Week 5 Reaction: Kentucky defeats Florida for third consecutive year

[DRU2012]

This was one of the least watchable games I have seen in a while. Imagine the game against Oregon State, but with the opponent literally throwing your best players around like ragdolls.

"Least watchable" for SURE...I was gone before the first quarter ended!
Now I'm left avoiding even the postgane comments and press conferences--but STILL inadvertently exposed to the gist of it all just in catching glimpses of HEADLINES as I go on to other things. And I HATE the little I am seeing there.

 

[Escambia94]

"Least watchable" for SURE...I was gone before the first quarter ended!
Now I'm left avoiding even the postgane comments and press conferences--but STILL inadvertently exposed to the gist of it all just in catching glimpses of HEADLINES as I go on to other things. And I HATE the little I am seeing there.

This is why it is smart to lock comments on the game thread and immediately create a reaction thread. You can watch the game unfold in the game thread and look back a year from now to see if we have improved. The answer is “probably not”. Even if Florida has improved from last year, Kentucky has improved even more.

 

[DRU2012]

I believe these are the 6 stages of a fired UF coach. Billy is currently on stage 3 moving into 4 if he doesn’t improve stage 6 will be his fate.

1. Hope: “Things will be different this time. This stage lasted about one week into Napier’s tenure—9/3/2022.
2. Improvement: “We are getting better each week.” We thought we saw this against Tennessee—9/13/2023.
3. Stubbornness: “All we have to do is repeat the same mistakes expecting a different outcome.” Here we are on 9/30/2023.
4. Media / Fan pressure: “FireTheCoach.com websites pop up.” If the Gators lose to Vanderbilt this will absolutely happen.
5. Recruiting fallout: “We just need to get X player next year!” DJ Lagway might be the only recruit left if Florida loses to Vanderbilt, South Carolina, and Arkansas.
6. The inevitable: “Maybe Dan Mullen will come back for $10M for 10 years!”

OMG--I so hope you are wrong, and yet convinced you are RIGHT!
His recruiting prowess is the only thing I believe is somewhat protecting Coach now. It is certainly the one thing that keeps ME sticking with he and this staff...I remember how badly things looked after a relatively short time under Zook, post-Spurrier--but then came Meyer, who came in.and was able to spin GOLD with mostly just the ingredients Zook had managed to gather here. If Billy can put together a couple of great classes and somehow maintain the up-til-now deepening ties of TEAM-UNITY that have definitely developed, even if he indeed failed to adequately adapt his strategic and tactical gamesmanship and ended up getting himself fired because if it, it would then depend on exactly who his successor might be, not to mention how quickly and smoothly even some otherwise somehow acceptably exciting high-profile replacement actually was announced and hired would likely determine how successful THAT individual might be in KEEPING that team TOGETHER.
But GEEZ, that very process, laid out starkly, our seeming place in it already pretty clearly well-advanced, is depressingly deflating in pronouncing the likely outcome.
We ARE pretty well at "number four" already NOW--and numbers 5 and 6 seem, if anything, "LIKELY" at this point...
Bearing in mind that we are all down and with little in the way of optimism or hope after witnessing today's drubbing, though, perhaps this isn't the best time to weigh the features of our current path's track, or ultimate outcome.

 

[DRU2012]

(Things have sure fallen apart again in a hurry, have you noticed? We are neither a stable nor particularly strong a "team" yet, obviously.
Maybe THAT should be among the FIRST things this Coach and staff needs to examine, address somehow.)

 

[DRU2012]

This is why it is smart to lock comments on the game thread and immediately create a reaction thread. You can watch the game unfold in the game thread and look back a year from now to see if we have improved. The answer is “probably not”. Even if Florida has improved from last year, Kentucky has improved even more.

I see what you mean. Haven't seen it noted NOR addressed in this way. Keep it up here, at the very least.
We may not LIKE what it is telling us--but the message is nonetheless accurate and valuable--if only those who might be able to DO something with that info WERE to see and actually do something in response!
Any ideas as to how that might have any kind of increased chance at that HAPPENING???
Being "HEARD"/READ further afield?
I want so badly to somehow see things change for the better...This Coach is very analytical; if he somehow were presented with such a straight forward statement of comparison and relative progress he MIGHT be compelled to actually ACT on it in some logical and practical way. Oh well. Probably just an idle fantasy on my part.

 

[Escambia94]

I saw this description of Napier’s coaching at home vs on the road on Twitter/X:

8-2 “Won’t Back Down”
1-7 “You Don’t Know How It Feels”

Take away cupcakes and Napier is 4-2.

Applying the Norvell standard, Napier absolutely must win 10 games next season or else he becomes the next Scott Frost.

 

[Leakfan12]

I believe these are the 6 stages of a fired UF coach. Billy is currently on stage 3 moving into 4 if he doesn’t improve stage 6 will be his fate.

1. Hope: “Things will be different this time. This stage lasted about one week into Napier’s tenure—9/3/2022.
2. Improvement: “We are getting better each week.” We thought we saw this against Tennessee—9/13/2023.
3. Stubbornness: “All we have to do is repeat the same mistakes expecting a different outcome.” Here we are on 9/30/2023.
4. Media / Fan pressure: “FireTheCoach.com websites pop up.” If the Gators lose to Vanderbilt this will absolutely happen.
5. Recruiting fallout: “We just need to get X player next year!” DJ Lagway might be the only recruit left if Florida loses to Vanderbilt, South Carolina, and Arkansas.
6. The inevitable: “Maybe Dan Mullen will come back for $10M for 10 years!”

I think you're right about this except for Dan Mullen coming back. I think the Gators would have a better chance at and I can't believe I'm saying this Lane Kiffin. Yes, I said it. Probably could be a good coach if he has a good DC.

 

[Leakfan12]

Bottomline: No getting around it. We are being outcoached by coaches and teams with a FRACTION of the resources WE have...and it has by now led to us getting regularly BEATEN by a team and program we basically OWNED for DECADES.
Like we are now having to hear over and OVER, the last time we lost 3 straight to THIS team, BEAR BRYANT was walking their sidelines! That's right, PRE-Alabama...
We need to get back to BRUSHING ASIDE teams at this "mid-pack level", be back to being feared when we go up against the Georgia's, LSUs and BAMAs in our league, the Longhorns and Sooners when they get here, and the handful of others out there (OSU, Irish, Trojans etc) we'll.one day again face in the CFB Playoffs.
I'm just wondering how LONG those days might now BE after ALL!

Just imagine if UK cared as much about Football as they did basketball back then, Bear Bryant could have won titles in Kentucky though I don't think the school would have been big enough for Bryant and Rupp.

 

[Escambia94]

I think you're right about this except for Dan Mullen coming back. I think the Gators would have a better chance at and I can't believe I'm saying this Lane Kiffin. Yes, I said it. Probably could be a good coach if he has a good DC.

Step 6 is any fucking name. It does not have to be Dan Mullen.

 

[DRU2012]

Step 6 is any fucking name. It does not have to be Dan Mullen.

LOL.
I actually got my first, ONLY laugh-of-the-DAY upon reading that line in Step 6.
Sure glad you were more or less kidding, being absurd.
Mullen isn't coming back...We wouldn't WANT him even if he WAS so inclined!
See NEXT post for further discussion/reaction of this topic--which I intentionally provoked...

 

[DRU2012]

I think you're right about this except for Dan Mullen coming back. I think the Gators would have a better chance at and I can't believe I'm saying this Lane Kiffin. Yes, I said it. Probably could be a good coach if he has a good DC.

All this of course goes back to that "Forbidden Question" I posed earlier--but then not only shied away from answering myself, but suggested you all at least "just contemplate it for now"...which of course was WAY unrealistic a request (it actually has sort of "lain out there" UNanswered, UNdiscussed for MUCH longer than I might have reasonably expected.
So I suppose NOW's as good a time as any to admit the ridiculous name I have found MYSELF contemplating:
It is of course "ridiculous" to the point of absurdity (or maybe the other way around? "ABSURD to the point of RIDIC--"Oh, never mind!), but later on I found myself thinking, "If those crazy, delusionally spoiled fools in T-town don't want or appreciate their amazing great fortune in having him, maybe Nick Saban.might come over, take a boatload of cash to make a soft landing along side SS here in Florida!".
Oh, I wasn't (and am still NOT, not REALLY) serious, nor seriously expecting college football's GREAT COACH, current generally a cepted "GOAT" to make that move--he doesn't NEED ANY of all that--the money, the additional credit nor the general hassle of another demanding fanbase here in the final years of his already amazing and well-proven triumph of a career--but then again, at least on first blush he's the one name that it occurred to me could satisfy and MANAGE all the necessary requirements to pull it off. (And I have both personally witnessed and been told by folks who LIVE there that that fan base has been howling for his head without letup since the loss to Texas...They will never have this good again once he leaves, but there it IS...).
And of course THAT'S the real problem here--that's EXACTLY how deep a hole we're in if Napier is a failure here now at UF: How do we FIX this mess? Exactly WHO CAN then pull together and hold a barely-assembled, ready-to-fragment collection of young talents together, train them up, ADD TO that talent AND momentum and take them as an enthusistic WHOLE to annually challenge for Championships for 2 or 3 seasons before he hands it all off to...Um, who, exactly?
At best we get another short time of glory, then back to all THIS???
Altogether NOT a very realistic scenario, see what I mean?
"Back to the drawing board..."
But we will no doubt RETURN to this discussion.