Difference between last year and 2020 season comes down to 3 basic additions/corrections:
- Offensive coordinator
- Quarterback
- Placekicker
Nothing more needs to be said.
Last year was a very flawed team, and we're improved this year but it's not a great team yet either. However, your points are 100% correct and even more, just bullet #3 would have made a difference in the perception of the team last year. Again, just adding a kicker doesn't take you from a bad team to a good team. But...
- We 100000000% beat the gator if Borregales is the kicker last season. One million percent. Now, to what I've been saying, just his right foot doesn't make the entire team THAT much better. We did not deserve to win the gator game last year, but we would have if Andres was here instead of Baxa. So it's one of those deals where we certainly weren't a better team than they were, but on that one weird Saturday night, we'd have beaten them with Borregales on the roster and Baxa off, and all other things remaining the same. If we actually win that game, how does the rest of the season go?
- We most likely win the UNC game if Borregales is the kicker last season. We actually had a higher win percentage in that game than they did as it was, and Baxa did make a 50 yarder, but he missed a chip shot, Manny went for it on 4th down on the first drive of the 2nd half instead of taking the FG, and we all know Baxa missed the 49 yarder to tie the game at the end.
- I won't say we'd have won the VT game, because when you start a football game with 4 straight turnovers, you deserve to lose. But that missed XP when we could have taken the lead just deflated the entire team. Again, no excuse. You have to get your defense right to go back on the field and get a stop. But that was such a deflating, "here we go again" type play. So I'm not going to say it was on the kicker, but I'd have loved to have seen how the defense came onto the field had the game been 36-35 instead of 35-35.
- Georgia Tech...do I really even have to say anything? If we had a kicker from any high school in Dade or Broward county, we win that game. We missed a 34 yarder in the first half, we punted from the GT 36 in the 2nd half, we missed a 27 yarder in the 2nd half, and we missed a 25 yarder at the end of regulation that would have won the game. Give me a ******* break.
Now, maybe this was all a blessing in disguise. We got Lashlee this year, we got King, etc. One could make this argument. And again, I am NOT saying that the team would have been so much better with a competent kicker. We still were a poor team overall. But at the end of the day, you are what your record says you are. And Borregales on this roster last year makes a 6-6 regular season become 9-3 overnight. Poof, just like that. One kid. And not to go full butterfly effect here, but if we start off with wins against the gator and UNC, which we would have FOR A FACT if we had the kicker we do now, does the season really go fully off the rails in November? Do the kids quit? Does the offensive staff pack it in? We'll never know. But what I do know is poor placekicking cost this football team MULTIPLE games last year. Bar none.