I always agree with your posts but this may be the first time I don't. Warchant is nowhere near as critical of Gators as our own board. Not even close. We literally have folks that despise our own coaches and players and have no reservations about airing that out.
Oddly enough that is true. Our coaches and team seem to be more respected on our rivals' boards than on our own. I guess 10 years of cynicism lead to that. Also a 4-8 season will lead to that too. I don't know. MSU fans on their own boards respect Mullen and what he did to their program, yet there are people here that no matter what, judge his tenure there as a failure. UK were dreading our game, even though they beat us, because they felt Mullen was a great coach. The Vols openly wish they had Mullen as their HC rather than Pruitt. Even in FSU circles they say that openly. Only on GC do you feel like Mullen was one of the worst hires we could make. I used to think he is second to Kelly and Frost, and so far that has been proven wrong. At this point I am just glad we have Mullen. Could this change? Maybe. But he is a competent coach, with proven competence in the SEC. You just see an improvement from week to week in things that you just didn't see before.
Either way I can't quantify it, but there is an "air of competence" about Mullen and his staff that I felt lacking during the last two hires, even if our season ends up being 6-6 or 5-7. I just never got that "feeling" from the last two, even when they were winning. Heck after a win, I always felt deflated when I heard McElwein speak. I actually am looking forward to the future, when EJ and JJ are on our QB depth chart. Even Franks is demonstrating significant improvement, and is more respected on other forums than ours.
I look at GC this way. I use it to keep my self grounded when we win. When we lose, it is definitely a lot more doom and gloom than it should be, but you will get to know who actually is reasonable and who isn't, and quickly start ignoring the overly negative for no reason crowd, and read the gems that are actually critical in a positive way. I definitely like that more than the endless sunshine pumping elsewhere.