"OUCH" all around. (Thanx for the sympathy, aweb, but I MEANT it earlier--about leaving AND having a great girlfriend: I'm sending this now from our room at the Hilton, and I can ASSURE you I had a better "2nd half" HERE, ha ha...just got sharp poke in-the-ribs).
Look, as E- so well put it (as he so often does), though this WAS a really disappointing performance here at the end--worst game we've played ALL YEAR, no sh*t, right?--I too am still proud of the SEASON itself, and feel this takes nothing away from that (The haters will do plenty enough of THAT)...In fact, as I said earlier and feel even more strongly now, EVERYONE in the Program (players left AND Coaches, from the top down) can, and I believe WILL, learn from this whole painful experience: NEXT time we have that 5 week "down time", they will ALL approach it in a different way...they won't want to feel THIS way again. To "miss out" on #3 and drop to maybe #5 or #6 won't be one-HUNDREDTH of the pain they can anticipate if we were to MISS OUT ON NUMBER ONE, and fall to anywhere BUT "National Champions"...If that was the lesson we needed, the kick-in-the-ass that ensures we NEVER take ANYTHING for granted again, then it won't be "for nothing" after ALL. Maybe we NEEDED to be shown, sharply and painfully, that we still have work to do and a long way to go, that we AREN'T "back" yet, and NOW WE START AGAIN...It hurts that that's so, and maybe that, the fact we STILL had to be taught it, is the biggest disappointment of all here, but THERE IT IS.
Though it just aches for me even now to focus too closely on it (I'm here, and WE LOST! SH*T F*CK P*SS!!!...ahem cough cough...sorry), I'd sure rather it be now, THIS time in THIS situation, than for us to have come in here and cruised but underneath this were still waiting there, hidden and unlearned (like our LAST Sugar Bowl appearance, when we convinced ourselves "All is well" but it wasn't and WOULDN'T be anything LIKE "well" again until maybe, finally THIS year, a full 3 years LATER--and we're NOT fully "there" yet! This WAS "just for fun" mostly, after all...Better to learn all this RIGHT NOW and have it in our pocket for NEXT year at this time--Maybe it even gives us a better shot of GETTING there!
So we groan, lean on each other, hunker down, lick our wounds (so to speak--ok ok stop throwing stuff at me) stop thinking football for a couple weeks until we can come back (mostly) not hurting and be thinking on 2013, recruiting and beyond. Thank you all, my GE friends, great Gators as you all are. Talk to y'all soon, when we'll ALL be better ready to look to the future.