BUDDY MARTIN: THESE GUYS AREN'T THE FACES OF LOSERS
- Buddy Martin
- Oct 6, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 7, 2022
A Frightening Thought: The Loser Of Saturday's Game In The Swamp Will Be 0-3 In SEC Play
“I think we’re a lot closer. I think when you lose football games it becomes a little bit more real. It stings a little bit. We’ve played losing football sometimes and ultimately it has cost us games.” – Billy Napier
I took a look at the SEC standings the other day. Alabama is great at football. Georgia is getting better and maybe approaching greatness. The rest of the SEC? Well, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and Mississippi State are all trending upward. LSU? I have no clue.
Brian Kelly’s team, unbeaten in league play, is leading the SEC. Florida? Tied for dead last. Meanwhile, has A&M dropped out, or what? Therein lies the conundrum. How to measure what we see, or don’t see. The standings sometimes do skew accuracy.
And yet it’s right there in black and white: The Florida Gators are losers, without an SEC win. Although they are now above .500 overall as they head into homecoming with Missouri and favored by 11 points, this is an imminently losable game to a virtual SEC bottom-feeder. That’s harsh reality.
Wasn’t it just a week ago that Paul Finebaum was running a poll about which would be the “worst team in the SEC” after Auburn played Missouri? (Missouri lost on a last-second chip shot field goal miss, 17-14). More of that ugly harsh reality is that the loser of Saturday’s game at The Swamp will be 0-3. To take another step into darkness, should the Gators lose, it would be their seventh consecutive loss in the SEC -- a dubious feat equalled only in the inglorious post-World War II "Golden Era."
It’s getting down to the time when we must separate the winners from the losers. And the only way to do that is look at the results of the games. The Florida Gators are in limbo, despite a respectable start to the most difficult September in America in which they were pitted against three ranked teams.
Still, as the old line used to be, “parts is parts,” and “losses is losses.”
It took a question by GatorBait colleague Franz Beard to Napier to drive that point home when he asked the Gator coach for a progress report.
“I think we’re a lot closer,” Napier told Franz. “I think when you lose football games it becomes a little bit more real. It stings a little bit. We’ve played losing football sometimes and ultimately it has cost us games.”
“Losing football.” Right there is that term that causes Dan Mullen-type flashbacks.
I was pretty much all-in on Mullen through two seasons. It hit me in 2021 that things were about to go the wrong way when friend Lee McGriff provided me with valuable insight.
About to speak to the Ocala Quarterback Club, McGriff heeded that Mullen was only going to be 3-3 even if he defeated Vanderbilt and was perilously close to a losing record if his team was upset by underdog LSU. He was, and the severity of it was underscored by the ugly shoe-throwing incident that began the downward spiral that resulted in his Humpty-Dumpty fall from grace.
What finished Mullen off was the home loss to Missouri, his questionable conduct at halftime and post-game which were unbecoming of a Gator coach. And we didn’t know all that much at that point about the NCAA-issued show-cause for his hushed-up recruiting violation.
The point is, while we were lavishing Mullen with praise, projecting him as the probable savior of the slumping UF program, it was cratering beneath him. Some of us missed that – ALL of us missed that.
In the interest of a more cautious observance – the “let’s not fall in love on the first date” approach with the new coach -- we pause at the halfway mark to assess where Billy Napier resides on his scale of success. Which is not to say Billy Napier is failing, but up until now he has yet to meet his objective.
There is this recent new term for evaluating a program: “Trajectory.” Here’s one way to project that: Would you rather be an Aggie or a Gator right now?
What started out as a Las Vegas-projected 7½ win season has settled in right about in that spot so far. You could see the Gators winning five of their last seven. Eight wins look do-able, with Georgia as a likely “L” and maybe either LSU or Texas A&M. The Aggies look beatable, but because it’s a road game that comes the week after a brutally physical game against Georgia, it’s going to be challenging. And Jimbo Fisher will have his offense playing better by then.
What’s key here is to remember that old HBC coaching cliché, “the most important game of the season is always the one you play next.”
Missouri may not be a favorable Florida matchup, given the way Eli Drinkwitz was able to pound both Georgia lines of scrimmages last game and the proclivity Andrew Toney’s defense has for getting gashed with his “bend but don’t break” defense.
Meanwhile, there is a feel-good atmosphere around the UF football program. Among other things, they rolled out some of the positive results from the GatorMade program designed to help young athletes engage in the community. Ventrell Miller’s new foundation and “Millerville” project designed to aid Southwest Florida victims was highlighted most impressively.
The theme behind all of these off-field, out-of-class efforts is the molding of character and maturity to prepare young men for life after football – or without football. Napier encourages them to be prepared for that day and instead of making a goal for a pro career as Plan A, to make it Plan B. Plan A is life.
As much as we all embrace these values and salute Billy Napier’s commitment to the cause, however, college football still must be about winning games.
Vanderbilt’s spectacular academic program is noble and worthy, so the Commodore football record gets winked at. At Florida, winning football games takes precedence over character building, although we’d like to think UF could have both. And it loves to brag on being a Top Five public university. But the people who write checks also want a Top Five football ranking.
Right about now I am wondering what new guidelines and policies will be invoked with the installation of U.S. Senator Dr. Ben Sasse soon as the 13th president of the University of Florida.
Meanwhile, it was encouraging to see some of the smiling faces after the win over lightweight Eastern Washington.
Because of early dominance by the starters and big chunk plays, Napier could substitute freely in the second half. Eighty-one Gator players made the field. We saw enough to convince us that Jalen Kitna can take snaps behind Anthony Richardson if Jack Miller isn’t ready. Justin Shorter and Richardson brought back the deep ball. Ricky Pearsall’s execution of breakaway running was impressive.
Those are positive signs. The question is: Were they an aberration or can they become part of Billy Napier’s toolbox? This is the stuff of winners. The stuff that can begin to erode that ugly black-and-white 0-2 in the standings next to the word “Florida.”
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