the John Brantley Bandwagon

[JvilleJohnny]

It won’t be an easy task, what with those firmly planted on the Tim Tebow bandwagon not willing to jump off anytime soon (take one look at any Florida site and you’ll find fans still fawning over #15), but it’s time John Brantley gets followers of his own. It’s time Gator Nation get behind #12...

More from The Bull Gator..


I love how he compares Tebow's bandwagon to Brantley's..

Tebow's = '66 Pontiac GTO

Brantley's = Ferrari 458 Italia

 

[O-town Gator]

Talk about "fawning" over somebody - the guy who writes TBG is such a stalwart Spurrier-worshipper that he feels every Gator fan should stop and genuflect in front of any and every image of SOS in existence. In using the expression "fawning" over somebody, he cuts off his nose to spite his face.

 

[Leakfan12]

I think he'll be a good quarterback just hope receivers step up.

 

[JvilleJohnny]

Talk about "fawning" over somebody - the guy who writes TBG is such a stalwart Spurrier-worshipper that he feels every Gator fan should stop and genuflect in front of any and every image of SOS in existence. In using the expression "fawning" over somebody, he cuts off his nose to spite his face.

True, but he's the same way my generation will be about Urban Meyer when he's retired. Although I embrace and love ALL generations of Florida football from Major James Van Fleet to Ray Graves to Spurrier to Meyer, but there are always going to be those people/bloggers who grew up watching a specific coach and generation of Gators, and will favor them till the end.

 

[CaliZona_Gator]

John Brantley! I'm very confident in him.

 

[Escambia94]

I will jump on the Johnny Brantley bandwagon just as I reluctantly did so for Doug Johnson QB after Danny Wuerffel. The only difference is that I think that Brantley will fare better than Johnson.

On a related note, who succeeded Kerwin Bell as QB? I am struggling to remember. Bell was the first QB that I really followed, but sometime after him came the NCAA sanctions and I lost track of the QBs as they stopped showing Gator football on TV. Back home we could catch clips of Emmit Smith, since he was a hometown hero, but I honestly cannot recall who the QBs before Shane Matthews and after Kerwin Bell were. JvilleJohnny brought up a good point about remembering the players one grew up with. That's a good point.

 

[Mr2Bits]

I am confident in Brantley's ability. We all know he has the physical tools to be great,plus he's been learning under Tim Tebow for the last 3 years. I think he's ready for the SEC.

 

[The Bull Gator]

Talk about "fawning" over somebody - the guy who writes TBG is such a stalwart Spurrier-worshipper that he feels every Gator fan should stop and genuflect in front of any and every image of SOS in existence. In using the expression "fawning" over somebody, he cuts off his nose to spite his face.

I don't want to start an argument here, because in the end we are all Gators and I enjoy all of my visits to this site (which are frequent despite this being my first comment), but how am I such a ardent Spurrier-worshipper and when did I say anything remotely close to saying each fan should bow down to him (if I did it was merely in jest because in the end it's for entertainment purposes)? I do have an admiration for SOS and what he did for the program. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If at times I put him on a higher pedestal, just keep in mind much of what I talk about is amplified to a level of unreasonable support because that's just how I enjoy writing. I feel the same way about Meyer and have even been found to offer up the occasional worship-like support for a single player making one great play (i.e. Torrey Davis against Oklahoma).

As for Tebow, I'm not blaming anyone for continue to fawn over him and I do not use the term in a negative way. I do it myself. I'm merely stating I believe it's time to get behind Brantley as well. Take the post for what it's worth: that Brantley is now the quarterback and a different one than #15 was. Not that I'm saying (or remotely believe) it's time to drop Tebow from our memories.

The generational gap is definitely an issue and I enjoy the history side as much as the now. I had a fan ask me who Brandon Siler was the other day stating he had only just become a Gator supporter. In my answer I felt the need to not only tell him about Siler, but Crowder, Andra Davis, Dexter Daniels, Scot Brantley, and a few of the other great Gator linebackers from over the years. I love Florida for every part of its history, not just the now. There's much more to Gator lore than just the Meyer era.

 

[O-town Gator]

I don't want to start an argument here, because in the end we are all Gators and I enjoy all of my visits to this site (which are frequent despite this being my first comment), but how am I such a ardent Spurrier-worshipper and when did I say anything remotely close to saying each fan should bow down to him (if I did it was merely in jest because in the end it's for entertainment purposes)? I do have an admiration for SOS and what he did for the program. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If at times I put him on a higher pedestal, just keep in mind much of what I talk about is amplified to a level of unreasonable support because that's just how I enjoy writing. I feel the same way about Meyer and have even been found to offer up the occasional worship-like support for a single player making one great play (i.e. Torrey Davis against Oklahoma).

Read the PM I sent you on this.

As for Tebow, I'm not blaming anyone for continue to fawn over him and I do not use the term in a negative way. I do it myself. I'm merely stating I believe it's time to get behind Brantley as well. Take the post for what it's worth: that Brantley is now the quarterback and a different one than #15 was. Not that I'm saying (or remotely believe) it's time to drop Tebow from our memories.

When all is said and done, the most important thing is that they wear the Gator Orange and Blue. Both Tebow and Brantley were meant to be at UF, and both of them have a strong Gator heritage since both of Tebow's parents and his siblings are UF alumni, and Brantley has a Gator football family tree.

The generational gap is definitely an issue and I enjoy the history side as much as the now. I had a fan ask me who Brandon Siler was the other day stating he had only just become a Gator supporter. In my answer I felt the need to not only tell him about Siler, but Crowder, Andra Davis, Dexter Daniels, Scot Brantley, and a few of the other great Gator linebackers from over the years. I love Florida for every part of its history, not just the now. There's much more to Gator lore than just the Meyer era.

I don't know how old you are, but I'm old enough to remember 0-10-1 and if the cliche "every cloud has a silver lining" is true, we saw it the following year when we had a respectable season under Charley Pell - who IMO really got the ball rolling for Gator football. Sure he ran afoul of the NCAA and eventually lost his job, but he facilitated our football program moving into prominence. If Bear Bryant was right, the "sleeping giant" he predicted Florida football would be began to wake up in the early 1980's. Urban Meyer had taken the program a step further and raised the bar even higher during his tenure - and he's not done yet.

 

[The Bull Gator]

I'm not sure how many people remember Brantley committing to Texas, but talk about a day in which I nearly went into total shock. Like you mentioned O-town Gator, he has a strong Florida background. Thinking of him suiting up for the Longhorns was a thought I wish I never had pop into my head.

 

[O-town Gator]

I'm not sure how many people remember Brantley committing to Texas, but talk about a day in which I nearly went into total shock. Like you mentioned O-town Gator, he has a strong Florida background. Thinking of him suiting up for the Longhorns was a thought I wish I never had pop into my head.

It was a savvy recruiting move by Florida to get Brantley on board, and i'm just glad things worked out well in the end (and that Jevan Snead decommited from UF.)

I've seen plenty of "sneak previews" of what he can do, and now the onus will be on him to take up more of a leadership role in the locker room. I ran into him after practice this past summer, and I was impressed with how personable he was. His dad spoke at the Gator Country Caravan event that I attended in the Orlando area last summer, and he said that Coach Meyer pledged 2 years to work with Johnny (the Urban-to-ND rumors were ignited by none other than Finebaum around that same time, and much of the night was spent with the other speakers dispeling them).

Johnny Brantley couldn't have asked for a better mentor than Tim Tebow, and I only hope that he'll follow in Timmy's footsteps. These past two years, we've probably had the best QB tandem in all of college football with both of them on the roster. Now it'll be Brantley's turn to mentor newcomers like Trey Burton and offer encouragement to second-stringer Jordan Reed. I have faith in him that he'll step right into being a leader both on-field and in the locker room, and he won't let anybody down.