Who Lied To Who in The Florida Coaches Meeting?

If you're a Gator fan like me, you're probably still slack-jawed following yesterday's opening performance against Miami of Ohio. In my mind, it's inconceivable how a coach, or even worse, how a group of coaches, could allow a talented group of kids to show up in the state of unpreparedness as Florida's coaching staff did last Saturday in the Swamp.

The talent is there, the coaching is not. Simply put, these kids weren't coached up. Can you imagine a Nick Saban team looking as bad as Florida did on an opening Saturday? No way in hell. Our players missed snap counts, assignments, fundamentals, and a good offensive coordinator to ease them into the game with great play calling.

The defense, who I was ready to write this article about, played admirably. The offense, led by Steve Addazio was inept, overrated, and under the impression that they were actually game ready. They weren't. The question is, who else thought they were game ready?

Did Meyer think they were game ready? Did Addazio think they were ready? Or did these guys really know what was about to happen? The fact is, somebody lied to somebody about who was ready and who was not ready to play. Which morphs the previous question into: is Urban Meyer hands on with his offense or is he allowing Steve Addazio full rein?

In my opinion, the UF offense hasn't been the same since Dan Mullen left for Mississippi State. Last year's offense had as much talent as the year before but paled in comparison. The difference is the offensive coordinators, NOT the talent level. Since Coach Mullen left the play-calling has been clunky and predictable, and the offensive line has been questionable. All Steve Addazio's responsibility.

My fear is that Meyer's past successes as a head coach may have been directly dependent on Dan Mullen's ability to handle the offense for him, in its entirety leaving coach Meyer with less stress and more time to focus on other administrative issues.

Since Addazio, Meyer is more stressed, almost to the point of quitting, and the offense has been anemic at best. I believe that Urban is, or has, tried to give Addazio the same free reign that he gave Dan Mullen and it has backfired in his face. Furthermore, I believe that Addazio is the one who led Meyer to believe that his offense was ready, and naively, Meyer took his word.

Coach Meyer needs to tighten his grip on Addazio and start coaching him up. Addazio may have experience, and he may be a good position coach, but he's no Dan Mullen.