Even Pat Dooley’s come down with a case of Dawgitis. From his “Seven keys to success for Gator football” post today:
4. They have to beat Georgia. It’s time for Muschamp to record a win in this game. It’s not the only game on the schedule, but it’s the one they have to win.
And that’s with a mere two game winning streak. Can you imagine what Gator Nation will be like if Georgia wins in Jax this year?
Get The Picture 
Giggle. Thinking it would be fun….
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It is nice to read about them worrying about beating us.
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But Will Muschamp is TOUGH!!!11 and FIERY!!!11 he makes mean faces and says dirty words a lot! That makes him a good coach!!!!!!1
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oh pleasepleaseplease let us win again this year. Think of all the fun we will have next summer when beating the Dawgs becomes an obsession with Gator fans.
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the best part is that it already is…by the time the end of Oct gets here, those boys will be in full blown paranoia and there will be 13 dawgs on the field for every play.
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Looking forward to their “hire Kirby Smart” campaign.
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“3. A skill player has to have a big year.”
Huntley Johnson can meet that challenge
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Yes. Secret agent Muschamp is on the job.
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My question is what arbitrary number will the national media have to get to before they admit this is an even rivalry again? However many out of 23? 27? 31?
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When you have a class graduate with a winning record, I think that changes some perception.
I have a good friend from law school who’s a Florida grad and lives in Jax. After this last game, he tried pulling “It’s still 18-5!” I countered with “And before this game it was 18-4. And before last year it was 18-3. And next year, you’ll be crowing about it be 18-6.”
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Ask him what is was 20 prior to that last 20. LOL
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College football is dynamic. As we have seen the past two seasons, frosh like Gurley, Marshall, Mitchell, and even IC have made near immediate contributions. Obviously, highly recruiting players like that are not in infinite supply nor do they come with guarantees of performance. that said, if a progam has enough of them, the probability of one or two of them developing into a significant is higher than
Thus, I think UF’s offense probably has more potential than it probably appears to from the outside. Simplistically, they had no dynamic playmakers so virtually anything will be an upgrade. further, as effective a player as Jordan Reed was, my guess is he is very easily replaceable, as TE types with WR-like receiving skills, RB-like running skills, and marginal blocking skills are a DIME A DOZEN. Perhaps his replacement WON’T have a knack on third downs to move the chains quite so well, but I will be shocked if they have a significant dropoff in productivity from the TE position.
That said, their defense lost a LOT. they lost super elite talent that had played a LOT. Additionally, they lose a good coordinator and replaced him “in-house”. I tend to think those situations carry a lot of risk because they tend to be “lazy” hires. Certainly, one hallmark of great organizations and corporations is the ability to develop talent internally. that said, I tend to think its often a double edged sword in college. what are the chances that Muschamp, by NOT conducting a NATIONAL search (of the size and scope that landed us Grantham), identified the “best” candidate for UF? I am going to say ZERO! That said, he has a lot of interesting experience with stops under the Fangio/Harbaugh regime at Stanford that make him interesting. So yes….their new DC’s resume reads a good bit more ambitious than say our own promotion of Willie Martinez (who many asserted was the brains of our defenses under BVG), they don’t really know how good a coach he really is. Quinn on the other hand had been vetted by Saban and had loads of NFL experience.
My long winded point…UF is one of the storylines that I think is going to be very interesting in 2013. I think Pease has to demonstrate that he can do more with UF’s offense or the veneer of Chris Petersen/Boise/Kellen Moore begins to wear off. I think Muschamp has to demonstrate he can get a team to stop committing gobs of bad penalties. I think the defense has to replace a TON of talent that was super highly rated coming out of high school.
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I tend to think UF will be better on defense than you believe.
The real questions for me are: (1) the offensive line; (2) the receiving corps; and (3) place kicker. If the Gators don’t improve in the first two areas and suffer a big drop off in the third, they’d better hope their t/o margin number this season is at least as good as it was last year.
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Why do you believe that FU has a better D? They have been touted at the beginning of the last two years, but that overhyped/touted D hasn’t shown up against the Dawgs yet. They lost those “great D players” in a glob and not too much was left that would give us pause. One D player will be placed on O (their “best” D player, Purifoy) to help that pitiful semblance of what used to be.
I agree exactly with mgcgtp in his analysis. Dang, Bluto, did you buy into the poorly-disguised early FU hype? We know they have recruited good players from HS, but the trainin’ don’t seem to fit the feared results.
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That overhyped/touted D has held Georgia to an average of about 300 ypg and 20 ppg the last two seasons.
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Why don’t you think that this yr is a downer for them, especially since they are stretching players. Nothing wrong with putting them where you need’em, but what does that say about FU’s needs that are glossed/hyped over?
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I just said they’re going to need another monster year in t/o margin to avoid slipping. How likely is that to occur? IMO, not very.
I simply don’t expect as big a falloff on defense as some are predicting. There’s too much talent on that side of the ball, even with the departures.
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We don’t disagree on the talent perspective; it’s just that their overall outlook goes back three yrs to our UGA team. Have we even mentioned their O line that couldn’t play a Spring Game for fear of losing them this season? At least two of them will be repaired by Sept, but w/o the needed practice for SEC ball. Plus, what does that say about any injury occurring again with those newly repaired players before they get meaningful play under their belts?
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Honestly, I don’t get whatever rhetorical point you’re trying to score here. I’ve posted more than once here that I don’t expect UF to be as good this year.
As for your question about the o-line, the answer is yes.
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In my post under your first link above I predicted (and still do) that the Gators will go 8-4 regular season and with a little luck (bad for them) lose their bowl game. Look at their schedule. It’s pretty obvious.
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I expect Florida to be very tough for us, as always. We were fortunate, in any number of ways, to win the game last year.
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It’s early yet, but weirdly, I don’t. I think Georgia will with this year’s WLOCP going away and don’t mind saying so. The monkey’s gone, our O will play to its potential and our D will have matured. I’m much more concerned about surviving September than October.
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Nice to hear that. I agree it could happen. I just have a hard time seeing past September, I guess. If we handle that (which will probably mean Murray has slain the big-game monster on his shoulder), then we could have a big year.
It’s there for the taking, just like the Open was for Phil Mickelson yesterday.
~~~
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You may be correct…though I don’t really know what I believe in terms of how good UF will or will not be on defense. while not simply “extrapolating”, I tend to think the risk of huge decline in performance is low because they do have quality personnel. that said, there is arguably little reason to suggest they will improve meaningfully on defense given the fact the combination of the fact that they don’t have a ton of room to improve (as they were quite good) and they have to replace a LOT of guys, and not all of their replacements are “obvious”.
I guess my larger curiosity with UF 2013 is in some senses an outgrowth of the fact that 2012 UF was such an odd team. Great teams don’t struggle the way they did moving the football. That said, its hard to dismiss their “portfolio” of wins over A&M, LSU, Carolina and FSU. Certainly, we could argue that the wins were not dominating performances, and they got Carolina at the perfect time and place. That said, they flat out whipped A&M, LSU, and FSU in the second half. Perhaps, if they don’t beat A&M, the whole season might have gone sideways in way that hurts us (i.e., they dont beat Carolina).
My point is I don’t really know who or what they are just yet under Muschamp. We know what his broad strategic outlines for the program are. We know he is an intense guy, and its probably not an “act”. He has made some good hires (Quinn), some not so good hires (Weiss), and some that have yet to prove themselves either way (durkin and pease). Again, UF 2013 is the most interesting non-UGA sub plots headed into the season among the SEC. I just have no idea how it will turn out. In case you are wondering, my heart strongly in favor of “just bad enough” to begin to create enough doubts about Muschamp to begin to hurt their recruiting in 2014 and 2015. Conversely, I think our recruiting has still not totally digested 2009-2010 and the losses from 2011, and I think there is still upward potential from a consolidating 2012’s gains into a great 2013 season!
Last year, I contended that the “west is best” mantra was totally overplayed and was facinated by the potential bounce backs at UF and UT. in full disclosure, I thought UT would bounce back a bit harder. By the end of the season, I would argue the East was EQUALLY good. UGA, UF, and SC were easily the equal of Bama, LSU, and and UF, they each had 2 dumpster fires (auburn, arkansas, uk, and UT), they had a couple decent performances from traditional doormats (ole miss and vandy) and had some riff raff in between (missouri and miss st).
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I tend to agree more with this assessment. Muschamp has recruited well enough that I expect whatever drop off occurs on defense to be fairly minimal.
UF’s problem is that it’s got a small margin for error, based on last season’s offensive performance. That’s why I think improvement in the receiving corps and offensive line is critical for the Gators.
Boom did a good job managing his team’s 2012 performance, aided by a much improved t/o margin. My guess is that UF’s going to need every bit of that plus-15 again this season to avoid a drop in the won-loss department.
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Although their Freshman QB could make a splash, don’t you think that Brisset’s departure placed a rubber pedestal beneath FU’s offense? Other players left as well and not just for the NFL.
I think FU is whistling through the graveyard and are fomentin’ and strifin’ to duplicate what SC did. Only they forgot that Everbark stadium is a 50-50 audience.
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I don’t think Brisset’s departure means anything other than they are in deep trouble if Driskell gets hurt. Now that may change how they choose to use Driskell, but the reality is that for UF to get where they want to be Driskell MUST become a better pocket passer. He has to be more like Conner Shaw and less like Taylor Martinez at Nebraska for UF to accomplish its goals.
While no doubt emotion plays a huge role and we will be their “circle” game, one could argue they will be LSU and Carolina’s circle game.
I think the Senator is right that the development of their OL and WR will play a huge role in how good they are. My guess is their OL will be a bit better because they have more bodies and Muschamp has placed a priority on developing OL play. the transfers they got are far from elite players, but again, I think they will add quality depth/starters to their team. that said, I don’t think their OL play was why they did not succeed more. they simply lacked any play makers to stretch the field, and their RB, while good, was nowhere near an elite talent like Gurley. they seem very optimistic about matt jones and fred taylor’s son, and i would expect their running game to be as good or better in 2013, but they will have to find away to replace the “junk food” yardage associated with QB runs with traditional RB yardage because a driskell injury would probably be catastrophic for them.
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I think their front 7 will be as good, or better than last year’s. But I don’t see their secondary replicating that insane 20 INTs against 7 TDs number this season.
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The thing about having an offensive playmaker emerge is that you have to have a good way of getting him the ball consistently. You may get a big play or two out of him a game if he has to do it by himself but if you can get the playmaker in the right spot and get him the ball then you’re cooking with some grease. I think Pease can put the playmaker in the right spot I just don’t see Driskle getting him the ball that consistently. Unless, all he has to do is turn around and hand it off to him. But then you’re back to what they were last year. And I’ll take playing an FU team like that every damn year if I could.
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How silly of Pat to worry about FU’s certainty to win this game. Doesn’t he realize it is a difficult jet lag problem following the seemingly endless 45 minute flight for the well conditioned UGA athletes? Some are getting old and into their 20s by now. Or that they may have to sleep on a pillow and mattress different from their own? And don’t forget, thanks to the decision of some power brokers over two hundred years ago to draw an imaginary line 30 miles too far north, this is actually foreign soil? We have no chance I tell ya, I have heard dozens of whiney Dawg fans fall on their knees and wave the white (French) flag because of these impossible obstacles.
Just because FU hasn’t dominated a stretch in this series since the current players could drive legally doesn’t mean we have a chance. Dooley must be crazy to not see how certain the mighty Gators should be of victory…it’s their birthright don’t you know? All college football fans 15-25 know this.
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What if you had to choose between winning a third straight against UF or losing a fourth against USC?
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We have to bear the Cocks this year. HAVE to, have to…
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*beat
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Very good question. This year I’d choose the Gamecocks. Not because of the 3 game losing streak or because of hating them more (I hate UF way more). I’d choose us to beat the Gamecocks because I see more games I think Florida loses in the conference than I do South Carolina. If we win in Athens on 9/7 I feel very confident we will be back in the Dome come Decemeber.
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Wow! Another fan who doesn’t think FU is so hot. Where are all these people coming from, Senator?
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My reasoning is less that Florida will be bad and more that they have to travel to LSU, South Carolina, Mizzou, and Vandy. Also I like how we match up with them pretty well.
I see them as a good team, but with a tougher SEC schedule than South Carolina.
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USC, because I live here and not Gainesville. I have to see “Clowney is God” scrawled on every highway overpass…
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That’s easy for you to say. Down here we see “In Huntley We Trust” everywhere
http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/when-florida-gators-are-in-legal-trouble-they-come-to-trial-lawyer-huntley/1126903#
He does have the perfect defense for one of the many scooter-related infractions, however
http://jacksonville.com/sports/college/florida-gators/2013-01-18/story/uf-players-lawyer-says-scooter-had-been-purchased-his
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We could beat UF 15 in a row and I’d still worry about it all year.
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ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease
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Where does the D rank in that “tackler report”? Last. UT first. I have some strong reservations about the D going into 2013.
If Murray gets hurt in first game, if it is a season ending injury, where would the Dawgs finish in the East and SEC.
Stats show something. When you see how the Diamond Dawgs ranked amonth their D1 peers, it is eary to see why Perno was dismissed. Six if the eight CWS teams rank in the top 12 ERAs. Guess that stat says something.
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“If Murray gets hurt in first game, if it is a season ending injury, where would the Dawgs finish in the East and SEC.”
They, uh, probably wouldn’t win either? What’s the point of this?
“When you see how the Diamond Dawgs ranked amonth their D1 peers, it is eary to see why Perno was dismissed. Six if the eight CWS teams rank in the top 12 ERAs. Guess that stat says something.”
Georgia Sports Blog and DawgSports cover UGA baseball pretty well. Why do you keep bringing it up here?
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Because, like Spencer Hall (whatever village that was in), Will has not been Traned to know Georgia Sports Blog and Dawg Sports and until he did (or maybe even thereafter), he may exhibit a tendency to want to push them out of a UH-34D over the Pacific?
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I think the time has come for a UGA blowout win. A 42-10 type of win. A 1982 type of win. A win where we dominate every aspect of the game for all 4 quarters.
My prediction is that we break their spirit early and continue to lay the wood as they lay down.
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They shan’t have a Quantum® of skin on them when we Finish®
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“Can you imagine what Gator Nation will be like if Georgia wins in Jax this year?”
Yes: 18/21, 18/21, 18/21. Repeat.
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