEN, the degree to which he can truly limit his players’ looking ahead while still preparing for these last couple of regular season games will be just as crucial to our performance IN those games as our likely success or failure when CHAMPIONSHIP WEEK in fact actually COMES!
