Why I still hate Zook
The Kool-Aid drinkers often ask me in the comments why I am obsessed with moRon Zook. After all, he has been gone for four years now and is someone else's problem now. There are three basic answers to that. They are:
1. He made my life miserable for three years. Watching the football program at my alma mater begin to disintegrate was torture for me. When I entered the University of Florida as a Freshman in the late 80s there wasn't much to cheer for except Emmitt Smith. Then we turned the corner under Steve Spurrier. A winning tradition was established at Florida. Then Ron Zook came along and almost single-handedly destroyed it. His tenure was an unmitigated disaster.
2. He won't shut up about how "unfairly" he was treated by the fans. He points to the creation of fireronzook.com as an example. Well he could have taken care of FRZ very easily. All he had to do was WIN. Then we would have had to shut the fuck up. I would have been ecstatic. But no. When the Gators won the BCS Championship in 2006 Ron Zook made the claim that he would have won it too, and perhaps even earlier. That would mean that Ron Zook would have had to win a championship in 2005. That was a team that Urban Meyer (who now has two of those BCS championships under his belt) went 9-3 with. That 9-3 record was better than any year Zook has had as a head coach to date, including last year's "Rose Bowl Team".
3. I keep finding out little things about how the program was under Zook that infuriate me. Like how he basically abandoned Jarvis Moss. I recently read Buddy Martin's book "Urban's Way" and you get a lot of hints about how the Gators Meyer inherited from Zook were in many ways bad characters. Meyer was able to reach some of them and others, not so much. But by talking about how players responded with disbelief to some of the policies and discipline instilled by Meyer we gain insight into how poorly Zook had managed his job as coach. After winning the BCS Championship last Thursday Meyer said that the 2006 team was a good team but that at that time is was a bad program. Another veiled insinuation that UF football was a mess when Urban Meyer arrived.
In the vein of number 3 above, I found this article today very interesting. Here's what I mean:
Tim Tebow is coming back.Read between the lines. Zook recruited a bunch of guys who only cared about the NFL. Of course many of them didn't know what it was like to win big time in college, so who can blame them?
But what about Florida's two other juniors who are considering leaving for the NFL?
Linebacker Brandon Spikes and receiver Percy Harvin have yet to announce their decisions, and UF coach Urban Meyer said Sunday he's not sure what either is going to do.
"The good thing about these guys, you're talking about quality families and you're talking about educated guys," Meyer said. "Four years ago, if you asked me that, I had no idea. I wasn't involved. There were some people that shouldn't be involved. Some making horrible decisions. I don't blame them. I didn't recruit them. I didn't know them. They weren't my people. You would think after a while, I'd be their coach, but that didn't happen.
"These guys will make the right decision."
So as long as I have something to say about moRon, I'll be here saying it.
Have a nice day.
