Florida Football: Greg McElory’s view of fans is shortsighted but not wrong

Greg McElroy was a highly mediocre quarterback that happened to be surrounded by top-tier talent during his time at Alabama, so he was basically Stetson Bennett ahead of his time. McElroy has been able to parlay that experience into being a commentator for the SEC, which requires him to talk about Florida football from time to time.

Recently McElroy gave his thoughts about Florida Gator fans and whether they are going to let Billy Napier build his empire or if their impatience is going to stop it in its tracks. While his viewpoint wasn’t wrong, it ignores every other competitive fanbase in the SEC.

Florida Football: Rome wasn’t built in a day

Speaking on his show Always College Football, McElroy gave his thoughts about the 2023 season as it pertains to Florida Football.

"“The team that I’m most concerned about, right now, in the SEC, are the Florida Gators. I think they’re going to be better this upcoming year than they were this past year. The problem is, a lot of their fanbase thinks it’s the Spurrier era, and if they’re not going out winning 10 games and winning every game by 40, then Billy Napier is doing a piss-poor job.”"

He isn’t wrong that Billy Napier was brought in to be a builder, and building takes time. Napier has had 23 guys enter the transfer portal and building the roster back up with quality talent won’t happen overnight. Napier seems to have a bevy of talent coming in via recruiting, minus Jaden Rashada, and the guys he is finding in the transfer portal also seem to be great fits for Florida football.

Truthfully, Florida is being set up to have a breakout season in 2024 if everything goes according to plan. Problem is that he has to navigate 2023, and a third straight 6-6 season (or worse) isn’t going to go over well in Gainesville.

Florida is the fan base that ran Dan Mullen out of town one season after being one game away from the playoffs. Jim McElwain got run after back-to-back SEC title game appearances.

So sure, you can run the narrative that Florida football fans have no patience.

But this is the SEC. Who in the SEC has any level of patience.

LSU won a national title and had a new coach two years later. They were merely copying the blueprint set by Auburn.

Will Muschamp got five years at South Carolina before getting the boot. Jeremy Pruitt got three at Tennessee as did Matt Luke at Ole Miss as did Chad Morris at Arkansas.

Joe Moorhead only got two at Mississippi State.

At lest we forget that Mike Shula went 10-2 at Alabama in 2005. He was replaced by some guy named Nick Saban one season later.

So no, Florida fans are not alone in being impatient even if a deep breath might do all Gator fans some good.