Gator Game Week ....2020

Good Day All,

Trying to adjust to time change.. it takes me a day or two to give up searching for the lost hour.... Kentucky is history...

Moving forward.. all noted points about our HC being stubborn .... don’t see that changing overnight...

I will acknowledge that he isn’t the only HC with a streak of mule in him..... however he is our HC of our team so that

Raises the importance..... we had several starters dinged up. Against Kentucky... also woke up this morning

To the news Richard LeConte was injured in a car accident... will miss several weeks... so now we go to JAX a wounded

Dawg.... several players will have to step up.... Gators also have problems.. as a pre halftime brawl will costs cause unnamed

Players to miss next weeks game... stay tuned..... the movie continues...

Go Dawgs

Dont believe I've heard this much dissatisfaction since Donnan, but it is well deserved, with the lackluster Coaching decisions that are being displayed by CKS. If there is a reason for keeping this offense under wraps(lets hope its really not this inept), its time to get it out and move on. Now the defense is going to be playing with one hand behind its back, hopefully the two's are strong or we are going to be looking at a long day.

GO DAWGS!!!! GATA!!!!

I'm currently in a lull at work, otherwise I wouldn't have time to write. It's unlikely I'll have more time after this, but I'll keep checking in. Sorry for the long posts, but this is pretty much my chance to post, so I'm having to put it all out there. But I love reading all of your comments! This is the highest quality college football forum on the internet!

This weekend's "win" against Kentucky shook me up. I'm still shaking. So I would like to address some FACTS. Too often I let my EMOTIONS run away with me, but this morning I want nothing but FACTS and LOGICAL deductions. So here goes.

FACT:
Before the season started, there was huge speculation about who the starting QB was going to be. The candidates were, in ORDER:
1. Jamie Newman
2. J.T. Daniels
3. D'wan Mathis
4. Carson Beck
Please note that "Stetson Bennett IV" is not on this list. And FACTUALLY, Carson Beck was going to be a LOOOONG shot. So this list was IT.

FACT:
Jamie Newman "self eliminated", leaving only the others on this list. Still a seemingly NICE list!

FACT: (And this is a BIG one!)
Arkansas started with the ball. When they spent about 15 seconds going nowhere, we finally got to see who WON THE QUARTERBACK COMPETITION THIS FALL!!!!!!
And the winner was: D'wan Mathis!!!!
This is HUGE, because, if we can BELIEVE what our coaches tell us (I'm VERY doubtful about that now), they will ALWAYS start "the guy who gives us the best chance to win". That guy was Mathis. Not Daniels. Not Beck. Not Stetson Bennett IV. We must assume that D'wan showed better understanding of the playbook and better athleticism, on average, than the other QBs. Otherwise, what did his start mean?!

FACT:
Mathis has now played in eight offensive series this season. He has turned the ball over exactly ONCE. Has he looked good? Well not really - but the sample size is ridiculously small. Eight chances to shine in 5 games isn't much. In a typical football game, an offense will run between 10 and 15 series.

FACT:
D'wan Mathis has attempted 17 passes this season. He has completed 8. He has one INT. This is all in eight series. His one INT was NOT batted at the line of scrimmage, but thrown high and behind a receiver.

FACT:
Stetson Bennett IV has attempted 137 passes this season. He has completed 80. He has 7 touchdown passes. He has thrown 5 INTs, all in the last two games.

FACT:
J.T. Daniels has still not taken a SINGLE game snap. Nor has Carson Beck (who is OBVIOUSLY being red-shirted).

FACT: (Another HUGE one here!)
During the Arkansas game, when the offense was "shooting itself in the foot", Smart made a CHANGE.

From all of this, I can only LOGICALLY deduce a few possibilities.

1. Is it possible that our coaching staff actually knew that, out of all of that talent currently riding the pines, Stetson Bennett IV was our best QB prior to the start of the season? No. According to the HC, he always plays "the guy who gives us the best chance to win". On Sept. 26th, that guy was D'wan Mathis. This also means that J.T. Daniels was not even a front runner during the fall, especially before Newman quit. (Much was made of Daniels injury - but he was medically cleared PRIOR to the Abuurn game! Was there a healing miracle in the few days after the Arkansas game? I DOUBT it.)

2. Is it possible that Coach Smart is a LIAR? That's a strong word. Especially when you consider that the man makes VERY FEW straight up statements, other than "we play the guy who gives us the best chance to win". I doubt he's a LIAR. I think the next possibility is getting closer to the truth.

3. Is it possible that being a college football head coach is something akin to being a gambling addict? Once you find your lucky rabbit's foot that you associate with a winning streak, it's just really hard to give it up? And in the process, the rabbit's foot gets extra snaps and improves over his fall practice performance, and you fool yourself into thinking he's something more than what you originally thought? And when your mentor Saban TELEGRAPHS the answer to you in an interview with ESPN, that your QB is hobbling your offense, you just can't give him up, because you're still 4-1?

4. Is it possible that, combined with possibility number 3, you have fooled yourself into thinking defense still wins championships, and if you can just keep developing your lucky leprechaun/rabbit's foot, you can still get into the SEC championship game because you think Florida's defense is just that bad? And is it possible that you are going to hang onto that rabbit's foot with all your might until the season is RUINED, because it ain't really over UNTIL it's really over? "Don't switch horses in the middle of the stream", or something like that?

5. Is it possible that college football head coaches don't REALLY know how to evaluate quarterback talent, and that all they really do in the fall is yell and clap their hands like cheerleaders, and draw a name out of a hat to decide who starts the first game? Because I'm still scratching my head over why D'wan started against Arkansas when, clearly, Kirby now thinks Stetson Bennett IV is his best QB.

6. Is it possible that J.T. Daniels, D'wan Mathis, and Carson Beck are going into the transfer portal, considering that they are OBVIOUSLY not going to play this year, and next year Brock Vandagriff will be here? And is it possible that Ohio State is laughing at us yet again, slobbering all over themselves at the possibility of stealing ANOTHER 6 and a half foot tall star QB from us?

I still refuse to believe Stetson Bennett IV, who threw 16 TDs and 14 interceptions in junior college, is our BEST chance to win. He's currently got 7 TDs against 5 INTs. Has he improved since JUCO? No. FACT.

How much development have we done with the other QBs this season?

ZERO. FACT.

I will leave it there for now. I'll say this - Florida is not even CLOSE the best team in our conference this year or next. NOT EVEN CLOSE. And position for position, Georgia has better athletes, except for ONE position. And we ain't making a change there. The Hobbit is still getting the benefit of those wins against rotten football teams.

SMH.

You're saying what a lot of us have been thinking.... There are no logical explanations for the sequence of events that has unfolded this season. Is this offense so complex that the QBs can't learn it..? This would be a real problem. Imagine the WRs trying to learn it...
Or, has the QB talent been vastly over valued...?
Unfortunately, all I have are opinions and suppositions....
Why did Newman really leave...?

We better run the ball like 1980 because we seem to have similar QB play.
Lots of pressure on Trask will be key to slowing down the Gators' offense.

A fugly win would be fine with me.

I'm going to assume Newman left for the reasons stated - He was already ranked as one of the top 3-4 QB's for the next NFL draft, and he decided with COVID that this season just wasn't necessary.

I understand fully there could have been other factors involving the situation here, but I have zero evidence of that. He practiced as the #1, etc

So we went into the Arkansas game with JT supposedly unavailable, but if that was a deception then why make him active before the next game. I'll take the not cleared at face value.. being generous like I am.

I'll even take Beck at face value... he's a freshman and like it or not our HC is wary there. Remember it took him to deep into the 2017 season before he let Fromm use page 2 of the playbook.

So then we are left with Mathis and Bennett as our game 1 options, and I think clearly Mathis has the most raw talent out there and he began ahead of Bennett on the depth chart, so he got the nod. Now I can't prove this, but I think he may have gotten the nod begrudgingly.

Enter "Confirmation Bias".

I think Kirby going back to his own situation as a player has a thing for the Bennett type. As a player, Kirby was undersized and underestimated. Never known as the biggest, fastest, strongest, etc; Kirby was know as someone who succeeded because he was a "competitor".

I think he saw that in Fromm and in Bennett, so when they came in and won games he was eager to hand them the keys. They are his type of guy: Confirmation Bias.

Add that to the fact that Kirby is seemingly bull headed and wants to push back against those that question his approach, and it all seems to add up to what we have seen.

I don't doubt that Kirby thinks Bennett is our best chance to win. I don't doubt that Kirby thinks defense and running are how you can win championships. What I do doubt is the mind set that brings him to those conclusions.

Confirmation bias is generally a negative term, and I think the very top tier of coaches know when to step back from that flaw.

I hope Coach Smart does as well. I hope I am wrong and if I am right I hope he eventually figures it out.

Just beat Florida. Life is better when UGA sweeps the terrible orange teams.