Gator Gameday (11/07/14): Vandy

[Escambia94]

It is interesting how sports announcers watch the same game we watched and come away with very different opinions. There are sports journalists that say Florida actually looked good against Vanderbilt. Are they crazy? Did they forget that this is Vanderbilt? Florida should have destroyed Vandy 66-6! This team is not going to push a weak South Carolina around. If anything, the Steve Spurrier has camped out in the Swamp and made this his home for the Gamecocks!

Fine. If Muschamp and the Mighty Gators manage to beat Spurrier and the Viagra Gamecocks by two touchdowns, I will lay off the "fire Will Muschamp" chants. I just do not see Muschamp not being Muschamp. I predict the Gators offense falling apart against South Carolina and going -3 in turnover margin, because that is what the Muschamp offense is designed to do--tease us with decent performance one week only to break our hearts another week.

Although I have been guilty of saying that Florida can win the East, I have grown tired of seeing the probabilities on Saturdays Down South and Alligator Army. Stop it! The Fightin' Muschamp Gators blew their shot by being the Muschamp Gators on Homecoming.

 

[DRU2012]

@Escambia94,
Remember, (SS)USC has a crap-defense (as per SS's traditional emphasis--strange how little HE has learned..."They" have been saying last few years how he's "changed" since his days at UF, but if the functional, on-field results are to be the measure of all that, then I'm not so sure...Obviously he's the better Coach out there come Saturday, but even SS didn't win a Nat'l Championship 'til he had BOB STOOPS as his DC)...Point is, we might even at least LOOK a little better on offense, but as you say re our supposed "across-the-board improvement" against Vandy, in this area at least any such "growth" on offense can be chalked up to us playing against a defense that was clearly over-rated coming into the season, and has seemed to devolve with each game since--and never mind media/announcer hype before Week One's melt-down against UGA, they looked pretty bad from the start. So no matter who the winner is, anything but a complete bumblefest like we staged versus Alabama COULD once again have the announcers talking about our "steady improvement" no matter what. It's stupid, and goes BEYOND the simple and transparent "lipstick on a pig" bs normally employed in the effort to put the best face on a bad game while it's happening.
Can't see a good one happening, but even if the kind of surprise-dominance you (rightly) give low-odds to us managing here were to come to pass, I'd still chalk it up to some combination of our no-debate-SUPERB defensive talent, a QB growing up fast and coming into his own, and above all a Gamecock squad whose underachieving disappointment is finally, inevitably wearing them down from within. They're still young men, after all, to whom emotion and a sense of "team" can carry them higher when it's flowing freely--and damn near destroy THEMSELVES when it slips away.
Point is, while like you I think this'll be a li'l different than last week, even a "strong win" won't change MY mind, on balance. All it would do is reinforce what I already know--and what makes Muschamp and his time here so frustrating and dangerous: You can see what COULD be, flashes of what this group can do when everything lines up right--but by its own hands keeps ITSELF from managing most of the time. "Dangerous" because it kept me (and many more) seeing the best, hoping for more, believing in this likeable and seemingly totally-committed wild man on the sidelines far longer than the actual results in truth warranted...and it's still doing that, for some, to some extent, even now--"JUST enough, JUST in time". Certainly that's what Foley is counting on, for whatever reasons keeps returning to himself.
It's important I think to ignore the "sleight-of-mind", "Never mind the man behind the curtain!"-efforts ("Wizard of Oz"-reference) to distract us. Keep cutting to the heart of it all here: This is how it will continue to be with Will Muschamp as our Head Coach...We will look good for stretches, horrid just as often, the latter when it really counts--and WE WILL NEVER WIN ANYTHING REAL AND LASTING while he is here.