Man, I chose the worst time to start blogging...

...in a good way, at least.

It's easy to say something when there's a problem. As a blogger, you can pick nits, you can say "we shouldn't be doing this", or "we should be doing that better". Criticism is easy to make sound insightful.

How the hell am I supposed to say anything that provides insight, when all that's happening is a parade of blowouts? I mean, even the worst game all season, Ole Miss, it looked like EVERYTHING went wrong. Before then, we were playing not to lose, and it was showing. We were stiff, our explosive offense wasn't making plays like it normally does, our defense was still young and nervous, occasionally giving up the big play, but you could tell all the pieces were there.

Since then... I don't know, do you criticize the fairly odd number of fumbles we've been having? The penalties? Neither one seems like a detriment (Especially penalty yards, which is associated with winning).

I mean, Kentucky and South Carolina both had amazing defenses before we faced them, and we hung up 119 points between the two. Since the loss, the score has been 299-63, an average margin of victory of 50-10. On the season, we're 441-112, an average margin of victory of 44-11. In the SEC.

What do you criticize?

I guess I should complain that eventually, Demps, Rainey, Harvin, Tebow, and James will have to leave. And those will be sad, sad days.

Thoughts on Georgia

Job search has been taxing, but it seems to be winding down, so hopefully I can find some more time to post more consistantly in the future.

On last year:

It's probably a bit late to be believed by the Georgia fans among us, but I never really was all that upset by "The Celebration". Furthermore, I believe Richt when he says he only meant for the 11 guys on the field to celebrate. Richt is a class act (Aside from being a Bulldog, natch), and I don't think he would go all "Evil Richt" intentionally.

That said, I think it was a mistake still. Georgia had an explosive offense, and a good defense. Florida had a wounded QB, a one-dimensional offense with Tebow restricted to the throw, and a secondary that got lit up like flash paper. Georgia was going to win the game 9 times out of 10. Asking for an intentional celebration penalty is stupid for a couple reasons: one, it's still a penalty. You can find other ways of motivating your team that don't give up yardage, and promote undisciplined behavior. Two, you don't know how Florida is going to react. It may motivate Georgia, but is certainly going to rile Florida (Doubly so since the sideline rushed). It put the hate back in the rivalry that was missing for years. Georgia could have won a few more before Florida looked at it as a serious rivalry again. And three, it sends the wrong message, to fans and foes alike. It says "I didn't expect to score on quite possibly the worst defense in the SEC". There's no other way to take it, and there's no good that can come of that in the long run.

On this year:

I've seen Georgia fans who said that the first half didn't seem like they were outplayed. Fact remains: Florida had 25 plays, and scored twice. And some of those plays were Meyer burning down the clock at the end of the half. Georgia had three trips to the red zone, and ended wide left, score, and doink the post. After the first conservative drive by Florida which seemed to be sniffing out Georgia's defense, Georgia didn't stop Florida. Georgia, on the other hand, couldn't seem to capitalize on the trips to the red zone. Charlie Strong's tactic of stopping the run and letting the occasional big play worked. Georgia switched to the big throws in the second half, and while it led to some pretty impressive plays, it also led to some game-killing turn overs for the Puppies.

I've seen Georgia fans who claim it was bad officiating. Certainly there were some untimely penalties, but Florida was actually more penalized than Georgia. The penalties just came at less damaging times. Georgia dug its own grave with penalties.

I've seen Georgia fans who have pretty brutally criticised Richt for the onside kick call... while I wouldn't have made that call, I can see where he was coming from. He saw momentum running away, he saw Georgia players tightening up, and Brandon James returns the ball so well anyway, why not take a risk? Well as we saw, you don't because if it fails, it sends a message of desperation. If it fails, and the Gators score, the momentum is squarely with the Gators. Still, Richt saw the writing on the wall, and decided to roll the dice, he shouldn't be held to the fire for taking a chance.

I've seen Georgia fans who think that the bulldogs gave up in the second half... which is false-ish. I think that the talk of last year's celebration for a week may have fired up the Gators, but more importantly it made the Bulldogs nervous. Richt was playing to win until the onside kick, but after that, Georgia noticibly stiffened, and was playing not to lose... something you can't do against the gators.

As for the Gators:

Seriously, how many offensive schemes can we RUN out of the spread? We run the veer, the triple option, the west coast... How do you stop that? Stop the run, and we punish you with long, efficient throws. Play prevent, you're killed with a brutal running game that can come from any direction, even when we're five-wide... go blitz happy, and we go wide-splits, and our recievers turn those three yard completions into fifteen yard gains with frightening regularity.

Want to make it a shootout? Our defense is improved enough that even a good offense has trouble keeping up.

And that's discounting our special teams, which are probably the best in the college football.

As much as I hate the talking heads babbling on about which teams is "playing the best in the country"... I can't really disagree with them. If Florida makes that extra point, or that fourth-down conversion against Ole Miss... all else the same, how are we NOT ranked number one at this point?

But I digress. If Tebow returns next year, even losing Harvin, how are we not ranked #1 preseason? We return our entire defense, and a good chunk of our offensive production...

Revenge of the Lesticles

I'll keep this brief.

1) Our offense. They showed up, finally, thus confirming my belief that the offense until now seemed to be running a limited form of the offense.
2) Our defense. They stepped up, proving they're legit.

Also... man, how many recieving threats can one team HAVE? I mean: Jeff Demps, Chris Rainey, Carl Moore, Deonte Thompson, Louis Murphy, Aaron Hernandez, Riley Cooper? Oh, or that Percy Harvin guy you may have heard about...

And you thought last year's Tebow-Harvin show wasn't fair...

The big question after games like this:

Is UF really the nigh-unstoppable beast they appeared (Thus making Ole Miss even MORE bizzare), or is LSU overrated from not having played anybody? My instinct says the former, but with LSU's marquee victory being against Auburn, and looking less and less impressive as the weeks go by, perhaps the latter.

CATCHUP!

Sorry for the lack of updates, to the one person who actually reads this! Job hunting has left me with no money, little free time, and a boat load of stress...

So! Thoughts!

Ole Miss game: Our offense actually looked good, for the most part. It still lacked explosiveness, but it showed that Chris Rainey and Jeff Demps have serious futures, just lacking rhythm it seemed. The defense at times, however, looked like it regressed to where it was last year, which is to say: horrid. It practically handed those big plays thanks to blown coverages. Major Wright is a serious hitter, and is shaping up to be a major NFL draftee, but he's not there yet.

Arkansas: Towards the end, it looked like the offense found a rythm, even if it was against Arkansas. I still think there are a good number of packages that Meyer hasn't rolled out, waiting for a big game, but we'll see this week. The defense looked solid again, but with Ole Miss blasting it apart, is that illusion, or was last week the anomaly?

Upcoming:

LSU: A mystery. They've played just as many people as we have. Is their defense really that good? Can our defense stand up to a real rushing game?

I think the answer is yes to both, predict a narrow win for the Gators.

Thanks for the memories, Phil

At the hands of the 30-6 crushing of the Volunteers, a lot of people are calling for Fulmer's head. And I can't say that I blame them, as Fulmer looked almost as bad as West Virginia's Bill Stewart did against Colorado, just swap crying with some fine hat work.

And while the loss, in some ways, wasn't nearly as bad as it looked, in other ways, it was far worse. Florida's offense was outgained, but that's because Brandon James had two monster returns, one for a touchdown. And it's not like Phil didn't have warning that we had James... he returned one for six last year too... and would have the year before if it weren't for a close block-in-the-back penalty. It's hard to crow about outgaining on the other team, when they only have to punt once. For most of the second half, Florida wasn't even trying to score, as much as they were just trying to eat the clock (Putting on my partisan Florida hat for a second: Thank god... we finally got a good look at Moody, and he looks every bit as good as advertised). The worst bit for Tennessee has to be that even the Fulmer-faithful can now see that Phil just isn't cutting it anymore. As a Florida fan, I'm happy to go against good ole' Phil as long as you want to throw him at us. As a college football fan, though, it's sad to see one of the best inter-state rivalries in college football fall to this, and I'd at least like to see Tennessee come back to relevance, at least.

As far as Florida's performance goes;

The offence looked flat again, like they did against Miami, but at least this time they had an excuse: they didn't NEED to explode. Why bother wasting clever packages and schemes when you're up 17-0 in the first? And when you get in such great field position, so consistently, why bother going for the throat when you can just stand back and watching them self destruct? Harvin and Tebow looked just like they did last year, albeit with far fewer plays, and Moody looks like the answer to all our running back woes. All in all, I don't think the lack of offense in the first half was a result of really having no chance to make plays, and the lack of offense in the second was more Meyer just slowly and deliberately eating the clock, both of which while good, still leave a question mark on just how the hell you arrange all that talent, which is an entirely pleasant question to be left with.

The defense on the other hand looked impressive again. Aside from Foster getting a few good runs against us, the Vols just couldn't seem to put together anything consistent. While it's not clear how much of that was the Vols offense being bad, and how much is our defense returning to usual form, a quick channel change to Da U vs Texas A&M shows their running backs in significantly better form, and a quarterback who doesn't look nearly as incompetent as he looked against UF, giving me hope our defense is at least closer to the dominant force it was in 2006.

Special teams, of course, deserves its own section, because unlike the other two aspects of the Gators team, there's no question about it. The special teams unit deserves every bit the praise it has gotten thus far and more. The amazing field position that special teams has given us so far this year has meant our offense has barely played this year, and that's after three games.

Most exciting of all, though, is Moody. A real, honest to god running back means that Meyer finally has all the pieces he needs to run the offense the way he wants to, and a quarterback that can survive the season without, say, oh, I don't know, a bruised shoulder and broken non-throwing hand.

Class or: how I learned to stop being polite and blame the BCS

Last week's game against Miami was rather cathartic for us Gator fans. Having not won against them since '85, and 6 losses in the 23 years (Although three of those were against [Coach Redacted]. So, you know, that's not saying much), it was good to 'exorcize the demons', so to speak. Of course, the two and a half quarters of offensive misery was a bit worrisome, but it's good to see our defence isn't the source of unadulterated disaster like it was last year. Overall, it was a pretty decent slugfest, one where our defense proved solid, and Miami's defense proved amazing until they just ran out of depth.

Unfortunately, people won't stop talking about the field goal kicked at the end. Randy Shannon said of it "Sometimes when you do things, and people see what type of person you really are, you turn a lot of people off.". Hey, sure, let me know how running up the score on Charleston Southern went for you then. Of course, Warren Sapp was a bit less obscure... he just out called Urban Meyer a 'classless dirtbag'. Thank you sir, after your little incident with Chad Clifton, I'll happily take that as a compliment.

Was it a 'classy' thing to do? Of course not. The game was in hand. The starters were in. But look at Meyer's options. The offense looked horrible for most of the game, and poll voters are all too happy to penalize a team which doesn't make the highlight reels. A box score showing you don't beat the spread, and you weren't as good as they thought they were. Oh, and your field goal kicker hadn't kicked a field goal yet in either game. But was it 'classless'? Nope. But hey, if you Miami fans want to call it 'running up the score' and 'classless', I'd like you to explain how 2002 was any different, and why your repeated touchdowns late in the game were somehow less egregious than one field goal.

Ha ha, just kidding, I know you can't. Don't worry, I'm not calling you to task for 2002. That was [Coach Redacted], anyway. But running up the score post-1998 can't be held against anybody. Why 1998? Because that's when our good friend, the BCS came into being.

So, what is still 'classless'? Well, I'd argue picking a fight with an in-state rival on the field would count. Logo stomping (Yes, I'm aware the Gators have done this too, the examples I can think of happened under [Coach Redacted], but it's classless whenever it's done, period) is up there. Georgia's bench-clearing touchdown last year is up there. Both trying to run out the clock to prevent an offensive player from setting a record, and letting another team score to get that offensive player the record by very publicly 'playing dead' would count (Gator Flop).

Whats my point? Mainly that every team has its examples of poor sportsmanship in its history, that running up the score isn't poor sportsmanship in this beauty pagent era of college football, and especially that Miami crying fowl over running up the score is like the pot calling the kettle black.

Greetings!

Scene:

September 29th, 2007, approximately 11pm.

In a drunken stupor, I lie in the backyard, stunned that Auburn found a way to beat us. Again. Struggling to think of something, I think of anything but the game. Blogging! That bastard Orson Swindle, total hack! I can write better than him! Well, almost as good! Okay, I WRITE THE SAME LANGUAGE! That blogging thing, indeed. I shall start my own blog!

Fast forward 6 hours later, 5 in the morning, floating in the pool. The idea is dismissed for being idiotic.

But hark! Sunday Morning Quarterback sold out, leaving an opening in the blogosphere!

So, doing my best to mimic SMQ, Saurian Sagacity, and Every Day Should Be Saturday, I will do my best to occasionally not suck.

So here, I solemnly swear that at least once this season, I will seriously consider writing something that follows through on that. Maybe.