I’ve only posted a few times, but I’m here because I don’t understand. And my apologies ahead of time for the length.
Ok. It’s 1990. I am a student way over the traditional age and have been at UF for almost two years. UF just hired Coach Spurrier. And one August morning I, and the rest of Gainesville, awaken to the news that two young ladies have had their lives cut short at the hands of another. Classes had not been in session for long, and the football season had yet to begin when the horror we know as the Gainesville Murders ended the lives of five. We were grief stricken, angry, fearful - I was terrified to walk to my classes at night, was even afraid in my locked dorm at North Hall. Irrational fear. Thank goodness for the young men of UF who were there to escort us ladies to evening classes.
Why do I begin here? Because not long after that Coach SOS and the Gator’s football team hit the field. They brought excitement to the campus and were winning games with a fifth string QB. But that’s not all they were doing. For a few hours most Saturdays that fall I was able to forget the grief and the anger and the terror and just enjoy cheering on my team. I fell in love with my school, and I became passionate about Gator football. That’s what that 1990 team did for me. I’ve never looked back; never wanted to.
Fast forward to today. I really do not understand what has happened to this program. I don’t understand why we are so accepting of failure. The fans didn’t create some mythical bar - that bar was raised by Spurrier and continued with Meyer; they raised the bar and we fans know what UF is capable of providing. We aren’t getting that, haven’t seen anything like those years in more than a decade.
Look, I can’t tell you an X from an O; I just know what I see on the field and rely on this forum to provide the play by play. I need someone to enlighten me, nicely, please and thank you, on why our priorities have seemingly changed? I really don’t want to hear that the college football landscape is different; we all know that. But survivors survive. They adapt and produce because it’s how they are wired and they don’t present excuses for failure.
Sadly, it seems we live in a world of excuses. I truly would like to know if I were Muschamp or McElwain or Mullen what you would tell me on why the standard is different for CBN, and if it isn’t different then why are we seemingly ignoring that standard? If I’m sitting across from those that make the coaching decisions for Florida I would ask why does the narrative keep changing in order to line up with the results? What is so different about CBN that we throw everything we have at him and then are silent when things go south of expectations?
I don’t always like what I read on here, how ugly we can be to one another, but I get that frustration. I really do. We are the University of Florida. This school should excel at everything. Want to be called the everything school? Then be the everything school. Adapt. Change. Fight like hell to get back to that standard. In everything.
