Billy Napier - UF Head Football Coach

[neteng]

many, many Gator Chatter posters rejected Meyer claiming that he could not compete in the SEC. Much the same as the objections to Napier

Im very pro Napier at this point, but...its very different between those two situations. Meyer wasnt potential, he was a proven winner. Napier is pure potential. Meyer was guest chat guy at game days and was getting nothing but love from everyone. Nobody even knows Napier's name. Some of us are hoping Napier works out. We all knew Meyer was going to work out.

 

[YLGator]

Napier at least has potential. Campbell is a proven loser.

Yep. Anyone that can beat ULM by 5 has serious potential.

 

[Bullag8r]

Gatorchatter didn’t exist in 2004, but more importantly, most all gatorchatter posters are complete morons, present company included.

Don't be so hard on yourself ~ Different board, same posters.

 

[PaulDrake]

many, many Gator Chatter posters rejected Meyer claiming that he could not compete in the SEC. Much the same as the objections to Napier

Since Gator Chatter didn' t exist in 2004 I remember being on the Gator Sports forum and it being a mixed bag on Meyer with maybe a slight lean to wanting him.

Ah, Gatorsports.....those definitely were NOT THE DAYS. I just remember it being run by morons....

 

[InstiGATOR1]

I honestly can't remember the other candidates swirling around Meyer before he was hired except for Stoops, who was and apperently still is a perennial candidate. Anyone else remember who was getting mentioned with Meyer?

The Meyer hire was the Spurrier/Meyer year. Some, I would say well over most, of the fan base wanted Spurrier. Spurrier famously did a quickly withdrawn UF ad for some tire company. UF's president Machen was a UNC guy who hated Spurrier possibly from his time at Duke and had just come to UF from Utah. Some UF fans disliked Spurrier because he was not a great coach to have a beer with from 1990 to 2001. (I personally don't drink beers with UF coaches, so I care more about their coaching ability than their likeability.)

So Spurrier went to SoCar and Meyer came to UF. Machen was desperate for Meyer to be successfull. Meyer lost the first game against Spurrier and SoCar so Machen basically let Meyer do things other coaches have not been allowed to do at UF, including recruiting sketcky characters and not punishing guys for failing drug tests. It worked for a while and UF then facing a declining FSU at the end of the season won a couple of BCS titles starting with the famous blocked field goal at SoCar the next year.

But of course UF has struggled since the Meyer era (or error as I and some others refere to it). Is it in part due to what Meyer did to possibly the most admired program in the country that Spurrier had built. I think so. But this is off the topic. Still the story of 2005 was two candidates Spurrier and Meyer. That is very different than the other UF coaching searches in the 21st century.

 

[Bullag8r]

Im very pro Napier at this point, but...its very different between those two situations. Meyer wasnt potential, he was a proven winner. Napier is pure potential. Meyer was guest chat guy at game days and was getting nothing but love from everyone. Nobody even knows Napier's name. Some of us are hoping Napier works out. We all knew Meyer was going to work out.

He had not won and could not win in the SEC was the complaint. I avoid such predictions and was neither pro or con which is the same position I take now. I was strongly against hiring mullet. I like what I have learned about Napier but I am happy to leave the prognostications to the experts

 

[78]

Wrongo

Mike Sanford. Lots of vertical.

Never heard of her.

 

[Bullag8r]

Since Gator Chatter didn' t exist in 2004 I remember being on the Gator Sports forum and it being a mixed bag on Meyer with maybe a slight lean to wanting him.

Ah, Gatorsports.....those definitely were NOT THE DAYS. I just remember it being run by morons....

This!!

 

[PaulDrake]

He had not won and could not win in the SEC was the complaint. I avoid such predictions and was neither pro or con which is the same position I take now. I was strongly against hiring mullet. I like what I have learned about Napier but I am happy to leave the prognostications to the experts

Absolutley. On this board we surely have "experts" coming out of our ears here......

 

[78]

Just Spurrier.

“Obviously, if Coach Spurrier is interested, we will sit down with him. We obviously will sit down with other coaches. . . . We'll talk to Steve. It may be Steve. We'll have some honest, open conversation with Steve."

That’s Foley when asked about the post-Zook opening. I count at minimum four lies in that graph courtesy of the Washington Post.

 

[soflagator]

Yep. Anyone that can beat ULM by 5 has serious potential.

Meyer was more sought after nationally for sure. But let’s not forget, in 2004 he scored a whopping 23 against 3-8 Arizona, and gave up 28 to UNLV, SDSt and UNLV, 31 to CSU and 35 to Air Force. There were plenty of reasons to question whether that would translate to the SEC.

 

[78]

I’ll never forget the Vanderbilt game in Meyer’s first season. A real snooze fest. So bad that five of us tried to slide our way out of the Swamp early. As we got to our car, we heard a loud groan from a fan. Cutler had led a furious Vandy comeback, forcing OT.

We won on some Reggie Nelson heroics but that game underscored the difficulties Meyer faced coming in. It lasted part of the way into the 2006 season.

 

[soflagator]

I’ll never forget the Vanderbilt game in Meyer’s first season. A real snooze fest. So bad that five of us tried to slide our way out of the Swamp early. As we got to our car, we heard a loud groan from a fan. Cutler had led a furious Vandy comeback, forcing OT.

We won on some Reggie Nelson heroics but that game underscored the difficulties Meyer faced coming in. It lasted part of the way into the 2006 season.

Reggie Lewis.

Cutler had picked on him all night snd Lewis sealed it in OT with a pick. I had to drive back to PBC that night and was not happy with the 2OT.

 

[Gatorraid81]

Reggie Lewis.

Cutler had picked on him all night snd Lewis sealed it in OT with a pick. I had to drive back to PBC that night and was not happy with the 2OT.

If I remember right, Meyer's first 2 games against Vandy were close. I remember the following year up in Nashville almost blowing a big lead.

 

[YLGator]

Meyer was more sought after nationally for sure. But let’s not forget, in 2004 he scored a whopping 23 against 3-8 Arizona, and gave up 28 to UNLV, SDSt and UNLV, 31 to CSU and 35 to Air Force. There were plenty of reasons to question whether that would translate to the SEC.

Nice selective stats there. He beat Arizona, a PAC 10 team 23-6 in Tucson. The rest of those games you referenced were complete blowouts. Not close to eeking out a 5 point win against ULM.

 

[Durty South Swamp]

I see a lot of cherry picking of stats to create narratives that don't line up with the real history.

 

[YLGator]

I see a lot of cherry picking of stats to create narratives that don't line up with the real history.

Yeah, I’m sure those 63-31 and 63-28 games were real nailbiters.

 

[InstiGATOR1]

Nice selective stats there. He beat Arizona, a PAC 10 team 23-6 in Tucson. The rest of those games you referenced were complete blowouts. Not close to eeking out a 5 point win against ULM.

Yeah the reality is UF had one candidate we knew got it done in the past, Spurrier, and another candidate that had gotten it done at both his prior stop in his career, Bowling Green and Utah. To me the only really worries about Meyer were that he did not stay places very long and the spread offense working in the SEC. Of course while I wanted Spurrier, the bottom line for this year is that UF has gone from a program with two excellent candidates in Nov 2005 to this group of candidates in Nov 2021.

 

[soflagator]

Nice selective stats there. He beat Arizona, a PAC 10 team 23-6 in Tucson. The rest of those games you referenced were complete blowouts. Not close to eeking out a 5 point win against ULM.

I don’t care if Arizona was in the NFC West or where it was played. They won 3 games all year. My point was between games like that which caused questions about whether or not his offense would make it in the SEC, and giving up 30 points in half their games, there absolutely was concern about how it would translate here.

 

[YLGator]

I don’t care if Arizona was in the NFC West or where it was played. They won 3 games all year. My point was between games like that which caused questions about whether or not his offense would make it in the SEC, and giving up 30 points in half their games, there absolutely was concern about how it would translate here.[/QUOTE
If you score 60, giving up 30 isn’t a problem. Point is, the scrub we’re wooing now couldn’t hold Urban’s jock.