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.