Not as astute as guys like you
@cover2, and others, but I’ll chime in here as opposed to starting a new thread. A couple observations.
Any questions as to whether the players, the team, even the fans had bought in to the new era were certainly answered. Everything from the attendance and intensity, even when losing, to staying throughout(2nd Ave post game looked like the old days), the fans specifically look to be as on board as I’ve seen since Meyer. The players, as I said all off season, have shown their belief. That was encouraging.
And excellent example of where the team is discipline wise can be seen by Burney in the moments following his game sealing INT. If you watch the video, as he’s running he briefly takes his helmet off before immediately putting it back on. That tells me there is night and day difference in the discipline and attention to detail from before.
It’s hard not to notice that between Johnson, Pearsall, Eteienne, the OL from UL, and others, Napier has an eye for talent and his commits and transfers are largely better than what we had. It’s not playing favorites. They’re just great players that he identified. Great hope for the future in recruiting.
Critiquing a bit, I think Napier has to be a little more forceful in dealing with the refs. I thought Johnson scored on that 4th down bootleg, the adding time thing was a joke, the odd timeout situation. We won, but those things may cost us going forward. I’d like to see him address it.
Not bagging on players, but Cox specifically seemed to disappoint. He talked about breaking Brown’s sack record going into this year. He’s at 0 after 1 game. We need pressure from somewhere and I thought the edge was lackluster.
I’ll agree with
@lagator in that I did not really get the 4th down timeout after wasting 20 seconds. To me, we either have confidence we’ll get it and proceed, or are concerned and need to set up the possibility of another possession. In retrospect it was perfect because we got it and scored. But I’ll also add that once we got to 1st and goal, we should slowed down. We have Utah probably 20-30 seconds by snapping too soon. Clock management wasn’t my favorite down the stretch. Someone I sit near, who used to coach, disagreed with me, so maybe I’m wrong. I just didn’t get it.
Great win all around.
Personal note, my youngest got a pic with Ventrell Miller at the Gator walk, and then after the game got his new polo that his grandmother got him, signed by a player. Haven’t told her about that yet.