I think the truth, in almost all aspects of life, usually lies somewhere in the middle. But I do think there are very valid discussion points if you wanted to go full, 100% sunshine pumper or full, 100% mope. So, as we close the regular season in 2024, and year 3 of Mario's regime, where do you stand in terms of this season, and the direction of the program? I tried to lay out some bullet points as far as what I feel would be optimism and pessimism around the program. So what do you think? Is the glass half-full, or half-empty?
Because I try to be an optimistic person in life (being miserable and negative all the time is legitimately bad for your health, by the way), let's start there:
- We finished the season 10-2. Bottom line, many people say you are what your record says you are, so we are 10-2. Mario won 5 games in Year 1, 7 games in Year 2, and 10 games in Year 3. That is CLEAR and obvious progression.
- We absolutely smashed UiF and FSU this year. We had lost to FSU 3 years in a row, one of those years losing 45-3. We beat the 2 of them by a combined score of 77-31, and 14 of those points surrendered with in total garbage time with kids pulled from the stands playing. We have to feel good about being clearly ahead of both of those programs currently, and yes I'm aware of what UiF is doing currently. I don't care. Being in that stadium on 8/31 in the middle of the bull gator section was genuinely one of the best days of my life, and I'll remember it forever.
- The old Bobby Bowden adage when he was building a program was "First you lose big, then you lose small, then you win small, then you win big". In 2022, we lost big. In 2023, we lost small. In 2024, we won small, sort of. 10 wins overall, but pulled some out by the skin of our *** (Cal, VT). Can we parlay this into winning big in 2025?
- We had the #1 offense in America by MANY metrics. One of the mope points about Mario was that he was a QB killer. He "meddled" in the offense (ridiculous, but I digress). He was a caveman. All of those narratives were crushed this season. Cam Ward will be in NYC in 12 days for a Heisman presentation. Our offense was high-flying, big play, anything but "Bro-style". We should be able to convince a very good quarterback to come here, both in HS recruiting and in the portal.
- We have recruited the best back to back classes in program history, or at least close to it, at worst. The close of 2025 is still up in the air, but Mario's 2023 and 2024 classes were EXCELLENT, and we should have a solid backbone of good players going forward.
- Mario's gameday coaching was, to me, very much improved this year. I know the FG decision on Saturday was ridiculed, and likely deservedly so, but I thought he was MUCH more aggressive than ever before. He went for it on 4th and 1 multiple times deep in our own territory, something he'd have NEVER done in his Oregon tenure, no matter what. There were very few completely egregious time management errors like there have been in the past. We still use timeouts at times when we shouldn't, but I didn't think his overall gameday performances were as deplorable as years past. He's never going to be great here, we just need him to not cost us games, and I didn't think he did. Again, for me personally, I like my coaches to be aggressive. If you die with the pedal down, I can live with that. Just don't be clueless or scared. I didn't think he was this year, which was a very welcomed change. He's clearly learning/adapting.
- I thought the overall coaching on offense was very good. Think back to years past, and then this year. We had very few botched snaps, illegal formations, broken plays with guys going the wrong way, confusion, general unpreparedness. Was it 2022 when we had the 2 guys smash into each other in the backfield and they tackles themselves for about a 10 yard loss? That **** is embarrassing. I thought the operation was much more efficient. The kicking game was flawless. Very few pre-snap penalties on offense. We were heavily penalized overall, but I thought most of them were at least aggressive and not braindead (except for how we ended the Syracuse game, with 2 lobotomy patients getting an unsportsmanlike and offsides).
- At the end of the day, the team is significantly better today than it was when he got here. Not good enough, but it's absolutely improved. When we stop improving, I think it's time for panic. We went from 5 to 7 to 10 wins. That's improvement. Now where do we go from here?
I can list a few more things, but I think this is a good overarching, macro start. Let's move on to things that I think we can point to if we want to have pessimism and look at the glass as half-empty
- We still didn't win the ACC, something we've never done in 20 years, and we didn't even make the championship game. Again.
- We lost 2 more games as double-digit favorites, and Mario has now done that 5 times in his career here, more than any other program in America. We are 4-9 in November/December since 2022. This has been a Mario bug-a-boo for a while, losing games as a big favorite, and he did it twice again this year, to GT and Syracuse. Both were one-score games on the road, but the point remains.
- The defense was....holy christ I can't even describe it accurately. The worst we have had here in a LONG time, and is beyond any comprehension. This was a capital F failure, in permanent ink. It starts with Mario...being this devoid of talent, especially in the back 7, in Year 3 is completely unacceptable. But, in line with the same discussion we've had here for YEARS now, yes the talent is not great, but it's certainly better than "worst in the conference", which is absolutely a discussion. So, Mario and his staff failed the talent acquisition piece. And then Guidry and his staff took the talent they do have and completely diarrhea'd in the bed with it. If we just have an average defense, this is likely a 12-0 team. Just average. If you pair the ~50th best defense in America with the #1 offense, you have a really good team. Our defense is markedly worse, and it's going to cause us to waste the best offense we've ever had. Guidry will clearly be fired, and deservedly so. I can't really justify anyone on that side of the ball keeping their jobs, but of course he's not going to fire every single defensive coach. But being THAT bad is absolutely a fireable offense, and Guidry will be packing his bags soon, along with at least 1-2 other coaches on defense.
- Special teams sucked ***, again. Borregales is a pure stud, but we have nobody to return kicks, nobody to return punts, and we can't cover a kickoff to save our lives. Totally unacceptable at a school like this with what should be a roster full of elite athletes. Hire a full-time special teams coach, yesterday.
- More on the defense, and as I lauded the offensive coaching above, I need to blast the defensive preparation. We looked like we didn't even practice on defense in the beginning of games. Way too often we heard "they did something they hadn't shown before". Bull****. How bout we show something we haven't ever shown? Why are we always the one on our heels to start games? Plus the communication in games was beyond dog ****, every single week. Multiple plays every single game where nobody has any idea what they're doing, and the offense has our kid's brains in a blender. Unacceptable.
- We continue to be a punching bag for other teams to do things they've never done in their history. GT has been playing football since the 1800s. They had the 2nd longest drive they've ever had in their history against us. Syracuse has never come from 21 points behind to win a game in their history. They did it to us.
- We went "all-in" on this season, with a multi-million dollar quarterback and a ~$20M roster, and still couldn't win the ACC. We expect to still be a big player in the NIL game, and I trust Mario and his staff to recruit, but this was Year 3, with your nuts on the table from a financial standpoint. And we still didn't get it done.
Overall, to me, all summer I said 10-2 or bust. I started to move really towards 11-1 once the roster finalized and I looked deeply at the schedule. But I had a few goals:
1. Win 10+ games.....check
2. Beat the gator and fsu.....check
3. Win the ACC......nope
4. Make the playoff......likely nope
So, all in all, when I step back and really digest this thing, I'm going to be somewhat torn, I think. I'm happy with the progress. I had a TON of fun the past 3 months. But, we wasted another opportunity, and I'm not entirely sure where we go from here. With recruiting the way it's been, we should have a really talented team next year, and we're going to be aggressive in the portal. But we're going to be hiring a new DC, and that will likely cost us some defensive recruits for this class.
What did I miss? Let me know what you guys think that are making you feel somewhat optimistic and/or pessimistic both about this season, and the future.
