The offseason happy talk in Gainesville, she is strong.
Unfinished business.
These juniors — including running back La’ Mical Perine, wide receiver Van Jefferson, linebacker David Reese, wide receiver Tyrie Cleveland and defensive end Jabari Zuniga — are coming back to try and win a national championship in year two under coach Dan Mullen.
“I believe this team has a chance to go to the national championship game and I want to be part of something like that,” Jefferson said.
“We feel we have a legitimate shot to win it all,” Perine said.
If you’re a Dawg fan, there are some reassuring echoes from a decade or so ago, to boot.
Florida wasn’t that far off from being a championship contender in Mullen’s first season.
“Man, two games,” Reese said. “The little things. Couple of games away, a couple of different snaps away, from being a contender. The margin of error is real small.
“If we find a way to beat Georgia (this season) and get to the SEC Championship Game, we’ll give ourselves a chance to play in the national championship game. I feel like there’s an opportunity with this team. But there’s a lot of work to be done.”
Under Mullen and the new staff, the players have shown they’re willing to put in the work. Numerous players have said the turnaround season in 2018 started about a year ago in the weight room, under strength and conditioning coordinator Nick Savage and his staff.
Savage and the Gators are back at it now, laying the groundwork for the 2019 season.
“This offseason is going to get us to where we need to be,” Jefferson said. “Coach Savage is putting us through these crazy workouts. All these workouts we’re doing right now are going to pay off. Once we hit spring ball and fall camp, we’ll be ready to go.”
Yeah, real small error in a game they lost by 19 and were outgained by 150 yards. No worries, though. The S&C coach is here to save the day!
I welcome our new mentality overlords, who sound a lot like our old mentality overlords.
Get The Picture 
So strange to read a Gator saying “If we find a way to beat Georgia (this season)” Not that I’m complaining!
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Music to my ears, or in this case, eyes!
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Seems as though they have just as big of a Missouri problem as a Georgia problem (giving up 50 to years in a row to them?!). They were more than two games away from winning anything in more ways than just the standings, IMO.
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Back to the way it used to be. I grew up hearing that every year.
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It is IMMENSELY satisfying. So is the fact that they’re the ones making “man, we almost had ’em” excuses for games they lost by three TDs.
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I’ll take “shit we used to say in the 1990’s” for 200, Alex.
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What will be really important for the mental aspect of the game will be to win 5 in a row. At that point no Gator player will ever have been on a team that beat us.
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I had to look.
The last time was a 6 game winning streak that ended in 1983.
We won 11 of 13 from 1971-1983.
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And that is the key point, that 80s period of time is as irrelevant to modern football as their 90’s BS story. It was the gayturds’ fans who initiated that “past history” theory when the records of the teams were discussed. Neither Spurrier nor Goff has coached at eother school this century.
You have to go back over a decade to find them even closing the gap by even a single game, recruits were about 7-8 years old at that time. Time to get that out of UGA fans’ minds. We enjoy a nice edge against Florida all-time, and have recent history on our side. Let’s piss on those hopes for them getting back off the canvas.
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True, but the how? we dominated that series is an important lesson to carry forward. When Dooley was here, we came to whip your ass. Not show off and be fancy or finesse. Whoever you were, we were gonna let you know this is going to be a fight.
I think CKS has that mentality and adding elite recruiting to it is a nice combo.
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Don’t forget that Kirby lives in Mullens head rent free and is 2-0 against him plus all those wins at Bama. Mullen tried to get even by running the same flea-flicker we burned him with until it blew up in their faces. Kirby owns him.
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Streak ended in 84. We won in 83, 10-9.
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Didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. I can see why it was taken that way tho. The losses were in 73 and 77 over that stretch.
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We are back to living rent free in the Gators’ heads. I guess they don’t quite get that we’ve won 5 of the last 8 and the talent differential has only grown over the last 3 years. Combine that with the previous article about the quality and quantity of Georgia blue chips, and we aren’t going anywhere.
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But for some coaching head scratchers, we’d be 7-1. I’ll give em 2016.
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I get the happy talk jest, but it’s still the leading university, with the most alums, in a top recruiting state. If they can get out their own way they could be good again. OTOH they have much more recruiting competition than we do. Ya know, those National Champion Knights are a force.
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Maybe. I think they picked the wrong coach. What SEC HC has set the world on fire on the field who hasn’t cleaned up on the recruiting trail too?
Given where they are, with so little resistance currently from Miami and FSU, that can’t be a good harbinger for them.
We just need to get past the stripes and Alabama and UF will be to us what UT is to Bama: roadkill.
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Don’t think the ol ball coach was ever known for his recruiting prowess.
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Maybe he wasn’t “known” for it, but he was bringing in big time classes.
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I think he did ok.
If you don’t think he recruited SC better than anyone else by far, you weren’t paying attention.
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Everybody’s set the world on fire is different , I guess.
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Edit : everybody’s cleaned up
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UF is good again. It won 10 games and was ranked in what, top 12?
Question is, is the relationship between a good UF team and us year in and out the same as good UF teams and UGA from 1971 through 1978 (We won in 1979 but UF was terrible, so I did not include 1979) and 1980 through 1983?
We were good in the Donnan and Richt years but UF did not fear us.
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Plus, FSU and Miami aren’t helping.
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He has them believing. No doubt. They tend to forget they were blown out by Mizzouri and beat South Carolina at home by a whopping 4 points. Still contend they lost more than they kept – Gators have this history of running their mouth – as if winning the East is their birthright. Their players sound like Vol fans – every year…
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And that has basically been what Mullen has succeeded at so far: a lot of bluster and energy to re-stoke the fires that were all but out. Are they a little better? Yeah, a little. Are they started to run that mouth like the old days? Yeah, but don’t have anything to really point to. FU is good enough to beat us if we aren’t focused, or healthy; not good enough to go toe-to-toe on an equal basis. They will win a few but the best thing we have going is Mullen feeding us bulletin board material.
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Mullen may have them believing but how are was that? They always think they’re good whether they are or not. Their fans are some of the most arrogant in the country. Mullen just agreed with them that they are great and now they are running their mouths again. He.made his dumb blind squirrel joke and they truly thought they.would beat us. He even tried the flea flicker and it flopped. Belief makes everybody feel good for a while but it wilts in the face of superior talent. We believed we could beat Alabama in 2015. Florida is the new SC minus the annoying ability to play us close when they shouldn’t be able to do it.
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I bet they’re working harder this offseason than ever before.
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Man that sounds exactly like us talking about the mat drills a few years ago. And getting hyped about Thomas Brown’s feats of strength in the weight room. There was no way this wasn’t going to be our year. Just need to find a way to get by Florida and everything will be fine!
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I predicted this would happen leading into the 2018 Bowl cycle and said so loudly. As soon as they beat Mich., the importance of UGA stomping Texas went up exponentially. The last thing we need is to have Florida believe we’ve let our foot off their necks.
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See my above post. They always “believe”. We believed we could beat Alabama in the rain that day in ’15.
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I thought we might UNTIL I saw that forecast. We lost our home field advantage at that point. Not saying we would have beaten them, bit it would have been a competitive game without the monsoon. Our fans couldn’t open their mouths without fear of drowning. We were doomed, and I knew it going onto the weekend. Since the mid-nineties, we have played Bama well, except for the last 2 home games against them.
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The Gators were right there! I mean, they barely lost by three scores. We didn’t take our final lead until there were only 25 minutes left in the game!
Right. There.
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“We didn’t take our final lead until there were only 25 minutes left in the game!”
That is pure gold, brother.
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I’m not buying their resurgence, if nothing else because their recruiting has been ho-hum the last few years, and this years class isn’t anything great either. Fact is their D was gutted by McElwain and there hasn’t been much improvement there, and their OL this year will be mediocre at absolute best. They also have an ongoing QB issue, in which Franks is not the answer, and while they COULD upset us next year, I just don’t see it unless we have myriad TO’s and generally play a poor game.
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Kirby Mullen and UF
31 3
42 7
36 17
109 27
I’m not worried just yet.
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Well, in their minds they took the lead in the 3rd quarter. They had the flea-flicker early in the game but Franks overthrew it. I could see where they could be telling themselves they’re “that close.” They probably shouldn’t tell anyone else that, though, because we have more and better players. Why give us the fodder? But I’ll take it.
FEED THE GATOR HYPE. It’s the best thing about this off-season so far (until Atlanta United cranks back up).
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To hell with UF…3rd in the East sounds about right, again.
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The current difference between UGA and FL. We use “IF” about one play in championship games. They use “IF” about multiple games they were not even close in. I like that difference.
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Hey, y’all, lest we forget… According to Mullen on down, they were the better team last year in Jacksonville, you know, except for on the scoreboard and on the stat sheet and in fan attendance and on the field and physically and mentally; but definitely the better side. Easily. Clearly. Profoundly. 😏
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Ahh.. the old Gator cry of “Wait till next year…!!
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They really sound like we used to…
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