What hurts the most?

[Leakfan12]

Me and DRU are arguing this though I only asked so I haven't answered because I don't know myself: the last two years of the Football season or the last of two years of the Basketball season?

Football seasons of 2010-2011: It looked good with the team constantly got recruiting class in the top 25 class and it look for 2010 for the Gators completing for the SEC that season, then came the Miami of OH game and well they been 15-11 with underperforming talent. Last season was worse (which was saying something) though I think the highlight was when the Gators beat Ohio State in the Gator Bowl or the Up yours Urban Meyer bowl.

Basketball 2011-2012: Hey still considered great seasons making to the Elite Eight but seriously when your up by 10 points with less than 10 minutes until the Final Four and you blew the game two stragiht season, something is wrong. If they won, those games the Gators would Rivaled Kentucky, Kansas, UNC, Duke, etc. in landing the top recruits.

Honestly, I think Basketball hurts more because it's the Final Four they had a good chance of making it. I would list more hurtful Gators moments but I got to go.

 

[DRU2012]

Yeah, but how many of us really thought they'd beat "one of the Big Boys", especially KY, if we DID make it to the FF?
Oh, I wanted the opportunity, like everyone else, another shot at the Wildcats most of all, if that were in the cards--though the way things were going, seemingly "falling our way" it seemed we might just end up getting "the most favorable opponent" all the way through--we had so far! But that still depended on our "holding up our end", right? We hadn't really done that with any consistency all year, so this "run" always had a "shaky edge", ya know?
OK, it hurt--but for us University of Florida Fightin' Football FIRST Gators, well, admit it: the worst of it is ALREADY over.
My point: If this were a similar loss keeping us from a FOOTBALL National Championship title-shot, BCS or whatever comes after it, most of us (myself included) couldn't even TALK about it yet.
Look what happened in '09, when we lost to 'Bama in Atlanta (the post-bust, Tebow-crying debacle). Hell, I could hardly get excited about the Sugar Bowl, a month later. Beating up on Cincinnati was mild compensation, at best. There seemed nowhere to turn, no consolation or distraction to turn our attention to. Hell--it even cracked open our once seemingly steadfast coach--Meyer went into his whole funk/freak-out/quit-routine, flip-flopped, came back but was never the same. You'll recall his best assistants bugged out like those proverbial rats on a sinking ship; we were left with the Dive-Master and the shell-of-Urban Meyer as our OC and Head Coach, respectively. We're only NOW finally fully recovering.
We just don't expect so much from Donovan and the basketball program--good thing, too. Given the realities I've addressed elsewhere, the likelihood that he's about the highest-level coach we'll ever be able to attract here (and likewise how that is similarly true regarding players--how long we may wait before "catching lightening in a bottle" with 3 or 4 perfectly-matched top-flight players all at once AGAIN) and all the reasons that is so, riding a roller-coaster that brushes the clouds at the top here and there, comes close and keeps us interested, is about as good as it's going to get.
Look, Lf, I don't know how much of an "argument" this is between us: More like each of us voicing a different side of "Gator Consciousness". I just really believe I am speaking not only for myself but for most Gator fans by far--even YOU, as the days go by between us and "The Let-Down". Soon, it won't even need quotes or capitals; I'm already there...Far as I'm concerned, it was just an obvious "return to form"--and NOT just this season, or between LAST year's "11-point let down-and-out" and THIS one. Are you screaming for Billy's head? I'll bet few are--I haven't heard it, or read about it, if so. What about his "The guys grew up as result of this experience"-line? Say WHAT?!! Are you buying that? It's a ridiculous assertion, raising all kinds of possible questions, but no one's really jumping on it--why bother? The overall attitude is dominated by, "Let's move on."
And we will--we have spring-football already in play, our baseball team is first-rate as far as SOMETHING to follow and root for in the months ahead between the Spring Game and summer-practice, so we'll shrug this off. Most of us are just about there now.

 

[Escambia94]

I did not believe this until recent years, but we can gage the real talent based on NFL and NBA drafts. The other variable is size.

For both basketball and football, our players were a tad under sized, but they compensated with speed and skill. The Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and Alabama basketball teams were more NBA sized and exposed the Gators in the regular season finale. In the Elite 8, I am not sure what caused that break down, but I would imagine that Louisville will have more NBA talent or has more NBA sized players right now. In football, the common denominator in the losses is the same-- size and NFL talent.

Come to think of it, in basketball, Louisville coach Rick Pitino does push his players to over achieve. That is a promising sign for Will Muschamp, since Coach Boom shares that blue collar over achiever work ethic.

In short, both the basketball and football teams need to build their college teams like pro teams if they want to compete in the football SEC or the basketball Elite 8.

 

[Leakfan12]

I'm admit yes we are football first and a good number of us football only. and yes 2009 hurts more than those two combine. Of course there's a list besides those three.

1999: lost three stragiht games (FSU, Bama, Mich St I think)
2001: that UT game, damn terrorists.
Mid 1980's: NCAA nails the team costing them SEC titles and possible national titles.
1979: they went winless.

I sure there's other Gators fans that can (granted yes I did list Football pains) name other heartbreaks for football and possibly other sports. Do I want Donovan to get the boot? NO!!!!. Honestly If you make the Big Tourney in Men's Basketball you're safe. Face it you have 12, 11, 10 seeds making to the Sweet 16 and at times the Final Four. Also doesn't Donovan share the blue collar ethic like his mentor Pitino?

 

[Escambia94]

Donovan shares his blue collar work ethic with Pitino. I think his job is safe, since he got the Gators to the Elite 8. Who knows? Maybe with a healthy Yeguette the Gators could have made it to the Final 4.

 

[InkedAdrenaline]

I don't follow bb as much as fb, but they both hurt lol, I hate hearing neg things on Sportscenter about any gator sport or former gators, it just erks me.

 

[DRU2012]

Donovan shares his blue collar work ethic with Pitino. I think his job is safe, since he got the Gators to the Elite 8. Who knows? Maybe with a healthy Yeguette the Gators could have made it to the Final 4.

I'm admit yes we are football first and a good number of us football only. and yes 2009 hurts more than those two combine. Of course there's a list besides those three.

1999: lost three stragiht games (FSU, Bama, Mich St I think)
2001: that UT game, damn terrorists.
Mid 1980's: NCAA nails the team costing them SEC titles and possible national titles.
1979: they went winless.

I sure there's other Gators fans that can (granted yes I did list Football pains) name other heartbreaks for football and possibly other sports. Do I want Donovan to get the boot? NO!!!!. Honestly If you make the Big Tourney in Men's Basketball you're safe. Face it you have 12, 11, 10 seeds making to the Sweet 16 and at times the Final Four. Also doesn't Donovan share the blue collar ethic like his mentor Pitino?

I don't follow bb as much as fb, but they both hurt lol, I hate hearing neg things on Sportscenter about any gator sport or former gators, it just erks me.

Agree with everything said here...and I'm not for running Billy out either--as I said, he's just about the best we can GET to coach B-ball here at UF--and he ain't bad at all. However, "getting close" ISN'T ever going to be quite "good enough" for us in FOOTBALL, is it? Blow 10-point leads in the 4th quarter of the SEC Championship 2 years in a row and thus end up in a BCS "consolation Bowl", and you WILL hear at least SOME calls for the Coach's head, trust me!
Meanwhile, I totally agree on the "gets more out of player and the TEAM he puts together"-parallel between Pitino and Muschamp--I think that's going to turn out to be a very accurate and insightful "take" on our future success, once we get there and folks begin to consider it.

Oh yeah--and IA? While I reserve my Gator-given right to be hard on our team, its players and coaches in ANY sport, and blunt in my assessments of their achievements and failures, and while I (like a lot of others) tend to get angrier in relation to the relative "importance" not only of the particular sport being discussed (as we are discussing here), but the stage upon which our team is coming up short, I have a REAL short fuse regarding OUTSIDERS' criticisms: they DAMN well better know whereof they speak, take the whole picture properly into account, and even THEN I'm looking for any sign of bias, the slightest clue they have some "axe to grind". I am HAIR TRIGGER when it comes to some lazy "media person" trying to get high-profile attention, going after "the Nation" by going after our team. The question could well be asked, for eg.: How much of the "Anti-Tebow" sentiment is "Anti-Gator"-related, or at least began that way? Look how much criticism and innuendo was showered on Meyer while he was OUR coach--and how the same sources (ESPN, obviously, to start with) seemingly cover him in respectful "Dean of Coaches"-talk now that he has moved to tOSU? Slow to give us credit, quick to give us blame--that's the pattern...and we can of course expect more-of-the-same as we begin and carry out our return-to-dominance in the seasons ahead. Me, I can't WAIT--I LOVED us being the team and school all those clowns chattered about! But we (myself included) have to remember to have a thick skin as well this time...I let that crap you're talking about get to ME too, IA--but, given who we are and the jealous haters out there who only want to see us down, gotta remember to let it slide, even laugh it OFF. See it as another sign of how GOOD things are going, when it comes.
I really intend to ENJOY the ride this time!

 

[Leakfan12]

You do have a point DRU especially since the hammer they from the NCAA in the mid-1980's especially during the time where most if not every school was committing violations some shape or from. Even Rutgers did according to a ex-USC west player in the 1980's who admitted to receiving extra benefits. The only school that got it worse was SMU. During the Meyer tenure, they got negative press for the arrest of players and I'm some other schools had trouble themselves (UGA, UT, and ND) during that call if I recall.

 

[DRU2012]

Oh yeah, man--this goes back a long ways...No WAY EVERY SEC school, and a whole lot more nationwide, weren't engaged in exactly the same recruiting practices, if they were competing at the top of the then-beauty-contest that was the College Football National Rankings (the saying in the SEC and elsewhere was, "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'!")--there was no way else to compete...the Gators' sin was that they HADN'T been "tryin' ", not that way and/or not enough, until they started bringing in "top coaches", starting with Charlie Pell (a Bear Bryant protege) in '79, then Galen Hall (a longtime Barry SWITZER assistant, for God's sake) when Charlie got "caught"--in other words, the Gators were punished 'cause they "joined the big boys at the table" and finally started getting the players they needed to do some winning of their own, and neither the "old boy network" nor the NCAA powers-that-be behind them wanted THAT--and we got hit for the same things they ALL had been doing, and hit HARD with sanctions that those "traditional powers" had NEVER been saddled with.
That's why Spurrier, for what was his first Gator team, one he had inherited who were operating under those restrictions and shut out of post-season Bowl Games, got "SEC-Champion" rings made up for every player on that squad after they had finally (unofficially) finished the season at the top of the SEC (for the first time EVER) that year: He wanted every one of them to know how HE saw them, how they OUGHT to see themselves, and to HELL with the rest of the world and their conniving hypocrisy. That's pretty well become a standard Gator point-of-view. A lot has happened, a lot of history written since, but underneath it all, it is STILL "US", the uninvited outsiders, fighting for (and ultimately TAKING) what the rest resent us for even presuming to think is ours for the taking in the first place.
(PS--As I recall, the Gators won the "OFFICIAL" SEC-Championship the following year, as the sanctions finally fell away--their "first", but you'll never tell that to members of the previous year's team--or me EITHER, for that matter...)