generalgator87

Just wanted to thank everyone for their tips. I used a ton of stuff in here. We did have to modify the tournament, making it a one day event instead of two.

On to the results, I played the best round of my life. I am a 17 handicap from the tees I was playing, and shot an 84. I had the best front 9 I've ever played, shooting a 38 and started off birdie/par/par/birdie. Unfortunately, the wind really picked up on the back 9 and my 17 handicap mistakes also picked up. It was a net best ball tournament, and my team won by 4 shots.

And I owe you all a ton of thanks for helping make it happen!

It definitely is way different than the NFL or other pro sports where spending is extremely transparent. Hopefully college football can get there some day.

But you can use context clues to figure out where we are on relative terms. LSU is obviously spending more than us or Lane would have come to UF. We obviously have a bigger budget than Auburn, Ole Miss or Arkansas because Sumrall came here.

You can also look at who players are being recruited by to get a good idea. Over the last few years, most of our recruiting battles have been with Miami, Texas, Auburn, and A&M. Those teams are known for spending and the guys we are recruiting are obviously mostly worried about getting paid based on the teams they are interested in. We have won our fair share of those battles, which tells me we aren't just being cheap/poor/have no money.

I think we are spending enough to be competitive in the SEC. Sumrall had the option of going to Ole Miss, Auburn and Arkansas and decided to come here instead. He didn't come here for the logo, so we obviously are spending more than those three. Ole Miss obviously spends a decent amount and Auburn is known for throwing around cash, so it seems we spread it around more evenly than either of those two schools.

If we are spending more than Ole Miss and Auburn, we should be spending in that 2nd tier of schools after Texas, A&M, Miami, Oregon, and Ohio State, which is plenty to get into the playoffs. And you have to think of it similarly as the NFL. All you need to do is get in the playoffs, and at that point, matchups and injuries are what matters most.

Have a big tournament this weekend, and unfortunately, it's going to be cold. We tee off first thing in the morning (which will probably be adjusted by frost delays), and the temps are going to be in the low-mid 30's at that time here right outside Tampa. The highs on Saturday will get up to the mid 50's and on Sunday the high is 44.

I am a native Floridian and a newish golfer, and I have never played in these kind of temperatures. I already got some thermal underwear, handwarmers, cold weather gloves and a new golf jacket. I also bought some Titleist TruFeel golf balls because I heard the lower compression golf balls are better in the cold.

Anything else I need to do other than enjoy some Irish coffee? I am guessing getting there a little earlier to stretch and warm up is a non-negotiable.

I am no fan of Stricklin, but we did win the basketball national championship last year and overall have a solid athletics program. It's definitely not at its peak like it was under Foley, but truthfully, Foley's attitude about spending money is what started getting us into this whole mess. He thought being UF was good enough. The administration has also hamstrung Stricklin with a ton of holdovers from Foley's tenure. Luckily the worst of those in the UAA are have left or are in the process of leaving.

Stricklin's biggest weakness is that he isn't good at hiring football coaches, but even that is a mixed bag. The Mullen hire wasn't bad (3 straight NYE bowls), but he pulled a Brian Kelly and stopped caring. Napier was well thought of at the time of his hire, but obviously stunk it up and refused to adjust to the changes being made overall in college football.

Most intelligent has to be Kaylee Hartung. Went to undergrad with her. Also have a few Gators on there too.

Go Generals! Go Gators!

Went and watched some on Saturday. They only let in homeowners for that community, members and their guests. It was a really cool event, but there were maybe 300 people there watching that I saw. And the vast majority were people standing in their back yards.

It was really cool being able to get up close and listen to the player-caddy conversations. Got to follow AK for about 7 holes. I will say, he looked the best of the players we watched. He burned several edges on putts, but his ball striking looked pretty good from what I saw.

He definitely wore out his welcome by the end. He was so married to his "process" and refused to allow anyone to come in and question anything. All of his hires after his initial staff were "yes men" from ULL or young guys that he had relationships with before.

The team this year way way too talented to have 4 wins. But he refused to give up play calling even when he was asked to by Stricklin and our biggest booster. Even though we changed defensive coordinators a few times, he never changed the scheme up (all our DC's were from the Roberts tree, including Roberts himself). He could not adapt to NIL and the transfer portal.

I think he was ready to go by the end, similar to how Mac left and seemed relieved. Mac was one of his big mentors, so that would make sense to me. He never even posted a message to the fans on social media after leaving, which is pretty customary these days. Maybe it was because we boo'd him so much during the last 2 seasons?

Like many Gator fans, I was pretty angry when we hired Sumrall. Another G5 coach from Louisiana after Billy was pretty much exactly the opposite of what I thought we needed. What we have gotten since his hiring is the exact opposite of the Billy Napier experience, which is a breath of fresh air.

First, (but probably least importantly), was his opening press conference. Billy told us we needed to be patient and that we probably wouldn't like him. Well we tried to be patient, and we sure as hell did not like him by the end. Sumrall came in and talked about how he wanted to win, and win now. Huge difference in attitude.

Second, Billy brought in a ton of guys from his G5 school to his staff. Other than Raymond, Spence and Bateman, Napier did not hire SEC quality coaches. Sumrall has brought in one of the top offensive coordinators in college football, a defensive coordinator who has owned the Gators, and what is indisputably an SEC quality staff. It might be our best staff since Urban.

Last, and probably most importantly, was how Sumrall handled the roster. Billy ran away all of our recruits and his transition class was one of the lowest rated recruiting classes of all time for Florida. Billy also refused to process many of Mullen's non-performing players and kept them around for way too long. Sumrall kept our recruiting class intact and we ended up one of our best transition classes ever. Sumrall also processed a bunch of the fluff Billy had on the roster.

We have 5 players that we really wanted to hold onto going into next season. Jaden Baugh, Jayden Woods, Dallas Wilson, Vernell Brown III, and Myles Graham. Most people expected Sumrall to keep maybe 3 of the 5. 4 out of 5 would have been outstanding. No one thought 5 of 5 would be possible. And Sumrall did just that. Got all 5 to come back.

I am not sure if Sumrall will be successful. Based on our hiring since Urban, there is a very good chance he is not. But I will admit I was way too quick to judge. I don't know if Sumrall could do much better in the first couple weeks on the job.

He will have more 5*s in the WR room than GT has had since recruiting rankings started.