Well LSU doesn't look good because they lost to Troy AT HOME, T A&M usually falls apart in the second half of the season (probably sooner because they got Bama next week). I think there's a good chance that the Gators will be 5-1 by the time they face off against UGA.
OK--we'd TAKE that, for SURE...BUT:
Our play, along with the results, against UGA will be the one that tells us, tells the college football WORLD where we are at. With everything, adding now the latest injuries, we might be fortunate to split the next two--even at home...I just have no idea what to expect game to game now.
No matter what, barring a complete collapse BEFORE The C-Party, THAT'LL be the one that makes the diff, shows where we're really at and where we're headed.
So much has happened, so much lost and so little proven or gained that even the wins tell us little going forward ("Pyric Victories", as I've said: Yeah, one of those college-found, "Classic Greek" references--referring to a battle "win" that leaves the victors so weak afterwards that, for the moment at least, they've little chance of "winning" another battle against ANYONE).
No one but the "near-blind faithful" among our fans (who see only our w/l record and a "Top 25" ranking, if we still have one), along with media and bookmakers (who in both cases have vested interest in seeing that a maximum number of potential viewers and bettors see it as "close" going in) will give us much chance, no matter WHAT happens over the next month or so leading up to it.
Frankly, I LIKE it that way. We will HAVE to have found some things, settled down with "what we got NOW", maybe quietly begun to gel, finally trust in each other as a TEAM. No matter WHAT, we'll have had to at least BEGUN to have re-formed as a full on "new team". Be playing for themselves and each other.
THEN we MAY have a chance. To "keep it close", at least. And even though I stand by my repeated insistence that up til now, these "come together, win at the end" outcomes last few weeks are much more about the PLAYERS' "heart" and determination than anything the Coaching staff has done or prepared them for. In fact, it ain't a coincidence that, despite more injuries and legal complications among first-line players along the way, we have NOT fallen, in many ways have been "getting better" over that time even so. THAT isn't the Head Coach. No, we are BENEFITTING that much from cutting loose (our staff being MADE to cut loose, by circumstances) just a couple/few guys turns out we should have "cut loose" some time ago (maybe shoulda turned down one in particular during the recruiting process--but we all know how hard it is to turn your back on TALENT: Callaway was/IS a good, potentially GREAT one at a position we had/have great need at). But even with his spreading poisoning of the lives around him, the shadow of his selfishness, greed and poor decisions spreading, hanging over the whole program, we have slowly pulled back together, actually begun to re-form as a TEAM, do MORE with LESS.
But even then, I don't know that our "best-case-scenario" isn't much more than "a PUNCHERS chance"--and we have yet to show we even HAVE a "PUNCH"! Not a big enough one, one that can be summoned and relied upon to connect against a GOOD team on a confident roll, as UGA is likely to still be. We somehow have got to be Leon Spinks vs Mike Tyson (sorry if I'm mixing up history here: I might be mushing together 2 diff events, but hoping you get the idea here)--and one slight momentary mistake could still easily shatter us, not just for a game but the season...reveal what everyone will come into that game already "KNOWING" is "true".
Then again, in real life, the "impossible" sometimes really happens. If it were to play out that way here, well, as I promised, I will at the very least shut up for awhile, give this Head Coach and his staff (and by then a TEAM that for its OWN sake will undoubtedly have "bought into the program", and their coaches' supposedly central part in it--the "BELIEF" ITSELF now an integral part of their view of themselves and their success) the benefit of the doubt for the rest of the reg season, let it all play out from there.
I ALSO noted that I doubted there was much chance actual events would "call the bluff" embodied in that "promise". But, as always in such pessimistic prognostications, when it comes to our Gators, once again: "I HOPE I AM WRONG!!!"
(God, I hope I'm wrong.)
