Bits & Pieces: Florida vs. Alabama

Second verse same as the first

 

Good stuff C2. The clock management - leaving 69 seconds on the clock at the end of the first half was inexcusable. But our coach's ego....

 

Great summary, cover.

Couldn’t have said it any better.

Let’s hope Choker has a uhaul reservation to be picking up, and he can drag Marco with him wherever he goes.

 

Great, spot on as usual Cover...we can only hope for some needed changes...

 

Soooo, this is what mediocrity feels like. Well we've actually known the feeling for years now.( Even though even a mediocre D with this yrs O puts us in the playoff) Old Mullet had many hoping and actually believing, and we just knew the D was gonna improve.
Well even when we would make a critical stop they find a way to piss it away.

 

Yes but we were trying to go tempo to catch them off guard...I don't think we could have just lined up and went through regular motion(pre snap stuff) maybe but IMO you take points whenever/however you get them....

2 penalties cost us this game...offsides on 3&10 and they made the 1st by 1 inch....then TD. Saban would have kicked a FG had we stopped them there....and Carter hands to the face on 3rd and 10 on their side of the field...they scored TD. That's 11 points that made the difference IMO.

 

I've enjoyed reading all of your write-ups this year as I have previous years. Thanks for the time and insight you put in doing these.

I don't know what bothers me more. The loss or how everyone in the media has written off Trask for the Heisman and is openly pumping the Bama players. How many other QBs this year have thrown for more than 40 TDs or over 4,000 yards? None, but Trask has done both and no one is mentioning it.

Overall, this was a good year that could have been a really special year with a lot of hardware and a championship or two. Sucks to be so close and yet so far.

 

I was on the road and missed the game, but was surprised that the difference in this score-fest was only 6 points! If this team actually had some semblance of a Defense, any really credible defense the Gators may be champions this morning. In any case a loss sucks, but most thought that this game would be a blowout and at least at the end, it wasn't. Our Gators got closer to Bama than any other team this year and I imagine Saban is pissed at the final score. Great effort guys, no respect lost here, a lot of eyebrows are raising this morning over cups of coffee.

Cover - thanks as always for this and all the other great reviews this year!

 

If we had run out the clock and kicked a FG we would have been down 15 at the half....or we score 7, let them score 7 and we end up down 18 at the half. It was a sh*tshow. There was a clock stoppage before we ran the TD play, so we weren't catching anyone off guard with 'tempo'. Also, we could have still run the play and run off 15 more seconds instead snapping it w/ 20+ seconds on the play clock.

 

Maybe but I take points the easiest way I can get them and let what happens happen....

I wrote in another thread that if you really think about it we would be playing for a NC if it weren't for 4 mental mistakes this year.
A fumble
A shoe toss
An offside
And a hands to the face...

 

And mostly 3rd and Grantham.

 

Added a few more for you...."it's a game of inches".

 

True there is that that but in all three losses the other team wasn't stopping us either...I don't like it but sometimes track meets happen...may as well win them by not shooting yourself in the foot.

 

Well you've got a point about those things and I'm certainly not going to defend TG or some of Mullen's brain fog playcalling.....but leave the kicker outta this damnit... he probably figured Mullen would just go for it on 4th down like he did earlier in the game(got stuffed on the goal line which would have made the LSU game over minus the shoe toss....

 

Year 3, we knew what we were getting with Mullen, a slightly better than average coach. Yes we needed to dump butters and make a move, of the choices available at the time, he was the safest bet, But definitely not a homerun hit. We've seen it every year, bad clock management, head scratching play calling,, his stubbornness to stick to certain players, coaches and plays. Mullen going to mullen, and it cost us a shot at the playoffs with one of the best offenses we've had in a decade.

As for the game. Grantham earning that 2.8M, and I commented in the chat during the game,, that he must teach diving at the feet as a means of tackling, we see it constantly. A half-ass defense, and we would have won it all this year.

Glad to beat jawja finally. But again, it is on this staff to recruit better, need elite talent to compete with elite talent. Especially when we are handicapped with a dawg DC and other lame coaches.

Go Gators

 

For the most part it's been fun watching the offense this year. Then when the other part of the team is on the field I've wanted to pull my hair out. It's felt like our team is Jekyll and Hyde. Enjoyed the read C2 as always.

 

Outstanding write-up Cover. This superlative sentence speaks volumes: “What could’ve been unfortunately turned into what was and Mullen and Co. begin the self-reflective phase that must require some honest appraisals of what went wrong and what has to change lest this be our high water mark for the second consecutive coaching staff.”

We know Coach Mullen has a difficult time publicly appraising his own efforts in terms of honest ownership of deficient coaching. Whether or not he does so privately and with staff is questionable. Loyalty is an attribute until it negatively affects the program. Spurrier would say ‘we didn’t coach ‘em up’ after a loss. His annoyance and anger were palpable. Myer would go apoplectic after a loss producing real physical symptoms. Wide shoulders. A championship caliber coach is honest with himself and others (for you can’t hide the obvious), reflects on self and staff, appraises and changes out of self-preservation and the long-term success of the program. The alternative is to earn a reputation for being an excuse maker and settling for mediocrity.

Many of Vince Lombardi’s quotes on success have become cliched on the walls of car salesman’s cubicles, but there’s simple honesty in his writings that Coach Mullen might benefit from were he to post them on his office walls and take to heart: “Don’t succumb to excuses. Go back to the job of making the corrections and forming the habits that will make your goal possible. The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.”