If one studies the history of Florida Football, coaches like Bob Woodruff, Ray Graves, and Doug Dickey were all given long tenures with the Gators even though they didn't have consistent and meaningful success. Times were different then for a variety of reasons, but at the core, Florida wasn't the national brand it is today.
Starting with Charley Pell, cheating allegations aside, Florida began to show that it too had the potential to be a national power. Ever since, the standard in Gainesville has been to win or clean out your office.
So it is maddening that the current administration wants everyone to believe that losing 49-17 to Texas is no big deal and that we are the crazy ones for suggesting this blowout wasn't an accident.
Florida Football: Free Falling
If you look up the term gaslighting in a dictionary, it states to manipulate someone using psychological methods into questioning their own sanity or powers of reasoning.
It ties into what we had written after the loss to Texas A&M:
"The conundrum Gator fans find themselves in is wanting to support a team that continues to refuse to support them back. Last week, the University of Florida tried to block off tailgating sections that fans have been using for decades. Despite another sell-out on Saturday, the university is hell-bent on reducing capacity in The Swamp. Florida has the 12th best roster in the country according to 247 Sports, but are told to keep donating money to Florida Victorious for anything to get better."
As the 2024 campaign has progressed, Florida has continued to gaslight fans into thinking that going 15-19 over the last three years is normal, that being 4-10 over the last 14 games is no big deal, and that we as fans need to rally around Napier if anything is going to get better.
One of the justifications for keeping Napier into the 2025 campaign is that Florida intends to spend the money that would have been used on a buyout and will instead get used on the transfer portal once schools can directly pay players rather than relying on a NIL collective.
It sounds great until one realizes that every other school in the country that isn't spending buyout money will also be able to match whatever the Gators want to spend.
It also hints that the sole reason Napier isn't getting fired is because of his buyout. Scott Stricklin can try to sell a narrative of how the Gators are playing hard and the team hasn't quit, but the truth is he negotiated a contract with no safeguards to it if things went south.
So rather than just admitting that 15-19 over three seasons isn't good enough, we are made to believe that things would get better if we stopped pointing out that Napier is 15-19.
Saturday was the 7th loss by at least 17 points in the Billy Napier Era. Even Ron Zook only had five losses by that margin.
And as Florida descends into being a national laughing stock, the powers that be want us to just smile and nod and act like everything is fine.