GameDay: "Mizzou vs Florida in the Swamp" Saturday Nov.3 (Noon Eastern)

[DRU2012]

Guess I'll wrap it with this: Don't feel nearly as bad as last week--we didn't play better offense so much as eliminated most of the turnovers against a team that wasn't as good as LAST week's opponent in the first place, which in and of itself was probably enough to get us the win--and as everyone else seems to have already agreed, I too have resignedly come around to "a Win is a Win is a Win ANYWAY here in the SEC..."
Still, FAR from impressive, or even "acceptable improvement", let alone the kind of catharsis that helps THE PLAYERS move on...and THAT'S a problem: we need to find out about all those recurred-injuries, get as many as possible (including the "walking HAZY", recovering from the Flu, as well as the "Walking Wounded" ) back up to game-ready by next Sat., and hope there is SOME shift in approach to Offensive Game planning once they have some idea of where things stand in THAT regard--and don't think for a MOMENT that our next opponent, Louisiana Lafayette is going to be ANY kind of "Pushover"--I came into the post-SEC portion of our schedule figuring they were the toughest of challenges before getting to FSU at the end--NOT Mizzou! Neither want to get all that into it here NOR possibly oversell them at this point, but I suggest you check them OUT for yourselves on the various sports sites--they are one tough, determined, well-organized and scary not-so-little-program...

 

[InkedAdrenaline]

Well you shouldn't feel as bad as last week cuz we WON this week. Even tho it feels like a loss since our offense choked. Mizzu was playing good ball. Either way a win IS a WIN! CHOMP CHOMP

 

[Leakfan12]

Look at it this way we win and the next two opponents, we should whoop them. Hopefully they will and gain confidence and beat FSU and make it to a BCS Bowl. I hoping.

 

[Escambia94]

Here are some positive takeaways from the Mizzou game:

• The Gators won! They are now 8-1, 7-1 in the SEC. They will likely end up as the SEC East co-champions. (Yes, even with a loss to Georgia, they can claim that. Head-to-head records are only used to determine who plays in the championship game.) Consider that the gators were 3-5 in the SEC last year, and that most sports pundits had the Gators at 8-4 and another year of rebuilding.
• The Gators only had 4 penalties for 25 yards. Only one penalty really hurt the Gators, the Halapio hold that erased a nice touchdown pass.
• The Gators held Mizzou to their lowest point output all season.
• The Gators end their SEC play and can rest up a bit over the next couple weeks.

 

[DRU2012]

Yes. I accept it. Our Coach is right, HAS been right all along: One game at a time. All that matters is getting the win. We are one of several teams at the top of what even its enemies know is the best Conference-by-far. ALL of us are flawed, to some extent--each has its unique make-up, a strong-willed Coach overseeing its combination of weaknesses that he tries to minimize, and above all strengths that he attempts to exploit, feature, and enhance. None are doing a better job of all this than ours. When viewed in that way, everything that has happened, everything that our Coach has tried to do, and all that he has had to say about it makes better sense.
That being said, there's little point in rehashing it all again: we go from here, we do our best against the challenge at hand with the players available to us in hand with the imagination and creativity of our coaches--all reflecting the toughness, determination, vision and guidance of our Head Coach, whose ambitious long term plan is only beginning to emerge.
Of the positives you note above (the high points of many more: it is easy to lose sight of them among all the adversity, the injuries, bad luck, ill-will and forces arrayed against us), only one I take issue with:
There'll be no "resting up" for this team between now and the end of the regular schedule. It's about that "margin of error" you AND the Coach have been stressing for weeks, E-. Only hard work, self-discipline and attention-to-detail might overcome the adversity we'll face, are already facing. Injuries alone have weakened us greatly...our supposed strengths have in many cases become as well-WORN as well-known. Every team we face throughout November will give us their best game: We're THEIR "Big Game"--more than ever, that "margin" depends upon taking each seriously and alone until each is behind us, one by one. We can't even THINK about Doak until then.

 

[NaffGutts]

All I know is that if I'm on the Defense of Florida, I'm grabbing the players from the Offense and asking them how many times do we have to bail you out? It's one thing to be dominant on Defense and get the ball back for your team to score, but when you don't do that, your just putting pressure on your Defense, and they are the ones playing lights out every game and the Offense is the ones making you work so damn hard. Pease needs to establish himself a little more quickly before an already annoyed Gator Nation starts calling for blood.

 

[Escambia94]

Good point. Last year the Gator offense was ranked #1o1 or something like that. This year they are #102. Charlie Weis has his Kansas team ranked #90 with inferior athletes. Brent Pease had better use the next three games to get the Gator Nation off his back.

 

[DRU2012]

NaffGutts ...I KNOW you speak for a lot others who feel as you do, NG--Hell, I was teetering on JUST that brink the last few weeks, NOT for Pease's "blood", necessarily, but only because, as others have suggested, there was (and still IS, down THAT road) an equal possibility that Coach M himself calls THAT "final shot". However, I have come to see, based on overall results--even when we finally lost, watching sloppiness and an avalanche of turnovers, beating ourselves let's face it--that, between the severe thinness we started out with and subsequent injuries,etc. (all covered elsewhere), Pease just hasn't had much left to work with through the air...with defense, special teams and a creative running game, a mostly TE-reliant and out-of-the-backfield short passing game (augmented by the VERY occasional long one--which though having "missed" for various reasons, showed enough promise to I think "warn off" subsequent defensive coaches) has been the smart way to go. The results in wins-vs-losses say it best.
You're right about wanting, NEEDING to see more from this offense, though--not just us fans, either, but the other squads couldn't help but notice...Still, each has spent some extended time out there "gettin' in each others' way"; one of the encouraging things about the GROUP is that instead of pointing fingers, someone ELSE has come through, gotten it DONE. We HAVEN'T seen the kind of "finger pointing" one might have expected from frustrated kids, but rather the composed and determined mutual support of a TEAM. Of course, winning goes a long way towards reinforcing it, but that's the POINT here: this team focuses on what's in front of it, the challenges it is ABOUT to face or already in the middle of in order to WIN, instead of dwelling on what's gone wrong--and least of all about who's fault that is. It is worth acknowledging how much that says about coaching, preparation, and the general quality-of-character of the individuals who make up this team, not to mention the chemistry that has been forged among them.
We talk about "small margin of error", they LIVE it and make it work for them every week, it seems (well, ALMOST "every week")--and all the things I'm talking about here are a part of that. Now, I of all people won't argue with the truth, that it is on offense where we are missing the most pieces, the holes and weaknesses most obvious and frustrating. While it is our good coaching AND good fortune that the rest of the team sees and understands the reasons this is so, and concentrates on its own work while the offense does its best to hold up its end, the fact remains it is there that the clearest opportunity for improvement resides: Just a small improvement each week would bring enormous dividends, it seems, and out here we are impatient. We wonder what's holding them back. Now, it is true that between injuries, and disappointments in the case of certain individuals who were expected to perform better, we have lacked playmakers and depth at wide receiver AND, perhaps even more crucial, for similar reasons any continuity and resulting interdependent teamwork along the O-line. We haven't tested the opposition OR our own replacements (many of them talented freshmen, holding their own) the way we might have either, and for a reason that no one has tried to hide...We hear it from players AND coaches all the time: "We haven't HAD to in order to win"--and it has been true.
Not pretty to look at, but not an approach that has been LOSING games...leaving only these questions: Are we not to anticipate, plan for the future? Must we keep doing the same thing, cutting it close, until it finally DOESN'T quite work? (I'm setting our one loss aside here: Minus the turnovers alone might well have turned THAT one around...minus the penalties too, bad calls and all, and we probably pull it out) Can we not prepare for what we KNOW is ahead, our one true and challenging "Big Game on the Road" at the end of the year?
--It is MY hope that, without focusing on that particular game, our OC has his squad continuing to expand and practice a flexible passing game already available to some extent, one that is more and more viable come the time when it is needed...in which case, come the last week of the regular season, assuming we STILL haven't needed to pull it out, the rhetorical question: "Why 'save it for later' NOW?"...or better yet: "Well, this is who and what we were saving it for, men!!!"`

 

[Escambia94]

Another good takeaway from the Mizzou game is that offense was so bad that there is no chance in hell that Pease will leave and take another job! (Despite the rumors of him going to Kentucky.)

 

[DRU2012]

Another good takeaway from the Mizzou game is that offense was so bad that there is no chance in hell that Pease will leave and take another job! (Despite the rumors of him going to Kentucky.)

I hadn't heard those rumors, though I can WELL believe Kentucky would be after him--and I can't see as how our poor offensive showing this season would change their coveting him, if that's what you're getting at, E-. As for PEASE'S dreams and ambitions, well, my first reaction is that he came here to be an important part of something bigger than a quick jump to the Ky.-job--but then again, I would have said the same thing about Weis, happy as I may have been at THAT one's timing (which brought us Pease, btw--a MUCH better fit from the word "Go").
Think of what he could do here: I believe HE did when he made the move from Boise--which he had built into a better college football head coaching job than Kentucky, imo...and if it IS his aim to one day be a Head Coach once more, which is entirely possible, consider what his choices might be after 2 or 3 high-flying National Championships. The fact that he will have then brought us from this year's deep valley to the top of that shining mountain will make any open job his to accept or decline.