Thoughts

Before I get into this shite, I want to say Gator Growl was fricking awesome, the night before was fricking awesome, the atmosphere before the game was fricking awesome, the Tom Petty tribute was one of the coolest experiences I've ever been a part of and I'm in the boat that says make that a permanent tradition, and the atmosphere at the game was top notch. It was hot, the crowd was intense, and it felt like the rivalry we all know this series has become. It was electric.

Now onto the shitshow.

First, I think we're poorly coached on defense. That's not to say "fire everybody", but I think we're getting out coached by other offenses. I'm a Joe Schmo, I like to think I know football but I couldn't do what these coaches do for a living. But on the 2 yard touchdown pass I said to my buddy "play action and they're gonna throw it to 44 in the flats and he won't be covered", and sure fricking enough, that's what happened. I understand we're young, and I understand the defense made adjustments to the little reverse sweep thing LSU did, but it shouldn't have taken so fricking long to make the adjustment. That was a bad offensive team that we made look good. We've lost the aggression that we used to play with on defense under Geoff Collins. It's obvious Randy Shannon is a great defensive mind based on his track record, and I'm not going to call for him to be fired (mostly because I think fans that do this after every single game, win or loss, have no fricking idea what they're talking about), but I do think he needs to adjust and start being more exotic with his stunts, twists, blitzes, etc. shite I don't know. Just something to get our defense feeling more confident.

On offense, there's a few things that irk me with Nussmeier. Well, more than a few but I'll just talk about a few. First, we have NOTHING to lose. Be fricking aggressive and trust Franks to throw the ball more than 15 times a game. 15 passes is not our offense. It never has been before this year. Run the fricking offense. Ride or die with Franks. It's fricking stupid to give him 13 pass attempts for the game and show that you don't trust him, then put the game in his hands on 3rd and 4th down with less than two minutes left. It makes no fricking sense. Another thing that irks me about Nuss is the lack of doing what works. I watched Troy throw wide receiver screens up and down those mother frickers field last we, and I watched us throw that shite all fricking season, and I swear to God we didn't run it one time on them. I don't get it man. It makes no sense. I watched in person and absolutely hammered, maybe we did run it a couple of times, but damn spread them out with those passes and that'll lead to even more success in the run game. Last, they need to get the ball to Malik Davis as much as possible and I've seen several people say this. But, and this is not in defense of Nuss, I've seen people saying that Davis needs 25 carries. I don't know that he is ready for that. It's not a matter of skill, I think he's certainly ready to carry that kind of load. My concern is that his body is not ready. He was a summer enrollee, hasn't had as much time in the program, and he was exhausted on a couple of runs down by the goal line in the first half where it would've been nice to have a fresh running back to pound it in. Instead we settled for a field goal and it costed us the game.

Kadarius Toney looked good on his touches and I've seen people saying that he should have had more in the fourth quarter, but guys, after the long wildcat run he hurt his shoulder and went into the locker room for a few drives, then came back out and wasn't 100%. We needed Franks to be able to step up and he couldn't do it yet. Partially because of poor play calling, partially because of poor decision making on his part, and partially because of the general lack of trust the coaches show him they have in him. I love how aggressive Mac is at times on fourth downs and short, but I absolutely HATE how conservative he allows Nuss to be in opportunities at the end of the half. I wish they'd show more confidence in the players they recruited. It's frustrating to think about so I'll just stop there.

Here's where I'm sure I'll have people disagree with me.

I'm not calling to fire Mac. He knows what he's doing on offense. I've seen it with my own two eyes in the 2009 SEC Championship, I've seen the stats for Colorado state, and I've seen the offense work in spurts here. The offense can work and I think he will make it work again. I don't like being critical, I like being a fan and supporting and cheering my arse off for my team. I fricking hate losing to rivals, I fricking hate losing at home, and I fricking hate losing games that we should win. Despite the 15+ players we were missing, we were still the better team yesterday and we found a way to lose it. I'm tired of taking two or three steps forward and then one step back. I hate Mac giving ammo to the negative fans that jump on this shite and never give it a rest. I don't see any way that he brings back Nuss and I think he makes a good hire to replace him and we'll be fine.

Mac better not make it a habit of losing at home. I'll be there next weekend to support them, in Jacksonville, and in every home game we play after that. I want the best for us and I hope for the best for us. I want to see progression. We saw that the last three games. We did not progress yesterday. We got worse. That game is in the past now, and it's time to find a way to make progress in the next game. Go Gators