This is one helluva stat.
Florida has had 10 different starting quarterbacks since Tebow left after 2009. None has passed for 2,500 yards or even thrown more than 12 touchdowns in a single season.
Holy crap. And for those of you who think Boom’s offense represented some sort of nadir, I’ve got news for you.
The Gators need to upgrade at quarterback to lift an offense that has ranged from pedestrian to abysmal in McElwain’s first two seasons. In ’15 and ’16, Florida ranked 104th in the nation in offensive points per drive. The Gators ranked No. 102 in the nation in yards per play in 2015 and dropped to No. 105 last season.
Yet despite offenses for which anemic would almost be a compliment, the Gators are the two-time defending division champs. Jeez, Dawgs, they’re flat out stealing from you. Doesn’t that angry up the blood, even a little?
Get The Picture 
Yes their Offense was pitiful. But that damned defense was no joke. Hell the Falcons went to the Super bowl with two rookies from UF starting. And they are probably going to try and get another in the first round. So, I say when you have an NFL defense, the O is not as important.
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If the kid who got busted for PEDs (I think), can’t remember his name, had stuck around it would be a different story. He was a legit QB.
But yes, extremely embarrassing that the Gators have represented the East two years in a row. However, not nearly as embarrassing as the Mizzou run.
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“from pedestrian to abysmal” and yet………. Good Grief!
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When it comes to our struggles with Florida, I’m wondering, as have others, if the old Pogo Possum line might apply, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”. We go to Jacksonville with talent. We lose. Sometimes badly. Is it coaching? Is it attitude? Is it low expectations? Is it poor preparation? you pretty much have to go back to the Dooley era to find any consistency in our efforts against Florida. This Florida thing is way beyond my poor powers of reasoning.
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Sick and tired of making that trip for a loss. If nine game SEC schedule would get us a home and home then let’s go for it.
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Yeah, a loss would go down a lot easier if I only had to travel to Athens to endure it.
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Amazing how many fans think a home and home would favor us competitively. We have a level field as it is, trading that for having to go to that rat trap every other year would be a huge mistake for UGA for many reasons. Plus, Florida has put their foot down about playing noon games.
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I would love to see the games alternate between Jacksonville and Atlanta. I am not sure how far Jacksonville is from Gainesville, but I think the distance is similar to Athens to Atlanta.
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Well, we can look at the bright side, are the bathrooms better in Jacksonville?
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They may not be better, or cleaner. They may just look cleaner since the paint on the wall is orange. Same color as . . . Well, you get the idea.
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would save me time and money
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South Georgia folks would argue that they deserve one game a year where they don’t have to spend that time and money. Jax isn’t the problem, crapping the bed when we have more talent is the problem.
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yeah I get your point but I was talking about me 🙂
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I agree with you but it’s not going to happen because of the kickbacks from the City of Jacksonville and the old big money likes the party more than winning. When UGA fans stop buying tickets and going to the game, we may see a change. At the rate things are currently going, Florida will have the series lead in Ws and Ls in about 9-10 years. 6-21 with many non competitive games since Spurrier turned over the apple cart stinks.
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The lead in the series came after games in the city of Jacksonville right? Our problem is the series since 1990 isn’t that we haven’t been to Gainesville enough. The biggest issue is that they’ve had a better football team most of those years. You fix that issue and you’ll win the games again.
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Considering all factors that affect both programs; recruiting, facilities, fan support, etc, UGA and UF should be a 50/50 series over a 27 year period. 6-21 is not even close and to me is a trend. I personally would like to see the game go home and home.
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And we need to stop funding NASA to bring down the suicide rate. http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
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I don’t think Georgia/Florida has ever been 50/50. I’m no spring chicken and I always seem to recall it as streaky. We go on a run, they go on a run. We had a long one and now they’ve had an even longer one (save three in a row).
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There are two types of coaching processes. One is about building the type of football team you envision for yourself. The second is about winning the game on Saturday with whatever you’ve got, however you can get there. UF has done a damn good job of doing the second the past two years. I don’t think CKS emphasized the second near as much as the first in year one. I think we start seeing returns on that plan this fall.
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We’d damn sure better see results this year. Last year was frustrating watching Kirby try to “out Bama” other teams with talent that wasn’t recruited for that purpose. That’s not good coaching in my book. Hopefully he’s learned.
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YMMV but he wasn’t trying to maximize W’s so much as he was trying to change the culture. We’ll see how well he’s done in that regard soon enough. A lot of us used Bama 2007 as a measuring stick for UGA in 2016. I did. I also think Bama 2008 should be a measuring stick for UGA in 2017.
The team we beat in OT in T-town in 2007 was not the same team that beat us down in Athens in 2008. I hope to see the same type of improvement. Although I will say that having Andre Smith already installed at LT helped them make that leap. We don’t have that luxury. We are vastly ahead of where they were at other places like RB, QB and TE though.
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I just spent 10-15 minutes statistically comparing 2007 Bama and 2016 Georgia. With the exception of red-zone defense, our defense was a little ahead of Bama (Bama: scoring – #29@21.8ppg total – #28@341ypg UGA: scoring – #35@24.0 total – #16@327.5). Offensively, we are behind where they were (Bama: scoring – #65@27.1 total – #75@374 UGA: #102@24.5 total – #87@384).
While we may have an advantage at QB (JPW and McElroy both hung around the NFL for a few years) and a definite advantage at TE, RB is a push. They had Glen Coffee, Mark Ingram, and Roy Upchurch. We are at a disadvantage at WR, but Julio is most of the difference. We are at a significant disadvantage at OL. Saban inherited Smith along with two 3rd rounders that started on the ’08 OL. Kirby inherited maybe one late rounder in Wynn.
Alabama jumped to #35@30.1 and #64@355 on offense and #7@14.3 and #3@265 on defense. I believe we will have a top 10 defense next year.
#35 in offensive scoring is up to 34.6ppg now. I don’t think we have the OL for that.I see maybe around #55@~30ppg assuming Pittman can make some chicken salad in the offseason.
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You don’t think our 2 4 year seniors are better than a true freshman in Mark Ingram and Glen Coffee? Seriously?
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Ingram was a unanimous All-American, Heisman winner, 1st round draft pick, and is about to start his 7th season in the league. Coffee put up 1383@5.9ypc in 2008; Ingram added 743; Together they rushed for 2126 yards and 22 TDs.
Chubb has not shown that he is fully back to his pre-injury self. Last season, Chubb (1130) and Michel (840) totaled 1970 yards and 12 TDs. It will take improvement, specifically from the line, for them to match Coffee and Ingram’s production.
My point wasn’t to downplay how good Chubb and Michel are. My point was that they are four quality backs. We don’t have an advantage at RB in anywhere near the way we do at TE.
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Please define “change the culture”. My definition would be that we’d become perennial underachievers. I fail to see how losing more games than the previous HC changes the culture in a positive way.
I like Kirby a lot. He’s detail oriented and won’t be outworked. But some of the staff members are a completely different story. I thought a couple of them looked inept and totally unprepared. Considering a solid assistant like Rocker got the boot, I’m really surprised some other assistants managed to keep their jobs.
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Being a physical football team not a finesse football team. Practicing with 1’s vs. 1’s. Tackling three days a week instead of 1 during the season. Making it clear that everyone is accountable and expendable. Rico McGraw is a great example. He gets us a 15 yard penalty after what should have been the winning score vs. UT and he’s gone! Rodrigo doesn’t want to kick unless he’s got a scholly? Fine. We’ll find a bunch of guys who are willing to kick without schollies. You can’t recruit the top kids in the state at your position? You are out!
These are all new things for us and I tend to think it will pay off.
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Derek I disagree with you on a lot of things but on this I think we are on the same page.
McElwain has done a masterful job of playing to the strengths of the players he has had on the roster the last few years but the cupboard down in Cowtown is getting more and more bare as Boom’s defensive recruits cycle out. The Gators are in for a big nose dive in the next 2-3 years and I predict Coach Beaver won’t be around too much longer.
On the other side of that coin Kirby did an absolute shitty job of using the players he had on his roster to win now and has instead invested in the “long term” approach to turn us into Bama light. If we had played a little more to our strengths last year then I think we have a good shot at 10 wins and possibly a SEC East championship. The question is how would that have affected the “Process” down the road? If Kirby gets too wrapped up in the building of a team and doesn’t win enough he won’t be around long either.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in Jax the next 2-3 years.
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Playing lights out on defense can cover up a lot of offensive flaws. They still were able to generate just enough offense to get the W’s and that’s been the difference.
As far as we’re concerned we’ll see soon enough. I tend to think that we’ve ended the talented but soft and schizophrenic path we were on under CMR. I think that what we’re going to see is going to look a lot like what we used to see when Vince was coaching. Defense, special teams, field position, discipline, and toughness. Winning up front and no longer trying to out-athlete other teams. There was a time when we could go into Jax or Auburn and beat vastly more talented teams. We were often not that great simply because Vince wasn’t the recruiter (cheater?) that our neighbors were.
If we go back to that approach to football and recruit at an elite (Top 3) level it WILL pay off.
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Their great defense vs. our horrible offense meant they basically had to score more than once to win. It’s like Erk said, “if we score, we may win, but if they do not score, we cannot lose.”
That better change this year.
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Florida O seems to always score enough points against our D.
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If Kirbo doesn’t win this years game…then he needs to be fired.
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Treon Harris was 2-0 against us as we painfully remember. Maybe one day will do something about it. Often.
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