GatorsRock
07-18-2005, 01:51 AM
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Although the Gators hadn’t played a non New Year bowl game in the longest time, the Gator fans were very anxious for the Chick Fil-A Peach bowl, because of the recent play of the Gators, they were sitting at 5-5 and bowl hopes were starting to diminish after tough losses to Georgia and the horrible Mississippi State team who lost to Maine earlier. Yes Maine does have a football team. The Gators were going into their homecoming against the South Carolina team that was stacked with talent. The Gators came out firing on all cylinders and won 48-14 on National TV. This set up the in state rivalry game against Florida State at Doak Campbell stadium. The unranked Gators were going up against the powerful #7 ranked Florida State Seminoles who possibly had dreams of winning the newly revamped ACC. In a very sloppy game the Gators came out victorious with a 20-13 victory after Jarvis Herring got an interception on 4th and goal with 6 secs left. This set up the opportunity of the Peach Bowl. It wasn’t pretty though, The Gator fans were shocked and stunned as the Gators lost badly to their in state rival Miami Hurricanes 27-10. The Gators were outplayed from the start, with a blocked FG returned for a TD. They never really showed signs of playing ball as they were killed from the start. This could be because of not having a real coach as defensive coordinator Charlie Strong became the interim coach. This ended off a very disappointing 7-5 season for the once proud university. Something had to change and it was already decided that the coach was the first to go.
The Gators were a storied university during the 1990’s and early 2000’s, but it has gone through a couple of years of mediocrity. The prestige of the Florida Gators is going down after 3 dismal seasons under coach Ron Zook. When I say dismal I mean 7-9 win seasons and a New Year’s Day or New Year’s Eve Bowl game and runner up in the SEC East division. Ron Zook was never really given a chance as the man behind the legend. The legend of course was Steve Spurrier, who not only brought Florida back in the spotlight on the football world, but won a Heisman when he used to play at Florida. It would be very tough for anyone to try to follow what he did and unfortunately for Ron Zook, it was him that had to deal with this. The expectations were extremely high and Zook just couldn’t handle it. Steve Spurrier lost 4 total games at “The Swamp” in his 12 years coaching at UF, while Ron Zook lost 5 in his 3 years. Zook was the exact opposite of Spurrier. Spurrier was a great motivator, he didn’t always recruit very good, but he could get the players to play to the teams strengths. Ron Zook was a “players coach” and was a great recruiter, but the players lacked discipline and couldn’t play to their full potential. That starts the next coaching search, whoever got named would have to deal with much less pressure that Zook did.
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/12/08/images/urban-450.jpg The top coach on the market was Urban Meyer, he won coach of the year last year and was coming off of an undefeated regular season under the helm of the University of Utah and were eventual winners of a BCS Bowl game. The next best coach out there and UF’s first option was the legend himself Steve Spurrier, off of a very disappointing NFL coaching stint for the Washington Redskins. There were others, such as Notre Dame’s old coach Ty Willingham(who they fired because Meyer, who they coveted became available), eventual 3 time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weiss, among others. Spurrier made the first move and signed at rival South Carolina to be a ****.(literally and figuratively). Then Urban Meyer made a press release that ND was his dream job, so the Gators started looking at lower tier coaches, but still made a push for Meyer. Meyer turned down the Notre Dame job to come to Florida!
http://mirrorimageorigin.collegepublisher.com/media/paper244/stills/537gjruo.jpg So Meyer set off to coach Utah for the bowl game that they won and the Gator faithful had their first chance to see his spread offense in action. They were led by eventual #1 pick QB Alex Smith. Boy did that impress everyone. Ron Zook was going to coach the Gators in the bowl game, but decided a couple weeks before that he was going to go up to Illinois to coach and to start recruiting for them. Meyer flew to Gainesville a day after the bowl game and got down to business, he only had 2 months to recruit, rather than the whole season that everyone else had. He kept his big recruit that he got when he was at Utah, 17 year old Josh Portis. He also nabbed 2 5 star DB prospects and a lot of 4 star players. We netted the #11 best recruiting class according to Scout.com.
Urban knew that he had some of the most talented players in the nation thanks to Ron Zook’s recruiting. Meyer was known as a disciplinarian and a fiery leader in the locker room, something that Zook definitely didn’t do. Meyer came in with a field leader at QB in Chris Leak, he is a serious Heisman candidate. Meyer is loaded with big play threats at wideout such as athletic freak Dallas Baker, speedster Andre Caldwell, and big play threat Chad Jackson, as well as deep threat Jamaal Cornelius. Senior C Mike Degory has been a huge impact player for the offense in helping Leak develop with reading the defenses and helping out with the audibles. The defense is anchored by sophomore LB Brandon Siler, who made an immediate impact as a freshman the year before. They also have talent everywhere with junior DT Ray McDonald, junior CB Demetrice Webb, senior LB Earl Everett, and sophomore S Kyle Jackson.
http://www.nationalchamps.net/2005/earlybird/pics/florida_chris_leak.jpg One of my friends, a football manager told me that the spring practices are more intense then Zook’s practices during the season were. Meyer is preaching discipline which will help us to avoid late game collapses and stupid penalties during big games, which have plagued us the last 3 years. Throughout the spring practices, Meyer saw some flaws in Leak’s character and his throwing motion. Chris Leak was a silent leader, but Meyer is making him be more of a vocal leader and it is paying off so far for Leak. Meyer also messed around with Leak’s release and now he is throwing harder, more accurate, and quicker. Brandon Siler quickly became the team leader and he has turned into Meyer’s favorite player. Chad Jackson is the favorite at WR for the coveted H-back position in Meyer’s offense.
http://www.gatorzone.com/football/images/action2003/Baker_Dallas6.jpg
The practices were finally winding down and news of the promise with Urban’s new system and way of coaching was getting around the campus and Gainesville. Everyone was interested in the new style so much that 57,000 students/fans showed up for the annual Orange and Blue scrimmage game. The previous record was around 28,000. At the game Dallas Baker was the most impressive player as he showed a great range of athletic catches, strong bursts of speed and juking ability as he made 3 TD’s. Kyle Jackson was the star on defense as he made a bunch of big hits on unsuspecting WR’s coming across the middle. Many more players shined as well.
2 a days are now starting and the season is coming up around the corner. The whole campus is buzzing with what could be coming up this year for the Gators. Here is the schedule.
Sat Sep 3 Wyoming
Sat Sep 10 Louisiana Tech
Sat Sep 17 Tennessee
Sat Sep 24 at Kentucky
Sat Oct 1 at Alabama
Sat Oct 8 Mississippi State
Sat Oct 15 at LSU
Sat Oct 29 vs Georgia
Sat Nov 5 Vanderbilt
Sat Nov 12 at South Carolina
Sat Nov 26 Florida State
Bold games are the toughest games, Underlined games are the most likely losses. The schedule is going to be tough as we have Tennessee and Florida State at home and road games against Alabama, LSU, and South Carolina, plus our annual game in Jacksonville against Georgia.
This offseason has had plenty of changes and the old era is now over. We are starting a new page with Meyer and he has a chance to leave his legacy at Florida. We are now entering the Meyer Era in Gator sports and all the gator fans are hoping it’s the most successful era in Gator football history.
Although the Gators hadn’t played a non New Year bowl game in the longest time, the Gator fans were very anxious for the Chick Fil-A Peach bowl, because of the recent play of the Gators, they were sitting at 5-5 and bowl hopes were starting to diminish after tough losses to Georgia and the horrible Mississippi State team who lost to Maine earlier. Yes Maine does have a football team. The Gators were going into their homecoming against the South Carolina team that was stacked with talent. The Gators came out firing on all cylinders and won 48-14 on National TV. This set up the in state rivalry game against Florida State at Doak Campbell stadium. The unranked Gators were going up against the powerful #7 ranked Florida State Seminoles who possibly had dreams of winning the newly revamped ACC. In a very sloppy game the Gators came out victorious with a 20-13 victory after Jarvis Herring got an interception on 4th and goal with 6 secs left. This set up the opportunity of the Peach Bowl. It wasn’t pretty though, The Gator fans were shocked and stunned as the Gators lost badly to their in state rival Miami Hurricanes 27-10. The Gators were outplayed from the start, with a blocked FG returned for a TD. They never really showed signs of playing ball as they were killed from the start. This could be because of not having a real coach as defensive coordinator Charlie Strong became the interim coach. This ended off a very disappointing 7-5 season for the once proud university. Something had to change and it was already decided that the coach was the first to go.
The Gators were a storied university during the 1990’s and early 2000’s, but it has gone through a couple of years of mediocrity. The prestige of the Florida Gators is going down after 3 dismal seasons under coach Ron Zook. When I say dismal I mean 7-9 win seasons and a New Year’s Day or New Year’s Eve Bowl game and runner up in the SEC East division. Ron Zook was never really given a chance as the man behind the legend. The legend of course was Steve Spurrier, who not only brought Florida back in the spotlight on the football world, but won a Heisman when he used to play at Florida. It would be very tough for anyone to try to follow what he did and unfortunately for Ron Zook, it was him that had to deal with this. The expectations were extremely high and Zook just couldn’t handle it. Steve Spurrier lost 4 total games at “The Swamp” in his 12 years coaching at UF, while Ron Zook lost 5 in his 3 years. Zook was the exact opposite of Spurrier. Spurrier was a great motivator, he didn’t always recruit very good, but he could get the players to play to the teams strengths. Ron Zook was a “players coach” and was a great recruiter, but the players lacked discipline and couldn’t play to their full potential. That starts the next coaching search, whoever got named would have to deal with much less pressure that Zook did.
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/12/08/images/urban-450.jpg The top coach on the market was Urban Meyer, he won coach of the year last year and was coming off of an undefeated regular season under the helm of the University of Utah and were eventual winners of a BCS Bowl game. The next best coach out there and UF’s first option was the legend himself Steve Spurrier, off of a very disappointing NFL coaching stint for the Washington Redskins. There were others, such as Notre Dame’s old coach Ty Willingham(who they fired because Meyer, who they coveted became available), eventual 3 time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weiss, among others. Spurrier made the first move and signed at rival South Carolina to be a ****.(literally and figuratively). Then Urban Meyer made a press release that ND was his dream job, so the Gators started looking at lower tier coaches, but still made a push for Meyer. Meyer turned down the Notre Dame job to come to Florida!
http://mirrorimageorigin.collegepublisher.com/media/paper244/stills/537gjruo.jpg So Meyer set off to coach Utah for the bowl game that they won and the Gator faithful had their first chance to see his spread offense in action. They were led by eventual #1 pick QB Alex Smith. Boy did that impress everyone. Ron Zook was going to coach the Gators in the bowl game, but decided a couple weeks before that he was going to go up to Illinois to coach and to start recruiting for them. Meyer flew to Gainesville a day after the bowl game and got down to business, he only had 2 months to recruit, rather than the whole season that everyone else had. He kept his big recruit that he got when he was at Utah, 17 year old Josh Portis. He also nabbed 2 5 star DB prospects and a lot of 4 star players. We netted the #11 best recruiting class according to Scout.com.
Urban knew that he had some of the most talented players in the nation thanks to Ron Zook’s recruiting. Meyer was known as a disciplinarian and a fiery leader in the locker room, something that Zook definitely didn’t do. Meyer came in with a field leader at QB in Chris Leak, he is a serious Heisman candidate. Meyer is loaded with big play threats at wideout such as athletic freak Dallas Baker, speedster Andre Caldwell, and big play threat Chad Jackson, as well as deep threat Jamaal Cornelius. Senior C Mike Degory has been a huge impact player for the offense in helping Leak develop with reading the defenses and helping out with the audibles. The defense is anchored by sophomore LB Brandon Siler, who made an immediate impact as a freshman the year before. They also have talent everywhere with junior DT Ray McDonald, junior CB Demetrice Webb, senior LB Earl Everett, and sophomore S Kyle Jackson.
http://www.nationalchamps.net/2005/earlybird/pics/florida_chris_leak.jpg One of my friends, a football manager told me that the spring practices are more intense then Zook’s practices during the season were. Meyer is preaching discipline which will help us to avoid late game collapses and stupid penalties during big games, which have plagued us the last 3 years. Throughout the spring practices, Meyer saw some flaws in Leak’s character and his throwing motion. Chris Leak was a silent leader, but Meyer is making him be more of a vocal leader and it is paying off so far for Leak. Meyer also messed around with Leak’s release and now he is throwing harder, more accurate, and quicker. Brandon Siler quickly became the team leader and he has turned into Meyer’s favorite player. Chad Jackson is the favorite at WR for the coveted H-back position in Meyer’s offense.
http://www.gatorzone.com/football/images/action2003/Baker_Dallas6.jpg
The practices were finally winding down and news of the promise with Urban’s new system and way of coaching was getting around the campus and Gainesville. Everyone was interested in the new style so much that 57,000 students/fans showed up for the annual Orange and Blue scrimmage game. The previous record was around 28,000. At the game Dallas Baker was the most impressive player as he showed a great range of athletic catches, strong bursts of speed and juking ability as he made 3 TD’s. Kyle Jackson was the star on defense as he made a bunch of big hits on unsuspecting WR’s coming across the middle. Many more players shined as well.
2 a days are now starting and the season is coming up around the corner. The whole campus is buzzing with what could be coming up this year for the Gators. Here is the schedule.
Sat Sep 3 Wyoming
Sat Sep 10 Louisiana Tech
Sat Sep 17 Tennessee
Sat Sep 24 at Kentucky
Sat Oct 1 at Alabama
Sat Oct 8 Mississippi State
Sat Oct 15 at LSU
Sat Oct 29 vs Georgia
Sat Nov 5 Vanderbilt
Sat Nov 12 at South Carolina
Sat Nov 26 Florida State
Bold games are the toughest games, Underlined games are the most likely losses. The schedule is going to be tough as we have Tennessee and Florida State at home and road games against Alabama, LSU, and South Carolina, plus our annual game in Jacksonville against Georgia.
This offseason has had plenty of changes and the old era is now over. We are starting a new page with Meyer and he has a chance to leave his legacy at Florida. We are now entering the Meyer Era in Gator sports and all the gator fans are hoping it’s the most successful era in Gator football history.