Reasonable Gator

playoffs=tourney

Neil, I can't for the life of me understand why you seem to like Mike White so much. This isn't the only article where you insinuate he was a good coach for the gators and use misleading stats to make your case. White on average won 60% of his games each season and after losing Donovan's players the trend was downward. Anyone who saw the games noticed the quality of play was subpar. Despite high level recruiting, White could not and did not win. Nobody cares how many times he made it to the first round of the playoffs and nobody cares how old he is, what matters is can he consistently win games and win games in the postseason and he couldn't do either for the gators. If the football coach went 8-5 and 7-6 every season you'd want him gone, I don't understand why you seem to believe it is acceptable in basketball. Best of luck to White on the rest of his career, but good riddance.

I wouldn't take high ground on how many years it took UF to win if I was a UGA fan, your program is at least 20 years older than UF's and it took UGA until 2022 to match UF's national championships...

My unsolicited opinion is that NIL enabling this sort of move is ultimately going to prove damaging to college football. The established recruiting powerhouses i.e. Bama, OSU, UGA, etc. aren't going to be affected by this in the slightest. The only programs that will be affected are those that are knocking at the door. I'm all for allowing students to make some money off of their personal brand, but NIL-signing moves like this where FCS teams can flip 5-star commits from contenders are just going to make it easier for the same teams stay in the college football playoff year after year. Hope this sort of thing doesn't become the norm.

Neil, it's hard to tell based on text alone if you're being sarcastic and suggesting that the circumstances are the same with Mike White (if you aren't my apologies). Mike White inherited a program that was already built up. It was a team that just two years prior was in the Final Four and it was a team that less than a decade prior won two national championships. If Mike White was starting from the bottom I would tend to agree with your logic but he isn't starting from the bottom. He started with arguably the second best basketball school in the SEC. Moreover, in Donovan's first 6 years you saw improvement, not regression. Winning percentages for: Year 1 (.433), Year 2 (.483), Year 3 (.710), Year 4 (.783), Year 5 (.744), Year 6 (.710). Mike White's winning percentage: Year 1 (.583), Year 2 (.750 > Donovan's last class), Year 3 (.618), Year 4 (.556), Year 5 (.613), Year 6 (.600). Notice the winning percentage has actually regressed and plateaued at around .061 while Donovan's was significantly higher within the same amount of time. When Mike White got here they called the fans the Rowdy Reptiles, people cared about watching the games. If Stricklin gives him another 5 years with this program nobody will care about basketball when they finally let him go. We will be just another football school. This school had a fairly recent, but firmly-established basketball tradition but the program is quickly losing relevance. And for the record I liked Mike White when he got here, I thought he was a great recruiter with a high basketball IQ, you'd hear him in the huddle sometimes and he's diagnosing the issues pretty thoroughly. But despite that, essentially his entire team transferred out last year and he can't win many games. While I think he's a good guy, I think winning should be more important.

As a Gator I can say that I can't stand Mike White. And while I agree with you that it would be incredibly difficult to top Billy Donovan, I feel like those high standards are not the issue, his lack of success is the problem. Billy Donovan had a .715 winning percentage at Florida and he managed that while building the program up. Mike White inherited a great program and supplemented it with great recruiting but was unable to take advantage of any of it because his players do not seem to get any better and they just flat out don't succeed. His winning percentage at UF despite starting ahead of Donovan in terms of program significance is just .621, and he is 0-6 against in-state rival FSU and 4-8 against conference rival UK. Not to mention he has only made it past the second round in 1 of 4 NCAA tournament appearances (playing Donovan's last class). It's sad to see how much the program has regressed since he took the helm.

You forgot the #1 reason: UF is an absolute mess right now.

The rule further states: Note 1: "Targeting" means that a player takes aim at an opponent for purposes of attacking with forcible contact that goes beyond making a legal tackle or a legal block or playing the ball. Some indicators of targeting include but are not limited to: Launch-a player leaving his feet to attack an opponent by an upward and forward thrust of the body to make forcible contact in the head or neck area ... Leading with helmet, shoulder, forearm, fist, hand or elbow to attack with forcible contact at the head or neck area ... Lowering the head before attacking by initiating forcible contact with the crown of the helmet Note 2: Defenseless player (Rule 2-27-14). When in question, a player is defenseless. Examples of defenseless players include but are not limited to: ... A receiver attempting to catch a forward pass or in position to receive a backward pass, or one who has completed a catch and has not had time to protect himself or has not clearly become a ball carrier. @TDOWTheGreat, which part of the hit wasn't leading with the helmet after the defender lowered his head and why do you think Pitts isn't considered a defenseless receiver? Read the rules before you make an assessment on whether something is legal or not.

Targeting - NCAA Rule Book 2019 Rule 9 - Conduct of Players and Others Subject to the Rules Section 1. Personal Fouls Targeting and Making Forcible Contact With the Crown of the Helmet ARTICLE 3. No player shall target and make forcible contact against an opponent with the crown of his helmet. @TDOWTheGreat, what part of the hit did not fall under this rule?

Is that seriously a quip about your safety's illegal hit on Kyle Pitts that injured him and forced him to stay out of action for weeks or am I reading too much into your comment? If it is about Pitts, that's pretty sick...

@TDOWTheGreat "lucky win over UGA"? UF won by three scores...What are you talking about?

While I agree that UCF regressed somewhat under Heupel following their undefeated season, only UCF fans can call someone a liar and then end their statement with "UCF National Champions", lol.

@LegHumperU Mullen has only been at UF for three seasons, you're comparing four drafts to three drafts. In reality, during the Mullen era Georgia has only had 3 more players drafted than UF, and interestingly enough, the year with the most UGA players drafted was 2021, the draft immediately after they lost to UF. It doesn't really support the UGA argument re: Kirby Smart much that he can "develop talent" when UGA is unable to win with those players. If anything it supports the theory I see posted here from most Gator fans, that Smart is an excellent recruiter but seems to do less with more.

I agree with you on the Bama game, it was a moral victory to play them as well as we did. But when you consider the promising outlook this season had and you compare it to what happened over the last three games, almost a full month of losses, I feel like you can't help but question the coaching staff and team as a whole. I have serious doubts about a coach who does not prepare for a New Years Six bowl game like it is the playoffs. I get that there is going to be a dropoff in excitement and some lack of enthusiasm within the program, but he is getting paid a lot of money to get these kids ready and what it looks like to me, and perhaps a lot of others, is that he made sure his kids played so he could take a bowl game bonus and then half-assed the preparation knowing he wanted to give his second stringers experience and knowing he would be shorthanded. I can even somewhat excuse the horrible performance against Oklahoma if Mullen was willing to own up to it, but his comments postgame were horrific to me. Sure, overall we know it wasn't as competitive because the Gators were missing a combined 8 starters on offense and defense at least, but let the rest of the world blame the loss on those opt-outs. As a head coach you should carry that loss and not give excuses. Calling our players "practice squad guys" is not a good look either, even if it's true. Every single player should be playing to the Gator standard. LSU played UCF a couple years back with virtually no starters and still beat them. It can be done and if it doesn't happen I don't like seeing the finger pointing. Overall I think he is a good coach, although I don't think he will ever win the big one. But, given all of the above happened in just the last few weeks, I am surprised anyone would want him. That was more or less my point.

I am a Mullen fan, albeit a skeptical one, but honestly after the performance the team put up the last 3 games...who in the NFL would hire him? I know I wouldn't.

It's a punter? The top punter in the country is only a 3-star... This guy is the 7th ranked punter in this recruiting class.

You talk a lot of trash on this site for a fan of a team that hasn't won a bowl game since the 2017 season and just lost to an unranked South Carolina at home. You should save your trash talk until after you play LSU.

@UGADAWG78 I honestly thought the talent disparity would be too big for UF from the get-go, UGA has like 15 5-stars compared to Uf's 0 (not including the ineligible Cox). UF got outcoached in that game, but I gotta say, I still think Mullen generally gets more done with less than Kirby Smart (although Mullen has to start getting better at recruiting). The fact of the matter is that you're getting all worked up about how much better UGA is when even with all those mistakes they still only won by a score and when it's all said and done, UGA will likely end up with about the same record/number of losses. I would be incredibly surprised to see anyone in the east take the SEC championship over LSU or Bama.