Gators EMBARRASSED in the Swamp- TIME for CHANGE? | Miami Hurricanes | Billy Napier

hey Gator fans wanted to jump on here give you my recap of what happened yesterday and you know kind of commiserate with you guys a little bit because that was embarrassing and I feel like there is a lot for us to talk about I first want to tell you I have been sitting in the stands of that Stadium since I was a year old all right won't tell you how old I'm about to turn I'm about to hit a big milestone this month so a very long time I've seen the good bad and ugly of Florida football and yesterday it's probably the most embarrassed I've ever been in orange and blue yesterday was not gram Mer's day after an entire offseason of hearing that he'd taken another step forward and kind of fantasizing about the leap that quarterbacks generally take the second year in a system we saw absolutely none of that on the field yesterday Merz was 11 for 20 for 91 yards one interception and no touchdowns so there is not a lot positive to point to on offense we heard a lot this offseason that the Gators were going to pass the ball downfield more insiders that were at practice former players that were there talked about seeing Merz air it out and to billion AP years credit they did try that yesterday but Mert's throws were off each and every time they did in fact if he didn't overthrow underthrow or throw behind his receiver each time he tried to throw past 20 yards Florida could have scored a lot more points points there were several times where Mertz made the wrong read and he still has a tendency to stare his receivers down this was a problem last year it's continuing to be a problem and it's something Miami was able to pick up on early this was easily Mer's worst game in a gator uniform he finished with a qbr of 83.2 and honestly guys that stat alone makes this football game essentially unwinable but I want to pause and point something out I personally take no joy in criticizing a player I try to be really really careful when I name guys by name and talk about the negative I understand what it's like to be a family of a player I understand what it's like to have hard conversations with guys you know while they're wearing the uniform about the criticism that they take from other people I do take that to heart and I try to be really careful with it but I also don't want to shy away from calling a spade a spade gr Merz had a bad day his worst in fact but what I did see from him is somebody who gives his all on every play and there are no participation trophies and sometimes being a hard worker isn't enough results matter but on a day where I saw a lot of players Loaf and take plays off I do think it's important to point out that that is not who gram Merz is I hated to see him get injured and honestly watching it live from the state medum and his body language afterwards I thought it was a shoulder injury um you know word out of the locker room now is that he has a concussion and I think that that's probably a better case scenario than had it been a shoulder injury I want to wish him a speedy recovery and I never like to see a player go down like that and this was absolutely not the way that I thought DJ lague was going to make his debut in orange and blue but we're going to talk a little bit more about that in a bit I want to hit on some of the things that I saw that just went wrong the play calling was bad I didn't feel like there was any rhythm Billy Napier needs to pick a lane and call the game that way are you going to be conservative or are you going to be Balls to the walls you know I can see an argument for both and he's the offensive coordinator right like this is his decision but our offense feels like a 16-year-old learning to drive a stick shift it's jerky there's no rhythm there's no flow and even things like his decisions on when to go for it on fourth down or not make little to no sense there were multiple third Downs yesterday that were similar situations one for sure that comes to mind we were on a the 42 yard line once we were on the 41 the other down in distance same down similar distance and he went for it on Fourth once and didn't on the other if your card said to to go for it for one of those it's said to go for it for the other so I don't I don't understand and I feel like his inability to commit to a strategy and see it through is one of our offense's biggest issues but I will say I don't think play calling was the biggest issue yesterday I think the very biggest issue and I'm going to continue to talk about it through this this video is execution and effort Florida's o line couldn't get a push yesterday and we knew going into this season that one of our biggest liabilities was offensive line and I think we saw that Miami's defensive line was great so uh you know credit to them but Florida's offensive line was not good and not only were they not good but they lacked effort and that is the hardest part of the game for me to watch I know that's the hardest part of the game for any of our former players in the stands to watch the lack of effort you go back and watch film from this game and the number of times there are guys standing there or jogging when the play is still going on is disgusting and I the lack of effort not just from Florida's offense and defensive line but several guys on almost every play that is what stood out to me the most about Saturday's game shout out to monell Johnson he is clearly healthy had a couple of great runs he is a huge weapon that unfortunately is going to go to waste if the offensive line can't can't do a better job blocking for him and if Napier can't do a better job calling these games one of the areas that Florida really needed to see the most Improvement on was defensive line unfortunately what we saw yesterday was more of the same I'm not even sure how that's possible but statistically Florida's defense was actually worse yesterday than last season Florida gave up six and a half yards per play last year that was good for 124th last season that means there were 123 D1 teams that gave up less yards per play than the gator defense but yesterday Florida's defense gave up 7.7 yards per play so worse than last year at one point there was a fan in front of me and leaned over and he said man cim ward has time to do his taxes back there and honestly that wasn't far off from the truth the lack of pressure from Florida's defensive line meant that cam Ward got to do whatever he wanted which he did time and time again and even when the Gators were able to force a turnover they couldn't capitalize when you get given the ball on the M Miami side of the 50 and you only walk away with three points that is a problem Florida secondary also had a bad day at the office and while I don't think that Florida's defensive line did the gator DBS any favors this secondary doesn't look any better than last year which with this schedule is going to be a problem DJ lagway made it his debut after gr Merz exited the game due to injury and you know honestly he did as well as could have been expected given the circumstances I think he allowed the offense to do a little bit more than Graham Merz did but I would also really need to kind of take a hard look at who was actually on the field for Miami at that time was a success due to playing against backups but regardless of who he was playing against I think he showed grit and I think he's going to be a great player one day his interception honestly was just complet completely dumb luck and just kind of summed up the day for me uh I don't really put that one on him at all and I think he starts the game against Samford and honestly then I hope Graham Merz is back for Texas A&M for the sake of DJ lag's long-term development I personally would not be a fan of starting him against Texas A&M unless there is honestly no other option now for the one real bright spot of the day special teams Florida special teams were excellent for the first time ever in the napor era if you aren't new to this channel you know that special teams has been a mer major major major area of frustration for me for the past couple of years and yesterday the gator showed massive Improvement and they didn't just do the little things that you know are the absolute massive sources of frustration for us like the sending the right number of guys out or everybody having a different number on they didn't just do those things right their coverages were great their returns and overall decision-making was great I really feel like you saw special teams took a huge step in the right direction and I I think that that's important to point out uh ASA Turner you could even see him counting the number of men on the field and then giving a a thumbs up to the sideline and I still personally take issue with that responsibility falling on a player especially a player on that special teams unit because seeing 11 men from field level while you're on it is incredibly difficult but I loved that a player was taking ownership for the very first time under coach Napier I think special teams grades out as an A and I think that that is worth acknowledging there is massive Improvement there so where do we go from here honestly guys we are what we are until something changes Billy Napier is two and nine first ranked teams we have now lost six games in a row and worst of all we are one in 10 vers our Rivals which I honestly think get you fired way faster than your overall record and we haven't won a home game since October 7th of last year I think it is really difficult to point to any real growth or progress over the past two and a half years I know I just said that special teams took a huge step in the right direction but these are issues that never should have existed to begin with so while I'm glad the pro the the problem is fixed it was a billy Napier created problem because it wasn't something we had under Dan Mullen so it wasn't something that needed to be fixed when he got here it was a self-created issue Florida fans were told that Billy Napier is detail oriented and that he always has a plan that's what we were sold on we were sold on the fact that you know listen this is a guy who loves recruiting and this is a guy that is going to have every detail handled and we were told that that was in just opposition to the way that Mullen ran things the facts do not support that Billy Napier's tenure shows us the exact opposite we have watched indecisiveness and flip-flopping on play calling we have watched loafing from players for three years and we have watched our team get out physical and then we've been told that those problems exist because he was playing with a roster that wasn't his guys but now he has his guys do you know how you make sure that your players don't loaf on the field in a game against a rival at home to open the college football season you rip their ass when they do it on the practice field in May do you know how you make sure your players don't get out physical you make the offseason workouts hard enough to produce that result during the season there is absolutely nothing about the last two and a half years that we can point to that tells us that Billy Napier is actually detail oriented other than the fact that he has told us that we are watching the same problems that have existed since day one Florida's Talent profile has improved their actual on the- field play has not and honestly guys the most infuriating thing for me the lack of fire on the sidelines it's telling our championship teams would have been literally fist fighting each other on the sidelines or at the very least in the locker room if those teams had the kind of performance that we saw yesterday and even those zook teams and those mus champ teams the year that both of those guys got fired never quit might have been blocking each other but they sure as hell were doing it at full speed we listened all offseason to how physical and how tough practices have been and I think that we've all come to the realization that it's just not competitive right I think that when our team is lining up against ourselves coaches are looking at it and they're saying look look at how tough and competitive these guys are our team is a wreck soccer team that has been competing in a wreck League All Summer but the SEC isn't a wreck League it's competitive and now our wreck team we've taken to a competitive league and they're not going to farewell and unfortunately the majority of our schedule that is left the 11 games left on that schedule all but probably two to three are teams that I would comp consider competitive soccer teams as opposed to wreck and I wish I could be more optimistic you guys know I'm a gator through and through it pains me to sit here and rip this team and rip this coaching staff I want the Gators to do well always but realistically I cannot be optimistic at this point we were sold a bunch of nonsense this offseason from staff that I'm beginning to believe doesn't actually know what an SEC caliber team looks like behind closed doors I am one of those people that help sell it to you guys and not because I benefit in some way from sharing information that's not true but because I truly believed what was coming out of the program and listen Billy Napier is a nice guy and I think he is a good person and I have no doubts that he is making this team of young men better people but I have stopped believing that he can make them better football players and that's the job he was brought to the University of Florida to do a quick glance around the college football landscape yesterday watching coaches and players who have jump shipped from Florida and found success at their new home reinforces this for me Miami and Florida are both programs in year three of coaching regimes one of them looks like they are moving in the right direction full speed and one of them looks like they're standing still I don't know how Billy Napier wins a head-to-head recruiting battle against Miami at this point any recruit that sat in those stands yesterday and watched those two very different level of products is not picking Florida and listen shout out to Miami they were incredibly impressive um but how impressive kind of remains to be seen a little bit because the performance out of the Gator yesterday was so bad that it's honestly hard to fairly judge Miami but tip of the hat for coming into the swamp and dominating y'all earn that one the swamp yesterday is not the swamp that I remember from big games in the past but that's because the product on the field has to give fans something to be excited about you can't expect 90,000 people to show up at 3:30 on the in the seventh circle of hell which is what it feels like sitting in those stands in August and be their fiery rambun just shake the concrete selves if you don't give us anything to cheer about they're just going to stop showing up and that sucks that is not what the University of Florida is built on that is not what the standard is for this football program fans deserve better and unfortunately it is hard to see a path for that improving much this season next week the gator play Stanford I do think that that is a game that they will win but watching Texas A&M against Notre Dame last night I don't have a whole lot of hope that the Gators can get their issues corrected in time for that because unfortunately the biggest most glaring issues in this program are not ones that can be fixed overnight and they're probably not ones that can be fixed midseason at all all right guys that's it that's all my rantings for you all my feelings on this I'm sure we're going to continue to break it down and talk about it as week goes on and we're going to get ready for Samford and I'm going to always bleed orange and blue in all kinds of weather but I also promise you to tell you tell it like it is I hope that you will be subscribed to this channel stick with me for the rest of the season because we got a lot of good content coming your way thanks for watching and gogators