Greg: There’s a big difference between a disappointing season and a “lost” season.
Right now, UF’s is definitely the former. But a respectable finish, a winning record and a bowl game are all still attainable.
The Gators have lost four games against ranked teams without their starting quarterback. With John Brantley back in the fold, they could conceivably win out and end the year nationally ranked.
Last season, seven teams with four or more losses finished in the top 25, and only one of them could boast that it faced a pair of top-five opponents.
The Gators may not win the Southeastern Conference, but their finish still matters to fans, boosters, recruits and, more importantly, the team itself.
That’s why UF needs to keep playing its best players. The time for the freshmen to take over isn’t upon us just yet.
Tom: Hold on a minute, Greg. A trip to the TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl (which is where Florida will likely end up if it becomes bowl eligible) and a .500 record in the SEC for the second straight year (if UF wins out) is “respectable” — if you’re a program like Vandy.
But Florida isn’t Vandy. Florida is Florida, and this season went from disappointing to lost last weekend in Jacksonville, when the Gators’ chances of a division title went out the window.
Florida’s depth has been thin all year, and it hasn’t helped the team one bit. So why not dip into the reserves and get some more of those freshmen — you know, the ones that were a part of the nation’s 12th-ranked recruiting class, according to Rivals.com — in the mix and have this team better prepared for next season, when Florida will have a clean slate?
Greg: If those freshmen were ready, they’d be showing it in practice. And if they were showing it in practice, they’d be on the field.
But they aren’t, so they’ll continue to sit the bench. And if you think it’s disappointing when the No. 12 recruiting class can’t earn playing time, watch what happens when next year’s recruiting class is ranked in the fifties because nobody wants to play for a certifiably insane maniac who went 5-7 in his first year as a head coach because he tried to get freshmen more time.
This isn’t the pros. Tanking won’t earn UF a better draft pick. The only way to add talent is to recruit it, and the only way to recruit it is to win.
By no means will this team be up to Florida’s lofty standards, but it can still avoid outright embarrassment.
Tom: Just to be clear, 10 of the 19 signees from Florida’s class from February have seen significant action, whether it’s offense, defense or special teams. Two of the other nine players who signed transferred before the season, and another one is out with a season-ending injury. That’s 10 of 16 true freshmen playing so far this season.
It’s not outrageous to propose that those freshmen get more time on offense and defense
Will Muschamp has been high on Louchiez Purifoy and Graham Stewart on defense, and it isn’t going to hurt the SEC’s youngest defense (2.36 average years of experience) to get those two into the mix.
On offense, the Gators’ receiving corps has been bad. Most notably, there is no big, possession receiver. Why not get Ja’Juan Story in there? The kid is 2 inches taller than any of the four wide outs in Florida’s rotation. The Gators could use that size on offense.
Greg: You can’t bench people just because younger options could potentially be better, especially if the newcomers haven’t shown anything that would lead you to believe that’s the case.
Deonte Thompson has put five years of hard, albeit unspectacular, work into this program and if he’s the best wide receiver on the roster he shouldn’t be benched for a guy like Story just because Story is young and tall.
What kind of a message does that send to current and future Gators? “No matter how well you play in practice and how good you are compared to the rest of the guys at your position, we might bench you just because we feel like it.”
There’s something to be said for fairness and loyalty.
Tom: You’re right, you can’t bench people because younger options could be better. However, you can bench people for not producing, and there are plenty of guys on this team who aren’t carrying their share.
I don’t know about how they do things in Connecticut, but where I’m from, if you aren’t producing, you aren’t playing.
Besides, I’m not calling for Muschamp and Co. to bench everyone; all I’m saying is Florida needs to let some of the younger guys see the field, burned redshirts be damned, because this season hasn’t, and won’t be, a successful one.
Contact Greg Luca at gluca@alligator.org and Tom Green at tgreen@alligator.org.
