Just Sayin'...

[DRU2012]

I don't really expect much discussion on this one, but DID want to say some things here on "Championship Saturday"--what is really, let's face it, notable as what could and probably SHOULD be referred to as both "The Only True National Semi-Final", and, better yet (especially after Saban's "Hypocrite's true colors-claim"), "The 'Don't Whine, WIN!'-Bowl".
In a sea of hypocrisy AND absurdity where apples and oranges are treated as if they are exactly the same things, where everyone pretends that the teams being judged have all played parallel schedules among similarly talented opponents, when in fact "everyone" knows that is not the case, the biggest pretense of all concerns the SEC and just how "superior" it really IS...How can they even argue the point, where the Conference with BY FAR the most competitive teams has been playing a Conference Championship longer than anyone ELSE, one by now even accepted and referred to as "The National Semifinal"--something that no OTHER teams (least of all ND, a so-called "independent" with not even PRETENSE of a "qualifying round") have to face in order to get there. None of us have that luxury; it makes us all tough, battle-tested to varying degrees, but no room for all our talented, dominating teams to realize our true and actual "Potentials".
Let's just be honest with ourselves and each other here...It is HARD even to think about this game, let alone watch it. I just had ESPN on in the background as I began this thread, and even taking into account my attitude here AND my normal immersion in whatever I'm working on forcing the TV-BS into-the-background, I found I HAD to turn it down, mute it COMPLETELY--Hell, I couldn't STAND to hear that new "College GameDay"-song (a la the NFL's old--pre Hank Jr.'s political meltdown--"Are You Ready For Some Football?" Monday Night ditty) glorifying these two teams, over video-highlights of THEIR seasons (Again: Who has had a tougher, more on-the-edge and stirringly get-off-the-mat SURPRISING season than US? But that very "WE knew the deal"-failure on our part is what is really behind all of what I'm talking about here) is just too much...and that's just the START of this "Shoulda Been US!!!"-Fest in Atlanta today.
Don't misunderstand--I "get" Chomp's point, the inescapable "We had our chance and we blew it" that we have no choice but to face squarely and accept--I have and I DO...Can't help it if "WHAT if...?" still haunts us now unexpectedly here and there...But even Coach Boom will qualify that if given the opening to do so: "If you ask me if we should be IN that discussion though, I'm gonna say 'Yes, definitely...', and start with our resume--I'll put ours up against anyone's" and of course he's RIGHT, BUT--well, again, "right", "fair", "logical"...NONE of these have EVER been associated with what might be called the "BCS Bottom Line", HELL, with anything about college football final standings or what they refer to now as "the Human Polls". We had a chance to keep it all in our own hands, and we literally "dropped the ball", fumbled our best chance away.
It's still frustrating. Knowing we are in our own way as good or better than EITHER of these teams--and that any ONE of us should (and WILL, imo) sweep the "prospective opponent-from-South Bend" AWAY--is plenty depressing...Here it is, another Saturday, football is being played BUT NOT BY US. We've been robbed of another GameDay--another exciting, heart-stopping, gut-ripping, head-pounding, floor-pacing and life-shortening one, maybe, but, missing it now, WHO WOULDN'T RATHER BE GOING THROUGH ALL OF IT?!!...Rather than sitting here looking for something, ANYTHING else to do while it yammers on in the background at home or wherever we go it seems today, trust me?!!
If I'm around and watching it, I'll be rooting against the LegHumpers, for all the reasons argued elsewhere, but the only reason I'm not for that bullet-with-their-names-on-it-asteroid hitting at the 50-yd.-line & taking out BOTH of 'em is I will NOT see ND escape their public-humiliation-courtesy-of-the-SEC by default!

 

[Escambia94]

I do not care who wins the SEC, since the Gators are not in it. I just want a good game. Any of the top five SEC teams would beat Notre Dame.

 

[Leakfan12]

I wish Saban took coach Boom on his offer LOL.

 

[InkedAdrenaline]

I do not care who wins the SEC, since the Gators are not in it. I just want a good game. Any of the top five SEC teams would beat Notre Dame.

You wanted a good game, you got it... 1min to go and still don't know who's winning.... ND be scared!

 

[DRU2012]

You wanted a good game, you got it... 1min to go and still don't know who's winning.... ND be scared!

Agree, BUT...Here's what worries me: Even as I get a kick out of the idea that UGA had THEIR hearts broken at the end, I just hope those anti-Gator "human Poll"-voters don't get it in their heads to GO with that Saban-proposed sentiment and, with a close game that had the losers only falling behind with a minute-and-a-half left and driving down well-inside the redzone when time ran out, decide to NOT drop the Bulldogs out of the BCS, but rather enough of them BUMP US DOWN TO 5th, even with their "2nd loss", and deprive US instead! I'm told the math works against it, but with so few games today more people saw this game than normal, and the way the Media-Mafia are playing this up, we COULD get SCREWED...Anyone ELSE thought of this?

 

[DRU2012]

InkedAdrenaline
I never did mention what a kick I get out of that Chomp-pic you use as your "avatar" now, one of several CLASSIC pics of our Coach goin' off--which I have ALWAYS loved about him, btw, even tho' others not-so-much, but even they are now slowly comin' around...
But the reason I mention it HERE is you DON'T often see Texas' Mack Brown looking that way, but if you are watching the UT/KSU game (on ABC, I think) you just got to see it when the officials somehow made one of those "throw-out-the-rulebook decisions--where the replay official reversed a KSU TD as the guy dropped the ball casually as he was running the pick-six into the endzone BEFORE HE CROSSED THE PLANE (that part was correct), and the bll followed him in with his momentum, bouncing out-of-bounds AFTER it "followed him in", and SHOULD have been a touchBACK according to everything I ever heard or have seen abut the rules in such cases, Teaxs ball at the 20, right?...but after several minutes of discussion, they awarded Kansas State the ball at the Texas 1/2-yd.line, "where the player let go of the ball", because (and get this) well, SOMETHING about it "having been ruled a touchdown, however mistakenly", and therefore a deadball "at the point-of-release-of-possession" ...HUH?!! The announcers couldn't explain it, and basically tried to brush on by with a promise to "look into it at the half"...Mack was LIVID, red-faced and tendons bulging, "apoplectic" I think is the word. Meanwhile, McCoy shoowed once again why he is neither his brother NOR the preferred starting QB for the Shorthorns--and their "worst run-defense in the Big 12" can't stop a pass even when the opponent has a 3rd-and-10 from their own 1/2 yd. line.
Man, this coaching staff has had the PICK of the best talent in a state that is supposed to match ours (some say EXCEEDS Florida's) for at least the LAST TEN YEARS and they can't show better than THIS?!! Mack wouldn't have made it past the FIRST 5 years of that kind of non-run, let alone a double-dose: OUR boosters AND fan base would have had his head long before now--not just for not winning enough but for looking so bad so much of the time. They had that one Championship way back there and nothing since, but they said at the time "He'll be given a pass forEVER, now" and that has turned out to be the "Case" (ha ha)...

 

[Escambia94]

I have looked at the BCS formula, and it is nearly impossible for a 2-loss AQ team to leapfrog any 1-loss AQ team--even with the human poll factored in this late in the season. Anything is possible, but it would not be plausible.

 

[Dale J. Rodriguez]

I think what upset me the most about this game, was realizing how great our defense is, and how UGA/Alabama's is 2nd to that.

We have to get our offense in gear next season in order for us to compete.

 

[Escambia94]

I absolutely agree, Dale J. Rodriguez. Whatever it was that forced our offense to be ranked #100-ish instead of #60-ish needs to be addressed in the off-season. Hint: the rushing offense was ranked #35, but the passing offense was ranked #114. I do not know what the heck was going on with the receivers, but they did not help the QB get out of bad situations. Whichever receivers we have need to be working pretty hard in the off-season, because we cannot improve much by recruiting a whole bunch of receivers and throwing them into the SEC as freshmen. Depending on couple freshmen is fine, but not all three potential recruits at the same time (Ahmad Fulwood, Marqui Hawkins, and Chris Thompson).

 

[Dale J. Rodriguez]

Escambia I believe Brent Pease may need a bit of an SEC reality check too, this is not Boise State. I have a feeling the offense maybe too difficult to learn.

 

[Escambia94]

Escambia I believe Brent Pease may need a bit of an SEC reality check too, this is not Boise State. I have a feeling the offense maybe too difficult to learn.

Pease was the OC at Kentucky when they nearly upset #7 Florida. Pease understands that this is not BSU. I am certain that his problems lie in the way these flankers were recruited--primarily as blockers in a spread-option offense that could get open by sitting in a clear zone for the QB to throw into. In a pro-style offense, the receiver's job is not to sit in a clear zone, but to make it to a predetermined spot at a predetermined time. The receivers are too small to break free from the bump five yards from the LOS, and they are too focused on run blocking to know how to count to three and get to the "spot". The problem is exacerbated by Driskel not having the timing down. He needs to count to four and fire or run--and the receivers need to have released from the run-block or pass-block and be headed to the "spot". Pease gets all that, but he lacks both the WRs and QBs to do this. Brissett is actually the better QB in terms of timing, and if the three WRs coming in have good timing Brissett may surpass Driskel as the starter. Pease understands that as well, but he knows that Driskel is still the better QB during the transition, since Driskel grew up in an offense under transition, he does well in transitory offenses. Unfortunately, none of the receivers is helping.

 

[Dale J. Rodriguez]

Excellent points man

 

[DRU2012]

I think what upset me the most about this game, was realizing how great our defense is, and how UGA/Alabama's is 2nd to that.

We have to get our offense in gear next season in order for us to compete.

Agreed--and it (the offense) WILL "get better", as it seemed to "suddenly do" in our very least reg. season game--and against that "#1 defense" too! (Though our "one hundred and something rated" offense exposed THAT fallacy, they were still pretty good)--fact is, it was never THAT bad, as I said weeks ago and as the media pundits are now conveniently self-revising their appraisals and insisting only "got worse mid season and RETURNED to early season form in their running game" against FSU...We will be as-good a running game, much better-balanced AND a more efficient passing team come 2013, I "promise" (OK, that's hard to do, but I see all the makings of such a "forward move" to this "O".

Escambia I believe Brent Pease may need a bit of an SEC reality check too, this is not Boise State. I have a feeling the offense maybe too difficult to learn.

Oh, I doubt THAT, Dale J. Rodriguez, It isn't "simple", by any means, and I think perhaps E-'s claims (amounting to "old habits die hard"--especially when you have ALWAYS done them that way) may go a long way to explaining their failures, the most frustrating (to the fan, and even MORE no doubt to the QB) being their almost uniform refusal to maneuver into space, to come BACK to the mobile quarterback once he's been flushed from the pocket,or otherwise forced to break from the planned roll-out, and is running around still behind the line-of-scrimmage, desperately searching downfield looking for an "out"...

Pease was the OC at Kentucky when they nearly upset #7 Florida. Pease understands that this is not BSU. I am certain that his problems lie in the way these flankers were recruited--primarily as blockers in a spread-option offense that could get open by sitting in a clear zone for the QB to throw into. In a pro-style offense, the receiver's job is not to sit in a clear zone, but to make it to a predetermined spot at a predetermined time. The receivers are too small to break free from the bump five yards from the LOS, and they are too focused on run blocking to know how to count to three and get to the "spot". The problem is exacerbated by Driskel not having the timing down. He needs to count to four and fire or run--and the receivers need to have released from the run-block or pass-block and be headed to the "spot". Pease gets all that, but he lacks both the WRs and QBs to do this. Brissett is actually the better QB in terms of timing, and if the three WRs coming in have good timing Brissett may surpass Driskel as the starter. Pease understands that as well, but he knows that Driskel is still the better QB during the transition, since Driskel grew up in an offense under transition, he does well in transitory offenses. Unfortunately, none of the receivers is helping.

While I won't discount ANY eventuality should Brisset stay, I think it is pretty damn clear that Driskel is Pease's guy now--He's SAID it, for one thing: "I have my quarterback" (which on this team mean a LOT, I'm happy to say), and beyond that all signs point to a kind of "alter-ego" relationship that the OC engages in with his chosen starting-QB: Pease is, in effect, "pouring his knowledge into" his latest protege, adapting what he knows and what he has planned for both the offense in general, and his players' particular combined skill-set, especially his Quarterback's--for ALL of whom he intends (with some confidence, I might add, considering what his offense appears to be about to have access to in 2013) to expand and sharpen. And Escambia94, Driskel will GET the timing, of that I am sure (and Pease is counting on--elsewise Jeff may WELL find himself "surpassed", should Brisset indeed stay--but since JD's failure is unlikely, it is sadly almost as unlikely that Brisset will remain a Gator, much as we would ALL love for him to do so, so fine a teammate AND "backup" he is--and likely called upon to save us again: Having a "near-starter", a "1-b" to come in after unexpected-injury and save-the-WIN, and/or carry us for a few games and help to SAVE-THE-SEASON, is a luxury few teams have, and would be one MORE piece of a growing "fortress of power, toughness and depth" that this Gator PROGRAM will more and more present to the rest of the College Football World--on Defense first, but Offense, Special Teams and yes, "Man down, Man UP"-depth even at quarterback, if Jacoby Brisset stays, and continues to "compete".
As for the WRs, those we've got will have to "learn or leave", basically, and those we're about to get are chosen EXACTLY FOR their skills AND prospective "fit" in our offense-to-be...along with Robisson, who at last look was the latest return-man on punts AND, I am told, being "cross-trained" (one of Muschamp AND Pease's favorite "innovations"--a return to old ways, actually--where an area of great-depth serves, in the person of certain apt individuals, to supply an area-of-need, in this case at receiver) at WR, where the hands that made him a logical, and with-injury-necessary try in practice at punt-return (and where he did well in his 1st actual game) also had them cross-training him going-long, just-in-case. We can expect more of such unconventional "double-duty", and NOT just to "find a few receivers", but at any position where the need is great and, under these Coaches, with ANY such "flexible and multi-talented" athletes.
The lines are more problematical, a separate body-form AND skill-set to be "built-up" and mastered in the course of a LIFETIME, and less easily "cross-trained"...Our D-line will be fine, with the new ones coming in eventually a "Two-1st-string"-depth available to run in as necessary to keep both fresh all-game, the same aimed-for on offense but more difficult to achieve. Even with "enough bodies", no mater their talent and size it takes TIME for them to gel as a unit, let alone interchange even PAIRS and expect protection or the running game not to suffer. We will probably NEED both our new runners' prospective tackle-breaking power and our QB's elusive on-the-run guile to keep our offense moving while the new O-line forms up and begins to consistently assert itself.

Well, there it is: "The Plan" for the "inter-season" and heading into 2013 as I have deduced it, it's outline and general form gathered from what is available, in terms of public knowledge, personal observation and research, 2nd-hand reporting-of-"personal background access" to what is actually being done, planned and considered, by coaches and their assistants "behind the scenes" now in preparation for the off-season and, in turn, the season(s) ahead.
It won't all go as planned, but then again it isn't being planned that way and doesn't HAVE to. This staff is tough, resourceful, flexible, tirelessly hard-working and determined--and the team they are building, like their strategy and tactics, already does and will even MORE come to reflect those qualities. I'll ask it again, as I do all the time of fellow Gator-fans now (I'm a cynic, and normally a pessimist, hair-trigger sensitive to BS, etc....BUT I ASK THIS--WITHOUT FEAR OR EMBARRASSMENT):
"Don't y'all FEEL it changing, growing? CAN'T you feel it COMING, gathering speed and power now not-so-far over-the-horizon, that Great Gator Team-Coming-To-BE?!!"

 

[InkedAdrenaline]

Dru,

Thanks for the avatar compliments lol. I've really grown to love our coach, probably the most of any coaches we've had...

 

[DRU2012]

Dru,

Thanks for the avatar compliments lol. I've really grown to love our coach, probably the most of any coaches we've had...

Me too, man, me TOO...Somehow, with so many twists and turns along the way, we have ended up being around when we get to enjoy seeing/having THE PERFECT GATOR COACH, and watching him build and take what I believe is going to be THE IDEAL GATOR TEAM plow through everyone else, in the SEC and (inevitably then, by definition) ALL OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL. Hold on...This is gonna be FUN!!!

 

[Escambia94]

I have to admit that I was having my doubts with the coach after last year's performance and his behaviour towards refs, but I am now all in with Coach Boom

 

[InkedAdrenaline]

Me too, man, me TOO...Somehow, with so many twists and turns along the way, we have ended up being around when we get to enjoy seeing/having THE PERFECT GATOR COACH, and watching him build and take what I believe is going to be THE IDEAL GATOR TEAM plow through everyone else, in the SEC and (inevitably then, by definition) ALL OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL. Hold on...This is gonna be FUN!!!

Haha I agree, I hope we aren't ranked roo high next year. Seems like every time we start the year ranked high it gets to our players heads and we screw up somehow...

 

[DRU2012]

Haha I agree, I hope we aren't ranked roo high next year. Seems like every time we start the year ranked high it gets to our players heads and we screw up somehow...

Normally, I'd feel exactly the same way, same worries, same caution--but not with THIS Coach, or with the staff around him now: Starting with Dillman in the off-season, we have an absolute BEAST kickin'ass and firing himself AND his team UP (and from what I hear, he is INTO it, these are HIS GUYS, they know it and feel the same way about him, don't wanna let him down) when no one else but he and them is even ALLOWED to be "looking", getting involved...it's an enormous advantage for us). By the time Muschamp and Pease even GOT them last spring "something had changed--completely" in their outlook from the year before...Then, we KNOW Coach Boom has his "way" with "his team", at keeping them focused and NOT letting them to take ANYTHING they are hearing or otherwise getting from the world-around-them to "go to their heads", affect their preparation or emotional balance, their ATTITUDE. This is going to eventually be the most purely balanced, talented and complete team we have ever had, and we look to have the best possible coaching staff to build, mold and lead them. For the first time EVER as a Gator, through waves of disappointment and success and MULTIPLE National Championships, this is the first time I am actually "Calmly Confident of where we are headed."

 

[InkedAdrenaline]

I hope u r right dru.

 

[DRU2012]

I hope u r right dru.

You won't see one of those "rainbow/optimistic" icons used by ME very often, in fact never before and prob. never again, but in this one instance it is actually an accurate summation of how I see it and FEEL:
Look, I'm not CERTAIN if we will pull-off that elusive "Undefeated Season" in 2013--we've never done it before, for one thing (well, it is said that we went something like "6 wins and a tie" pre-SEC back in 1906 or something, but you know what I'm talking about here), and there are LOTS of practical reasons why we might not accomplish it this time, but that is exactly what we are shooting for, make no mistake. But think about it: We just keep on getting BETTER, at every possible turn...Weak link? Our people (which means "starting with Muschamp, Foley standing behind him, helping to make sure whatever he thinks he needs gets DONE) go out an TAKE CARE OF IT. They don't rush, they just handle it (the way this whole business with Hill leaving early this season, their waiting until they can get the ideal Receivers Coach/Recruiting Coordinator, then finally getting Joker Phillips (!) NOW, well, that sums up PERFECTLY what I'm talking about here). Coach Boom understands that it isn't perfection that is necessary, but patience, determination, teamwork and attention-to-detail by everyone involved, staff and players, top-to-bottom, and THAT is what they have been building here. We're not only going to be really good, we are going to continue evolving and GETTING BETTER for years to come...This season was just an "early reveal"; NEXT is our "coming-out party", and onward from THERE...