I wrote this yesterday and posted it on GatorCountry.com. I thought that it might be distracting from our loss to engage in a little "wait until next year" discussion. After tonight's game, I am going to add another two points.
As I think about this season in its waning games, I have to wonder why we fell so far from expectations. I have come up with several thoughts, and I would like to share them and get some of your thoughts. I also want to look forward to next year and ask if the sins of the past season can be expected to be visited upon next year's season. Here are my thoughts on this past season. 1. Critical injuries: There is no doubt that we have had many critical injuries this year that have hurt this team. Often injuries are a function of inappropriate physical conditioning. Are we pushing our players a little too hard during the off season or not hard enough? Injuries to the offensive line have been really big and have kept the line from excelling this year. Other bad injuries--kicker, receiver, linebacker, corner. 2. Coaching turnover: I think this might have been the biggest issue that has not really been discussed that much. We have had a huge turnover in assistant coaches and switching of roles as well. It does take time for the players to adjust to the new coaches. It is possible that some of the upper class leadership issues have been influenced by the "learning curve" of the new coaches. 3. Upper Class leadership: It seems that we have not had as good of upper class leadership as we have had for several years. Pouncey is one of the leaders on offense but he may have made a mistake by publicly calling out the freshmen early in the season. We do not seem to have that much leadership on defense. 4. Freshman chemistry: This may also be related to the coaching turnover, but it is clear that our freshmen have been slow at integrating with the team. The freshman class also has not seemed to develop its own leadership and class accountability. I wonder if we would have had the losses from this year's recruiting class had we had freshman leaders like Tim Tebow or Brandon Spikes to keep the others in their class attending their classes and making them feel at home. 5. Urban Meyer's reduced role: I cannot help but believe that some of the problems we have had this year are due to Meyer's reduced role. Coach Addazio has been fantastic at trying to bridge the gap. However, his effort to pick up the slack seems to have come at a cost to the offensive line's performance. 6. Critical Losses due to behavioral issues: It is easy to throw rocks at Rainey and Frankie for their behavioral issues and their cost to the program. However, how much of their problems should also be blamed on upper class leadership and coaching oversight? Related, did we lose a member of this year's freshman class because there was not enough coaching intervention and peer leadership to get him to attend classes every day and to get him to have an attitude adjustment? 7. Lack of quality playing time last year for this year's starters: Should Johnny Brantley been give more reps last year. Should Pouncey have had some more reps at center with his brother moving to another position on the line? 8. Three major assistant coaching questions: 1. Our linebacker play seems to be way down this year. Is this a coaching problem? 2. Our receivers have been very poor this year. Is this a coaching issue or a talent issue? Where is our downfield game? 3. Our running back coach was fired a few years ago because the running backs could not hold on to the ball. He's back again and our running backs cannot hold on to the ball. 9. How do you think our loss will impact our recruiting? Finally, how much of the above problems will impact the team next year? What issues are correctable? Will we lose more coaches next year? Will Brantley start or even play much next year? Inquiring minds want to know!?! Jerry -- GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us
