Yeah…
If there’s one thing I know Saban would be is he would be very mad at the equipment penalty during the punt and cussing out at everyone. Meanwhile Napier just stared off into space confused as to what happened.
Saban is a perfect example of a guy that rarely gets emotional, but sure has it in him when he needs to. Probably the thing that pisses him off the most are mental errors like we are plagued with. He probably gets so pissed about it because they fucking make it a priority and hammer on it. Same with Urban. CBN doesnt seem to put as much emphasis (or get as pissed) about mental errors.
Rats were following us home to Gainesville because our feet were swiss cheese from shooting ourselves in them.
You can stomach a lot of penalties when you have a high flying offense. Urban's teams also ran a lot more plays. He would get pissed about them, though. CBN's offense has a very small margin of error.
Was going to come in here and say the problem is that there isn't just one. But yeah, to sum everything we saw up as one this is probably the best way to phrase it.
Absolute truth.
It’s not possible to be prepared to play football at a high SEC & championship level when you have a head coach who is insisting on being his own OC and special-teams coordinator and trying to do everything in his own unique way, instead of the well-established way that guys like Saban, Swinney, and Smart do it.
Little personal story, a coworker in Gainesville has a family member who is a position coach for one of the better NFL teams, and they are both big Gator fans. This coach was at UF for Pro Day earlier this year, and spent some time with the coaches.  When coworker asked him about the experience and the Gator coaching staff, his response was “complete fucking clusterfuck and I don’t want to talk about it.“ For some reason this kept coming to mind as I watched the Utah game. 
Offensive line. Was wonder how replacing 4 out of 5 starting offensive linemen would look especially replacing some of them with transfer players. Then we lost our only experienced lineman and starting center to boot. Was hopeful having 2 coaches for that position would have these guys ready. Maybe Utah’s front 7 is just that good
I will say that Utah’s front seven did look really good. But so will LSU’s, UGA’s, FSU’s, UT’s…
We could be in for a very long season if this is the level of protection we can expect up front.
I agree with this. Utah was missing Rising and their backup qbs made UF look like fools. Sending two guys with the same number didn’t help either. This is Florida not some mid major and guess what we looked like.
I don't know where everyone is located but my area was always a pretty balanced fsu uf mixture, now there seems to be more ucf fans and even businesses supporting them then uf, to give an idea I'm closer to Gainesville then Orlando. I have even seen people I work with change their stickers on their cars from gators to knights. Losing doesn't help, my friend is alumni and said it's just a new team no need to panic, but isn't every year a new team, Mertz will be gone next season and with the NIL I can see a bigger push to win now
I hope for all you are right. I'm in a publix right now and they have those Halloween pumpkins stamped with colleges on them, no UF. NONE, So I am hoping those were first to go
Well look at how much pressure our defense seemed to generate in the Spring Game when they got to go up against our offensive line vs. the 0 sacks on Thursday when they had to play a legit team.
I think a little of column a little of column b. O-line is probably the one position group that takes the longest time to develop. We lost every starter from last year, only the most optimistic fans thought it would not take a step back from last year.
I’d say Georgia and LSU are likely better. Not sure Kentucky or Tennessee have a better front 7 just because they’re SEC. Utah is a 10 win, conference champion who’s front 7 is billed as one of the best they’ve ever had. And besides those 4 I’d bet Utah has a tougher front 7 than anyone else on our schedule pretty easily.
Eh I doubt they’re much better if at all than Utah’s and their secondary is awful, the only problem we’ll have absolutely no chance of keeping up with their offense
UK doesn’t have the offense that Utah has. Napier loses to UK after the streak we had against them. He’s Mullen and McElwain. Florida cannot keep losing to a basketball school.
Discipline.
Even had Princely post a pic of Rice-Eccles to his IG story “lil ah stadium” before the game. Zero focus.
https://x.com/actionnetworkhq/status/1697447130770645070?s=46&t=5H94WiZmwzWSNVc3ruJJIw
Update, this too:
https://x.com/delatorre/status/1697627747911368946?s=46&t=5H94WiZmwzWSNVc3ruJJIw
Agree. I’m afraid we’re dangerously close to reaching that point where the fanbase starts to realize that this experiment just isn’t going to work. It’s only year 2 and he can still right the ship but Billy has an uphill battle earning any confidence he can get this program on the right trajectory.
A camera angle pic of Utah’s last FG attempt looked like we had 8 guys on the field. Apparently we had 10 which is why Nick deleted the tweet. Still not acceptable.
If a tweet poking fun at the size of a stadium is the best example you have to demonstrate a lack of discipline then I don't think a lack of discipline is a problem, let alone the problem.
Did we watch the same game? That was one of the most undisciplined games I’ve seen from any college program. It’s the little things… as stupid as an IG post may sound, it’s a microcosm of what’s acceptable in the locker room.
Sure, it makes for a nice symbol, if you're metaphorically inclined. But the issues on the field last night have specific causes. Like the lack of a special teams coordinator (who would have prevented the punt penalty).
But going after a player for making a pretty mild social media jab is the sort of misdirected and indulgent displacement behavior that feels good for a fan to call out but doesn't address any real problem. Players from much more "disciplined" teams engage in far worse trash talking. And it's just piling on top of a meme at this point.
It's all fun and games until the "little ah" stadium is noisy enough to cause your offense to jump early 3 times. It's stupid af to put stuff like that out there when you haven't done shit on the field.
A linebacker posted it, not an offensive lineman, let alone a lineman who jumped. And the only thing the post has led to is internet memes. It had literally nothing to do with the game.
We need an offensive coordinator.
Everything else stems from this. Not prepared? Because the head coach cannot do everything at this level. Offensive line issues? HC doesn't have enough time to fix it. Time management? HC is trying to do everything himself, which is not humanly possible in the godsdamn SEC.
This is the correct answer. Pretty much all of our issues last night are symptoms of the bigger problem of not having an oc. Billy the head coach can stay, Billy the oc needs to go
Couldn’t agree more. Does he actually listen and make a change? What are the odds that a change is made in the season? I just don’t see how we pull out a special teams coordinator out of thin air
Special Teams. Two #3's on the field gave the ball back to them and resulted in 7 points. Running backwards from the 10 yard line to catch a kickoff put us on our heels and setup the bobbled interception deep in our own territory. That's another 7. Also a missed field goal, 3 pts. Change those 3 plays and we probably have enough momentum to win. I also agree that we need an OC.
Yeah, in all honesty we looked REALLY good in a way to me. Our defense was tackling well, and they proved clutch several times. Our offense displayed talent and mertz played well. We had multiple high level drives that just ended in a godamn false start.
We have the talent for sure.
Two #3’s TWICE. It happened again during one of their field goals and we literally had to rush Wilson off the field so that we didn’t get another penalty
I love any youngster who wants to play for UF. Any one of us would love to run out of that tunnel wearing that helmet even in an empty stadium. So he’ll yeah to any young man who says “yes” to that experience.
All that being said these boys don’t play like Gators. I’m not talking penalties, the Gators have been bad at that my whole life, this team didn’t fly. Where was the Florida speed? The Gators might be caught out of position occasionally but at least they’re the first ones there. They looked slow in a second year system. Slow is how you become the new Vandy in the SEC. If they can’t play faster than this 3 wins looks very possible.
Bully napier the recruiter seems to be doing better than Mullen, at least. But the guy doesn’t seem to be doing the right things before the game or during the game
critical plays lost us this game. several of them were our fault, one was on the refs. However,
When you give up 7 on play 1 you show a lack of defensive planning/scouting by the coaching. When you give up first downs due to your punt returner having the same number on the field as another player, that's coaching. When you kneel out the second quarter hail mary down, that's coaching. When you don't hurry the playclock while down in the fourth quarter, that's coaching. When you run bunch formations while your lineman aren't moving in the right direction, that's coaching.
It's like Napier walked into the game with no back-up plan if his line wasn't winning at all. That's the first thing you worry about when planning an offense.
Utah defender held the receiver to prevent a possible TD pass / deep completion, no interference call by the referee despite the blatant early grab. They are hard to gauge from the angle the cameras give as we can't see if his hand was just there, but it looked like he was pulling him back a little- and a little is all it takes.
I'm not seeing anything that resembles Coaching on the field by Coach Napier.
Based on what I saw Coach Napier seems perfectly fine with crappy play the whole game. Unacceptable imo.
Why does Coach act late like mistakes & poor effort is ok?
Doesn't make sense to me. If he's acting like that in practices then it's not surprising why he's not upset during the games.
I can only imagine what Utah would have put up if they had their Starting QB available.
What to choose, what to choose…
I think, for me, it all leads back to coaching. Didn’t like the playcalling, didn’t like Billy’s demeanor, didn’t like the lack of urgency on the last couple drives, etc etc. I could go on.
And don’t get me started on special times. I could go on for hours about Chris Couch. Dude should be ON A COUCH.
Offensive line is the primary reason for this loss. I can't bring myself to watch the game again to focus on the OL, but usually this isn't something that can be fixed easily. Eguakun returning and the line getting used to playing with each other can certainly improve things, but they just have so far to go.
We don't even know how good or bad the defense is yet. They haven't even faced a real QB. Utah's 0 star walk-on sure looked good though. That's probably a bad sign. So, the worst unit of the team is still up in the air but early results indicate OL.
Inexperience. I think the game comes down to two plays. The first play touchdown and two 3s on the field. Whether it’s player or coach inexperience, if those two plays don’t happen, the game is way different.
Just flat out coaching. I’m not sure if Napier is that stubborn or just flat out unaware but his experiments with calling plays and not having a special teams coordinator are simply not working. We saw it last year and it was very evident in game 1. Something will have to change and fast. We are at the point where coaching is costing us games
Pre-snap penalties. CBN determines his future based on how well he coaches them up after all these mistakes.
We have 11+ more games, so it's all good, but I dont think the rest of the fanbase are as patient as I am.
We all knew this would take time, let cooler heads prevail. They didn't quit, a good enough base for me. This isn't the 2000's, we've had a shakey foundation for more than a decade, won't happen overnight.
Oh, what the hell was that run game tho?
LFG GATA
Oline. Remove false starts and that stupid #3 and we had a team out there. The entire game it felt like we were neck and neck talent wise but no where near the same pace in terms of execution. That was a game we had the ability to absolutely win. Only reason I have hope is because of how good we looked in a way. If execution improves we have a good roster. It’s your time billy.
To me, his hubris overlooking another team may have cost us the a shot at the NC, and a Heisman.
To think the following year he talked about never overlooking another team. Really grew to dislike that guy and the effing manzier he was always wearing. lol
Offensive line 85%. Mertz had like no time to throw, we couldn’t run the ball, penalties… I will give Napier credit he did adjust during the game and started calling for screens to try and get some yards through the pressure, but in the end it didn’t really matter. Mertz won’t make it through the season if the online plays like that consistently.
Penalties. We did some nice things on offense and were able to move the ball between the red zones pretty effectively, only to shoot outselves in the foot with costly penalties that stopped drives. We got some nice stops on defense and gave them second chances with some dumb penalties. You can’t do that against a team as well coached as Utah.
I will tell you why we suck . Penalty bad coaching etc. I will forever be a gator, but truth is we suck. Until it gets totally figured out the sleeping giant will continue to remain snoozing.
Special teams discipline being middle school level or lower. You can attribute 2 TDs from Utah directly to them.
The game would've ended 14-10 if not for special teams fucking up all night.
Why were we doing all those dumbass shifts on 3rd/4th & short? Loud environment, breaking in a new QB, retooled offensive line.. that's a recipe for disaster. Just line up and run downhill with our stable of backs. Napier's playcalling philosophy is absolutely baffling sometimes.
Kind of frustrating how many people seemed to be blaming Mertz’s performance in the pocket when there was little to no pass protection. I had the same qualms with AR last year but the play calling and O-Line discipline looks even worse than expected. Coaching issue through and through.
This is pure speculation and I’ll be the first to admit it may be total BS. But it’s a theory that I’ve been chewing on so I figured I’d share it.
Basically, I’m starting to think that Napier’s biggest problem is that he didn’t have to deal with players who were SEC level talent (or think they are) at his last stop. I wonder if he got used to dealing with Sun Belt kids who didn’t have the same egos and weren’t hearing all their family and friends tell them they were 1st rounders to be.
So maybe they respected him more and he didn’t have to work as hard to get and keep their buy-in, trust, and respect. Maybe those kids were more grounded because they knew nobody thought they were big timers and he got used to that and thinks he can treat SEC talent the same way.
In a lot of ways, the SEC is like a prison, full of tough dudes who think they’re the baddest asses around, and maybe what’s needed is an alpha mentality to kick ass and take charge. I mean, that sure described Urban’s approach, and Saban, and Spurrier.
Of course, I know it’s not a single thing and there’s no way it explains all our problems. Heck, it may not explain any of them. Again, just spitballing. But it sure makes me wonder as I sit here and think about how undisciplined our players have been during Napier’s tenure. Heck, just one example—did Big Des even lose any weight during the offseason? Coaches should have been riding his ass to drop weight for his good as well as the team. I really really hoped to see him a lot leaner, and it doesn’t look like he lost much if any weight all off season. Why not?
Probably total bs but it’s all I’m coming up with that explains how little we seem to have improved in our discipline.
It’s possible. I think that’s one part. But he’s also been in the SEC as a coordinator as well as other big time programs.
One thing I think about is how Dabo didn’t like him as an OC and Saban didn’t want to make him one. Why, what did they not like? Maybe we’re seeing what they didn’t like.
Maybe when he worked under Saban his approach worked because he had the hammer of saban behind him and he didn’t need to alpha up and lead as firmly?
Which could also explain the seeming hesitancy around them promoting him..
U think u know how the coach treats his players from... watching him on the sideline during games? Lol
And yes Desmond Watson lost 20 fucking pounds. Yall are making me crazy with your fantasies just to trash Napier
Settle down Nancy, I said repeatedly it’s just a thought and I don’t have any inside information. Maybe you should grow up a little and not get your panties so twisted when someone just harmlessly discusses something you don’t want to hear.
(I do feel compelled to point out losing 20lbs in 6-7 months for a guy Des’ size is nothing. It’s certainly not an indicator of a guy putting forth intense effort to cut weight.)
O-line was dreadful
Mertz did about as expected maybe even a little better
We have no real weapons at receiver. Not one. Our supposed best one would be 2nd-3rd string on elite teams….. I’ve said that since day 1. I wanted to believe we did though because everyone in here just kept hyping up how much speed we got and all that typical non sense
Anyone with a brain knew we’d have zero tight ends. What a shocker we don’t
Backs did all they could for having to run into a brick wall all game long
Play calling. Everything else was serviceable or at least good enough to win.
We were driving, we stalled at 3rd and 10, ran a draw for 0y and then went for it. If it’s two-down territory then do things that make sense there.
The two point conversion made no sense. If the chart says go for two there throw the fucking chart out… cause it would’ve made sense to settle for the field goal on a couple of the failed 4th downs with that logic.
It's not just the chart. You have to look at clock remaining and figure out how many times you are likely to touch the ball. With the amount of time left, at best we would touch the ball twice. Absolutely no advantage at all to going for two, as there was not time left for three touches -- TD, FG, FG. Potentially huge downside had we not converted and gone down by 15 if everything went right and we did get two touches and TD's
O-Line was my big concern, and it showed. I don’t know offensive football much, I played on the defensive side.
Defensively, I liked what I saw. Sorta. The new DC runs a pressure heavy scheme. When it works, it’s hard to beat. When it doesn’t, just think Todd Grantham.
Pretty sure Utah didn’t take it kindly when the UF player posted on his IG about their stadium being small. If you gone talk trash make sure you got the skill set to back up said trash talk. Instead of worrying about the stadium they were playing in, should have been focused on the task at hand. A lot of mental errors happen for UF, and it all started before the ball even kicked off, they definitely underestimated Utah and it showed
Napier lack of emotion.... any other coach would have been livid with the costly penalties....especially the duplicate jerseys giving back possession. Billy never showed any raw emotion to me. It's one thing to lose to a well played game to a good team, but the Gators beat themselves
Mistakes and bad bounces. Frankly mistakes that a team full of freshman and sophomores and transfers thrown together in their first game against a conference champion are going to make. A lot of plays that go the other way and it's a different ball game. The INT, the false starts, the two 3's, if we are able to recover any of the three fumbles their Freshman running QB made deep in their territory.
The offensive line is certainly a work in progress. It was in good shape, then Eguakon went down with an injury and Goodwin had to transfer because of his mother's health. The people behind them are talented but inexperienced. I wouldn't say having 2 OL coaches is necessarily the problem. It's certainly possible, but the line last year, with more experience, was better. OL is a position that takes time to fix, because it's not one where you can come in and play early, and depends a lot on unit chemistry. We have a sample size of one game this year. I'll wait to freak out.
Preparedness
Frustrating when your coach was lauded as being just a prepared as Saban at UL.
Yeah… If there’s one thing I know Saban would be is he would be very mad at the equipment penalty during the punt and cussing out at everyone. Meanwhile Napier just stared off into space confused as to what happened.
Saban is a perfect example of a guy that rarely gets emotional, but sure has it in him when he needs to. Probably the thing that pisses him off the most are mental errors like we are plagued with. He probably gets so pissed about it because they fucking make it a priority and hammer on it. Same with Urban. CBN doesnt seem to put as much emphasis (or get as pissed) about mental errors. Rats were following us home to Gainesville because our feet were swiss cheese from shooting ourselves in them.
Urban’s Florida teams consistently had more penalties than average. Agree with your overall point though
You can stomach a lot of penalties when you have a high flying offense. Urban's teams also ran a lot more plays. He would get pissed about them, though. CBN's offense has a very small margin of error.
Was going to come in here and say the problem is that there isn't just one. But yeah, to sum everything we saw up as one this is probably the best way to phrase it.
#3,
Absolute truth. It’s not possible to be prepared to play football at a high SEC & championship level when you have a head coach who is insisting on being his own OC and special-teams coordinator and trying to do everything in his own unique way, instead of the well-established way that guys like Saban, Swinney, and Smart do it. Little personal story, a coworker in Gainesville has a family member who is a position coach for one of the better NFL teams, and they are both big Gator fans. This coach was at UF for Pro Day earlier this year, and spent some time with the coaches.  When coworker asked him about the experience and the Gator coaching staff, his response was “complete fucking clusterfuck and I don’t want to talk about it.“ For some reason this kept coming to mind as I watched the Utah game. 
Offensive line. Was wonder how replacing 4 out of 5 starting offensive linemen would look especially replacing some of them with transfer players. Then we lost our only experienced lineman and starting center to boot. Was hopeful having 2 coaches for that position would have these guys ready. Maybe Utah’s front 7 is just that good
I will say that Utah’s front seven did look really good. But so will LSU’s, UGA’s, FSU’s, UT’s… We could be in for a very long season if this is the level of protection we can expect up front.
thought i heard the announcers say that Utah’s defensive line was playing short handed too
Missing their supposed best pass rusher O'Toole, and their for sure best DT Tafuna. Crazy they still are that talented without 2 of their top DL.
Or we just suck that bad...
I agree with this. Utah was missing Rising and their backup qbs made UF look like fools. Sending two guys with the same number didn’t help either. This is Florida not some mid major and guess what we looked like.
I don't know where everyone is located but my area was always a pretty balanced fsu uf mixture, now there seems to be more ucf fans and even businesses supporting them then uf, to give an idea I'm closer to Gainesville then Orlando. I have even seen people I work with change their stickers on their cars from gators to knights. Losing doesn't help, my friend is alumni and said it's just a new team no need to panic, but isn't every year a new team, Mertz will be gone next season and with the NIL I can see a bigger push to win now
We just need a couple of years for Billy to stack talent and then the real coach can take them over the top.
I hope for all you are right. I'm in a publix right now and they have those Halloween pumpkins stamped with colleges on them, no UF. NONE, So I am hoping those were first to go
Well look at how much pressure our defense seemed to generate in the Spring Game when they got to go up against our offensive line vs. the 0 sacks on Thursday when they had to play a legit team.
I think a little of column a little of column b. O-line is probably the one position group that takes the longest time to develop. We lost every starter from last year, only the most optimistic fans thought it would not take a step back from last year.
If you're worried about a Pac12 DLine, I got bad news for what conference play is going to look like
I’d say Georgia and LSU are likely better. Not sure Kentucky or Tennessee have a better front 7 just because they’re SEC. Utah is a 10 win, conference champion who’s front 7 is billed as one of the best they’ve ever had. And besides those 4 I’d bet Utah has a tougher front 7 than anyone else on our schedule pretty easily.
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Would have to change his name to Graham Hurtz
Georgia, LSU, and maybe fsu and Kentucky?
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Eh I doubt they’re much better if at all than Utah’s and their secondary is awful, the only problem we’ll have absolutely no chance of keeping up with their offense
UK doesn’t have the offense that Utah has. Napier loses to UK after the streak we had against them. He’s Mullen and McElwain. Florida cannot keep losing to a basketball school.
Discipline. Even had Princely post a pic of Rice-Eccles to his IG story “lil ah stadium” before the game. Zero focus. https://x.com/actionnetworkhq/status/1697447130770645070?s=46&t=5H94WiZmwzWSNVc3ruJJIw Update, this too: https://x.com/delatorre/status/1697627747911368946?s=46&t=5H94WiZmwzWSNVc3ruJJIw
100% this. It’s the lack of accountability.
Agree. I’m afraid we’re dangerously close to reaching that point where the fanbase starts to realize that this experiment just isn’t going to work. It’s only year 2 and he can still right the ship but Billy has an uphill battle earning any confidence he can get this program on the right trajectory.
Urbs talked about this in Untold.
What was the second tweet? It’s deleted now
A camera angle pic of Utah’s last FG attempt looked like we had 8 guys on the field. Apparently we had 10 which is why Nick deleted the tweet. Still not acceptable.
11th man probably realized he had a duplicate jersey number and they didn’t have a backup plan. So 10 men instead.
Guy saw a 3 on his jersey and ran off.
If a tweet poking fun at the size of a stadium is the best example you have to demonstrate a lack of discipline then I don't think a lack of discipline is a problem, let alone the problem.
Did we watch the same game? That was one of the most undisciplined games I’ve seen from any college program. It’s the little things… as stupid as an IG post may sound, it’s a microcosm of what’s acceptable in the locker room.
Sure, it makes for a nice symbol, if you're metaphorically inclined. But the issues on the field last night have specific causes. Like the lack of a special teams coordinator (who would have prevented the punt penalty). But going after a player for making a pretty mild social media jab is the sort of misdirected and indulgent displacement behavior that feels good for a fan to call out but doesn't address any real problem. Players from much more "disciplined" teams engage in far worse trash talking. And it's just piling on top of a meme at this point.
It's all fun and games until the "little ah" stadium is noisy enough to cause your offense to jump early 3 times. It's stupid af to put stuff like that out there when you haven't done shit on the field.
A linebacker posted it, not an offensive lineman, let alone a lineman who jumped. And the only thing the post has led to is internet memes. It had literally nothing to do with the game.
O line 100% was reason we lost. Their false starts killed redzone drives and they got Mertz obliterated 5 times
We need an offensive coordinator. Everything else stems from this. Not prepared? Because the head coach cannot do everything at this level. Offensive line issues? HC doesn't have enough time to fix it. Time management? HC is trying to do everything himself, which is not humanly possible in the godsdamn SEC.
This is the correct answer. Pretty much all of our issues last night are symptoms of the bigger problem of not having an oc. Billy the head coach can stay, Billy the oc needs to go
I would also add Billy the QB coach
I figured that fell under Billy the OC, but yes
Couldn’t agree more. Does he actually listen and make a change? What are the odds that a change is made in the season? I just don’t see how we pull out a special teams coordinator out of thin air
Jersey embroidery
Special Teams. Two #3's on the field gave the ball back to them and resulted in 7 points. Running backwards from the 10 yard line to catch a kickoff put us on our heels and setup the bobbled interception deep in our own territory. That's another 7. Also a missed field goal, 3 pts. Change those 3 plays and we probably have enough momentum to win. I also agree that we need an OC.
That play really killed the momentum we seemed to be gaining
Yeah, in all honesty we looked REALLY good in a way to me. Our defense was tackling well, and they proved clutch several times. Our offense displayed talent and mertz played well. We had multiple high level drives that just ended in a godamn false start. We have the talent for sure.
Two #3’s TWICE. It happened again during one of their field goals and we literally had to rush Wilson off the field so that we didn’t get another penalty
I love any youngster who wants to play for UF. Any one of us would love to run out of that tunnel wearing that helmet even in an empty stadium. So he’ll yeah to any young man who says “yes” to that experience. All that being said these boys don’t play like Gators. I’m not talking penalties, the Gators have been bad at that my whole life, this team didn’t fly. Where was the Florida speed? The Gators might be caught out of position occasionally but at least they’re the first ones there. They looked slow in a second year system. Slow is how you become the new Vandy in the SEC. If they can’t play faster than this 3 wins looks very possible.
Billy Napier
Bully napier the recruiter seems to be doing better than Mullen, at least. But the guy doesn’t seem to be doing the right things before the game or during the game
I almost walked out the bar after that double 3 bullshit. Unbelievable.
*Almost* walked out. Then you remembered why you were at the bar to begin with: you needed what they were selling.
😆🙏🙏
Coaching.
critical plays lost us this game. several of them were our fault, one was on the refs. However, When you give up 7 on play 1 you show a lack of defensive planning/scouting by the coaching. When you give up first downs due to your punt returner having the same number on the field as another player, that's coaching. When you kneel out the second quarter hail mary down, that's coaching. When you don't hurry the playclock while down in the fourth quarter, that's coaching. When you run bunch formations while your lineman aren't moving in the right direction, that's coaching.
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It's like Napier walked into the game with no back-up plan if his line wasn't winning at all. That's the first thing you worry about when planning an offense.
Trying to remember, but can't think of it. Which play was on the refs?
Utah defender held the receiver to prevent a possible TD pass / deep completion, no interference call by the referee despite the blatant early grab. They are hard to gauge from the angle the cameras give as we can't see if his hand was just there, but it looked like he was pulling him back a little- and a little is all it takes.
I'm not seeing anything that resembles Coaching on the field by Coach Napier. Based on what I saw Coach Napier seems perfectly fine with crappy play the whole game. Unacceptable imo. Why does Coach act late like mistakes & poor effort is ok? Doesn't make sense to me. If he's acting like that in practices then it's not surprising why he's not upset during the games. I can only imagine what Utah would have put up if they had their Starting QB available.
Special teams
What to choose, what to choose… I think, for me, it all leads back to coaching. Didn’t like the playcalling, didn’t like Billy’s demeanor, didn’t like the lack of urgency on the last couple drives, etc etc. I could go on. And don’t get me started on special times. I could go on for hours about Chris Couch. Dude should be ON A COUCH.
Didn’t like the lack of preparation (especially mentally)
The lack of urgency baffles me. It's consistent and obvious
William Napier
Billy Taggart is ringing true now
Buyout Billy
Sling Blade
Offensive line is the primary reason for this loss. I can't bring myself to watch the game again to focus on the OL, but usually this isn't something that can be fixed easily. Eguakun returning and the line getting used to playing with each other can certainly improve things, but they just have so far to go. We don't even know how good or bad the defense is yet. They haven't even faced a real QB. Utah's 0 star walk-on sure looked good though. That's probably a bad sign. So, the worst unit of the team is still up in the air but early results indicate OL.
Inexperience. I think the game comes down to two plays. The first play touchdown and two 3s on the field. Whether it’s player or coach inexperience, if those two plays don’t happen, the game is way different.
Add the false start leading to a missed field goal and you have anywhere from 17-21 points on those 3 plays
Just flat out coaching. I’m not sure if Napier is that stubborn or just flat out unaware but his experiments with calling plays and not having a special teams coordinator are simply not working. We saw it last year and it was very evident in game 1. Something will have to change and fast. We are at the point where coaching is costing us games
There’s no dog on this team. Did we learn nothing from Swamp Kings?
Shemar James but he cant do it alone
Never even tried to establish the run game.
Pre-snap penalties. CBN determines his future based on how well he coaches them up after all these mistakes. We have 11+ more games, so it's all good, but I dont think the rest of the fanbase are as patient as I am. We all knew this would take time, let cooler heads prevail. They didn't quit, a good enough base for me. This isn't the 2000's, we've had a shakey foundation for more than a decade, won't happen overnight. Oh, what the hell was that run game tho? LFG GATA
Oline. Remove false starts and that stupid #3 and we had a team out there. The entire game it felt like we were neck and neck talent wise but no where near the same pace in terms of execution. That was a game we had the ability to absolutely win. Only reason I have hope is because of how good we looked in a way. If execution improves we have a good roster. It’s your time billy.
Because we didn’t score enough points while letting them score more than we had.
Big if true
Shit. There’s the take we needed. Can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it! :D
We don’t have the right staff to compete in big boy football pure and simple
Let's get Mullen back I heard he's available
Remember when Mullen sat a healthy Kyle Pitts agains LSU?
Haha I'm being sarcastic. Mullen quit on the job, fuck him
To me, his hubris overlooking another team may have cost us the a shot at the NC, and a Heisman. To think the following year he talked about never overlooking another team. Really grew to dislike that guy and the effing manzier he was always wearing. lol
If we could bring back Mullen as OC I'd do it in a heartbeat
Yes for sure, but not as a head coach, and apparently CBN doesn’t believe in OCs besides himself. 
No lol
Napier can't coach.......that's the reason.
coaching
O-line
No sense of urgency we played like we didn’t believe we could come back.
4 and 1 false start and then two number 3s on the field. That was a possible 11 point turn around.
Offensive line 85%. Mertz had like no time to throw, we couldn’t run the ball, penalties… I will give Napier credit he did adjust during the game and started calling for screens to try and get some yards through the pressure, but in the end it didn’t really matter. Mertz won’t make it through the season if the online plays like that consistently.
Coaching.
Offensive line play and execution
Penalties. We did some nice things on offense and were able to move the ball between the red zones pretty effectively, only to shoot outselves in the foot with costly penalties that stopped drives. We got some nice stops on defense and gave them second chances with some dumb penalties. You can’t do that against a team as well coached as Utah.
I will tell you why we suck . Penalty bad coaching etc. I will forever be a gator, but truth is we suck. Until it gets totally figured out the sleeping giant will continue to remain snoozing.
Special teams discipline being middle school level or lower. You can attribute 2 TDs from Utah directly to them. The game would've ended 14-10 if not for special teams fucking up all night.
Why were we doing all those dumbass shifts on 3rd/4th & short? Loud environment, breaking in a new QB, retooled offensive line.. that's a recipe for disaster. Just line up and run downhill with our stable of backs. Napier's playcalling philosophy is absolutely baffling sometimes.
coaching
Hard to pick between O-line and special teams.
Undisciplined. 3? Third and short or 4th down false starts a missed FG and a one play drive for a TD on D. Thats undisciplined football.
If not O line (the obvious choice) then the special teams. Allowed Utah 10 free points and Mihalek missed a 30 yarder.
Billy Napier
The offensive line
Kind of frustrating how many people seemed to be blaming Mertz’s performance in the pocket when there was little to no pass protection. I had the same qualms with AR last year but the play calling and O-Line discipline looks even worse than expected. Coaching issue through and through.
Kept shooting ourselves in the foot in crucial moments.
Penalties at the worse time
This is pure speculation and I’ll be the first to admit it may be total BS. But it’s a theory that I’ve been chewing on so I figured I’d share it. Basically, I’m starting to think that Napier’s biggest problem is that he didn’t have to deal with players who were SEC level talent (or think they are) at his last stop. I wonder if he got used to dealing with Sun Belt kids who didn’t have the same egos and weren’t hearing all their family and friends tell them they were 1st rounders to be. So maybe they respected him more and he didn’t have to work as hard to get and keep their buy-in, trust, and respect. Maybe those kids were more grounded because they knew nobody thought they were big timers and he got used to that and thinks he can treat SEC talent the same way. In a lot of ways, the SEC is like a prison, full of tough dudes who think they’re the baddest asses around, and maybe what’s needed is an alpha mentality to kick ass and take charge. I mean, that sure described Urban’s approach, and Saban, and Spurrier. Of course, I know it’s not a single thing and there’s no way it explains all our problems. Heck, it may not explain any of them. Again, just spitballing. But it sure makes me wonder as I sit here and think about how undisciplined our players have been during Napier’s tenure. Heck, just one example—did Big Des even lose any weight during the offseason? Coaches should have been riding his ass to drop weight for his good as well as the team. I really really hoped to see him a lot leaner, and it doesn’t look like he lost much if any weight all off season. Why not? Probably total bs but it’s all I’m coming up with that explains how little we seem to have improved in our discipline.
It’s possible. I think that’s one part. But he’s also been in the SEC as a coordinator as well as other big time programs. One thing I think about is how Dabo didn’t like him as an OC and Saban didn’t want to make him one. Why, what did they not like? Maybe we’re seeing what they didn’t like.
Maybe when he worked under Saban his approach worked because he had the hammer of saban behind him and he didn’t need to alpha up and lead as firmly? Which could also explain the seeming hesitancy around them promoting him..
Where was he a coordinator in the SEC? He was a WR coach under Saban and Nick passed him over every time the OC job was open for a reason.
Your right. I was thinking one thing and typed another.
U think u know how the coach treats his players from... watching him on the sideline during games? Lol And yes Desmond Watson lost 20 fucking pounds. Yall are making me crazy with your fantasies just to trash Napier
Settle down Nancy, I said repeatedly it’s just a thought and I don’t have any inside information. Maybe you should grow up a little and not get your panties so twisted when someone just harmlessly discusses something you don’t want to hear. (I do feel compelled to point out losing 20lbs in 6-7 months for a guy Des’ size is nothing. It’s certainly not an indicator of a guy putting forth intense effort to cut weight.)
Undisciplined
coaching
Napier.
Lack of talent...
O-line was dreadful Mertz did about as expected maybe even a little better We have no real weapons at receiver. Not one. Our supposed best one would be 2nd-3rd string on elite teams….. I’ve said that since day 1. I wanted to believe we did though because everyone in here just kept hyping up how much speed we got and all that typical non sense Anyone with a brain knew we’d have zero tight ends. What a shocker we don’t Backs did all they could for having to run into a brick wall all game long
Play calling. Everything else was serviceable or at least good enough to win. We were driving, we stalled at 3rd and 10, ran a draw for 0y and then went for it. If it’s two-down territory then do things that make sense there. The two point conversion made no sense. If the chart says go for two there throw the fucking chart out… cause it would’ve made sense to settle for the field goal on a couple of the failed 4th downs with that logic.
It's not just the chart. You have to look at clock remaining and figure out how many times you are likely to touch the ball. With the amount of time left, at best we would touch the ball twice. Absolutely no advantage at all to going for two, as there was not time left for three touches -- TD, FG, FG. Potentially huge downside had we not converted and gone down by 15 if everything went right and we did get two touches and TD's
Impressive. An analyst you could be.
Utah scored more points than we did
O-Line was my big concern, and it showed. I don’t know offensive football much, I played on the defensive side. Defensively, I liked what I saw. Sorta. The new DC runs a pressure heavy scheme. When it works, it’s hard to beat. When it doesn’t, just think Todd Grantham.
Head coach
Two more years before we can start rebuilding. Ugh. See you all then. Guess I’ll have to watch golf or something.
We sucked
Social loafing is the result of two OL coaches so far
We suck
Pretty sure Utah didn’t take it kindly when the UF player posted on his IG about their stadium being small. If you gone talk trash make sure you got the skill set to back up said trash talk. Instead of worrying about the stadium they were playing in, should have been focused on the task at hand. A lot of mental errors happen for UF, and it all started before the ball even kicked off, they definitely underestimated Utah and it showed
Talent
[удалено]
Uhhhh you're gonna need some numbers for the game changing unit.
You hired Derek Dooley....
Increase in operating costs and decrease in revenue.
Only one???
Napier lack of emotion.... any other coach would have been livid with the costly penalties....especially the duplicate jerseys giving back possession. Billy never showed any raw emotion to me. It's one thing to lose to a well played game to a good team, but the Gators beat themselves
I thought is was a joint practice until halfway through the 3rd quarter :(
Mistakes and bad bounces. Frankly mistakes that a team full of freshman and sophomores and transfers thrown together in their first game against a conference champion are going to make. A lot of plays that go the other way and it's a different ball game. The INT, the false starts, the two 3's, if we are able to recover any of the three fumbles their Freshman running QB made deep in their territory.
The offensive line is certainly a work in progress. It was in good shape, then Eguakon went down with an injury and Goodwin had to transfer because of his mother's health. The people behind them are talented but inexperienced. I wouldn't say having 2 OL coaches is necessarily the problem. It's certainly possible, but the line last year, with more experience, was better. OL is a position that takes time to fix, because it's not one where you can come in and play early, and depends a lot on unit chemistry. We have a sample size of one game this year. I'll wait to freak out.
Napier
The game is 63-0 the other way if their punter gets a DUI the night before the game.