Florida Still Not Impressing Me

[gainesvol82]

Exactly. And you know I remember 3 years ago when debating the upcoming game for probably '06 a large number of folks on here would would discuss the things Florida did well and how to deal with them. Similarly, I was expected to acknolwedge the strengths of UT's team, which I did.

But as the gap in performance has grown over the last few years, I see far fewer people willing to be objective about Florida and that they just revert this homeristic nonsense, trying to justify, or more accurately excuse, the gap.

When Florida was in the Zook doldrums, sure we had our share of fans who couldn't see past their allegiance to the team. But the vast majority admitted we sucked and demanded to get better.

I am not seeing that here, with some notable exceptions.

And by the way simply finally jumping on the Fire Fulmer bandwagon isn't enough -- to say that the team has lacked talent and competitiveness, that is the measure of turning the corner, so to speak.

And we haven't lacked talent. Comptetiveness, yes. Depth, yes. Talent, no. We haven't had UF or LSU level talent but not many teams do. We've had plenty enough talent that we should have been able to compete with UF and possibly win. Unfortunately, we had a coaching staff that couldn't win without significantly more talent than the opponent.

 

[tng8r]

Don't forget that the Tennessee offense also had Jamal Lewis, Travis Henry, and Travis Stephens in the backfield, and they were throwing to Peerless Price.

I know that......the 08 team had more rushing yards than the 98 UT team with these great backs. The yardage was close but ours obviously was running back by committee. I think but I am not positive we had 4 or 5 players with over 500 yards rushing. :blink:

 

[tvolsfan]

You can't always just throw out numbers. Your team scored more points than the 2001 Canes. Your offense still can't hold a candle to them.

 

[Showtime]

You can't always just throw out numbers. Your team scored more points than the 2001 Canes. Your offense still can't hold a candle to them.

Not only that, the game has evolved a lot since 2001. Many consider the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers to be the best team ever, and they are so different compared to today's athletes and tendencies.

I find it difficult to compare current teams to former teams, just because of competition and so forth.

 

[lawgator1]

And we haven't lacked talent. Comptetiveness, yes. Depth, yes. Talent, no. We haven't had UF or LSU level talent but not many teams do. We've had plenty enough talent that we should have been able to compete with UF and possibly win. Unfortunately, we had a coaching staff that couldn't win without significantly more talent than the opponent.

You can't have it both ways. You cannot on the one hand say that you view yourself at the same level as UF and LSU, but then on the other admit that the main thing you need -- talent -- is not at that level.

You can find teams here or there that play above their level because of good coaching, catching breaks, etc. But you aren't going to find any that win national championships with blue smoke and mirrors.

Too tough a road to get by on middling players.

 

[gainesvol82]

You can't have it both ways. You cannot on the one hand say that you view yourself at the same level as UF and LSU, but then on the other admit that the main thing you need -- talent -- is not at that level.

You can find teams here or there that play above their level because of good coaching, catching breaks, etc. But you aren't going to find any that win national championships with blue smoke and mirrors.

Too tough a road to get by on middling players.

Not trying to have it both ways. Our defensive talent is on par with UF's but we don't have as much depth on offense. We have enough talent that good coaching should be able to keep us competitive in games against the likes of UF or Alabama. I have no doubts that a better coaching staff would have been able to get 8 wins out of last years team. The only teams we had any business losing to on a talent basis are UF, UGA and Alabama and we should have been competitive in all those games.

 

[thunder5]

Exactly. And you know I remember 3 years ago when debating the upcoming game for probably '06 a large number of folks on here would would discuss the things Florida did well and how to deal with them. Similarly, I was expected to acknolwedge the strengths of UT's team, which I did.

But as the gap in performance has grown over the last few years, I see far fewer people willing to be objective about Florida and that they just revert this homeristic nonsense, trying to justify, or more accurately excuse, the gap.

When Florida was in the Zook doldrums, sure we had our share of fans who couldn't see past their allegiance to the team. But the vast majority admitted we sucked and demanded to get better.

I am not seeing that here, with some notable exceptions.

And by the way simply finally jumping on the Fire Fulmer bandwagon isn't enough -- to say that the team has lacked talent and competitiveness, that is the measure of turning the corner, so to speak.

I'm not sure what you've been reading on this board but if had to guess I would say about 99% of the UT fans on here are under no delusions what-so-ever that we're anywhere near UF on the football field....

If you read this thread at all you would have noticed that the OP was blasted for trying to say UF is not impressive...

But I do agree and have noticed that admitting to UF's success is hard for alot of people to do around here...I suppose it is envy...

I for one know that UF's recent success in football and basketball is unparralled...

I also know we're not even close and I don't see that changing anytime soon...

Even if Kiffin is a Godsend and gets us back on track that doesn't mean that UF is suddenly going to stop getting 5* recruits and Meyers offense(which has worked everywhere..including the SEC now) is going to bog down anytime soon

 

[gainesvol82]

I'm not sure what you've been reading on this board but if had to guess I would say about 99% of the UT fans on here are under no delusions what-so-ever that we're anywhere near UF on the football field....

If you read this thread at all you would have noticed that the OP was blasted for trying to say UF is not impressive...

But I do agree and have noticed that admitting to UF's success is hard for alot of people to do around here...I suppose it is envy...

I for one know that UF's recent success in football and basketball is unparralled...

I also know we're not even close and I don't see that changing anytime soon...

Even if Kiffin is a Godsend and gets us back on track that doesn't mean that UF is suddenly going to stop getting 5* recruits and Meyers offense(which has worked everywhere..including the SEC now) is going to bog down anytime soon

I think a lot of people were surprised by UF's level of success this year. I know I was. It was obvious that the offense would be explosive but the improvement by UF's defense was amazing. I will say that there were times that UF looked very beatable but the teams they played were unable to eploit it, except for Ole Miss.

 

[gainesvol82]

I'm not sure what you've been reading on this board but if had to guess I would say about 99% of the UT fans on here are under no delusions what-so-ever that we're anywhere near UF on the football field....

If you read this thread at all you would have noticed that the OP was blasted for trying to say UF is not impressive...

But I do agree and have noticed that admitting to UF's success is hard for alot of people to do around here...I suppose it is envy...

I for one know that UF's recent success in football and basketball is unparralled...

I also know we're not even close and I don't see that changing anytime soon...

Even if Kiffin is a Godsend and gets us back on track that doesn't mean that UF is suddenly going to stop getting 5* recruits and Meyers offense(which has worked everywhere..including the SEC now) is going to bog down anytime soon

If anybody can slow that offense down it will be Monte Kiffin with the recruits that Coach O and the rest of the staff can bring in. I know that I'm looking forward to Monte's D vs Urban's O in the future. I almost hope that Urban doesn't leave soon so that UT can try to regain respect against him. I'd at least like him to have to play one really good UT team before leaving Gainesville.

 

[Showtime]

I think a lot of people were surprised by UF's level of success this year. I know I was. It was obvious that the offense would be explosive but the improvement by UF's defense was amazing. I will say that there were times that UF looked very beatable but the teams they played were unable to eploit it, except for Ole Miss.

Missed opportunities fueled this team as well. I'm not so sure we would have beaten Georgia by 39 if the halftime score was 14-9 instead of 14-3, which it should have been.

Same goes for Florida State. I don't think we would have beaten them so badly, or been able to run some of the plays we did, if they hadn't struggle to manufacture points in the redzone. (In reference to their field goals in the redzone and lack of touchdowns)

And, another note, we didn't really put it on Arkansas until late in the 4th.

 

[gainesvol82]

Missed opportunities fueled this team as well. I'm not so sure we would have beaten Georgia by 39 if the halftime score was 14-9 instead of 14-3, which it should have been.

Same goes for Florida State. I don't think we would have beaten them so badly, or been able to run some of the plays we did, if they hadn't struggle to manufacture points in the redzone. (In reference to their field goals in the redzone and lack of touchdowns)

And, another note, we didn't really put it on Arkansas until late in the 4th.

:good!:

There were some very fortunate occurrences this season for UF but that can be said of any championship team. I don't think any of those occurrences would have changed the final outcome of the games but they probably would have changed the final score and possibly hurt UF's championship hopes.

 

[Showtime]

:good!:

There were some very fortunate occurrences this season for UF but that can be said of any championship team. I don't think any of those occurrences would have changed the final outcome of the games but they probably would have changed the final score and possibly hurt UF's championship hopes.

Your right. LSU won the Championship last season with 2 losses. They barely beat Florida, beat Auburn on a last second play, lost to Arkansas in the final week of the season... (I believe) Yet they still were the National Champions.

Now, if they were to lose, you'd hear angry fans across the Nation unhappy they made the appearance while there were other deserving teams.

You have to go back to 2005 to have two teams that didn't have their share of close games. And even then you could probably dig something up.

This isn't a clean system, but it gets the job done.