10/7/2011 football Edit

Florida Football Approval Ratings

Inside the Gators Staff

Publisher

On four separate occasions so far this season Inside the Gators has posted a link so that subscribers to the site could share their thoughts on Florida Football. For each question, respondents had four different choices, Strongly Approve, Approve, Disapprove and Strongly Disapprove.

* The first poll was run the week after the season opening win over Florida Atlantic.

* The second poll was taken after the second game of the season, the win over Alabama Birmingham.

* The third poll was taken after the win over Tennessee.

* And finally, the fourth poll was taken after the loss to Alabama.

This is in no way, shape or form to be viewed as a scientific poll or a comprehensive look at how the Gator Nation views Florida football, its players and coaches.

It is simply a fun look at how attitudes and outlooks change over the course of a football season.

COMMENT: John BrantleyClick COMMENT: There was no doubt Dan QuinnClick COMMENT: Charlie WeisClick COMMENT: Despite the sharp drop in his strongly approve rating after the loss to Alabama - 95% of the respondents still approve of the job Will MuschampClick Below are the results.Here to view this Link. is doing as the UF head coach.Here to view this Link.' strongly approve ratings have been in a slide all year, but like Muschamp above, it isn't as though those people now disapprove of the job he is doing, he is still at a 96% overall approval rating. Though the fan base is still happy with his performance, they just are quite as happy.Here to view this Link.'s rating would take a dive after the way Alabama manhandled the Gators up front, but to drop 32% points from his strongly approve rating and see his disapprove numbers go from 0 to 17% was a pretty significant hit.Here to view this Link., a long time whipping boy for the fan base (as evidenced by his strongly approve rating starting out at 7%), interestingly enough saw a jump in both strongly approve and strongly disapprove after his best game as a Gator starter this past weekend. The most interesting aspect of the entire poll was Brantley receiving his first strongly disapprove votes of the year, despite his best outing ever.

COMMENT: The bad news is the running back group shed 63% points off of their strongly approve rating after a horrendous outing against Alabama. The good news for them, the Gator Nation didn't completely abandon the unit, shifting most of those votes to the approve column rather than the two disapprove columns (though their disapproval rating shot up a combined 10% points).

COMMENT: The opinions of this group, which many thought might be a strong point on the offense, was in steady decline before they finally stepped up in the loss to Alabama.

COMMENT: After getting manhandled by Alabama, the disapprove rating shot up 36% points. Strongly approve is down to 5%. The good news for them, if you want to call it that, is that they never really had very strongly approve ratings to begin with.

COMMENT: No surprises here, much like the offensive line above, they took a huge hit after the Alabama game. However, unlike the offensive line, the defensive line's strongly approve rating was sky high to start the season. That happens when you have a line stocked with five-star prospects. Unfortunately for Florida, they didn't look the part last Saturday.

COMMENT: Strangely enough (because of the youth and lack of experience among the back seven), this group has been viewed most consistently by the fan base. Normally, because of their youth and inexperience, you would expect their performance, thus their rating, to fluctuate wildly.

COMMENT: The strongly approve took a dip, but still 88% of you still feel good about the Gators football team as a whole right now.

CHECK IN THE ALLEY FOR A PUSHPINNED THREAD IF YOU WISH TO TAKE PART IN THE POLL AFTER THE LSU CONTEST.