The bye week came at the perfect time for the Gators and for the hacks who cover them. I feel recharged after a rough four weeks, three of them on the road, and ready to tackle the last part of the season. Time for Four From The Field.
1. Every year I look forward to the bye week when I can act like everyone else and just watch football and eat and drink. What a dog of a Saturday. We knew going in it wasn’t the best with few big games and some potential blowouts. The 3:30 games were just awful. We actually went out because the football was so boring. South Carolina-Missouri helped, but it still was a stinker of a Saturday.
2. Connor Shaw may be one of the toughest players to ever play the game. Twice this season, he has suffered injuries that you just knew were going to keep him out a while and yet, there he is, leading the Gamecocks to a stunning win. What I don’t get is this — if he was healthy enough to play late, why wasn’t he healthy enough to play early?
3. Thanks to Steve Spurrier and his club, the Florida-Georgia game is now relevant. It’s still Missouri’s division to lose and South Carolina is the best equipped to win it if Mizzou doesn’t because of their head-to-head matchup, but at least the winner of the WLOCP has a chance to win the division. It’s amazing that other than Alabama, there are two SEC teams with one conference loss and the rest all have at least two.
4. Congrats to Duke for becoming bowl eligible with a grinder of a win over Virginia Tech. Here’s an update on where the Power Five Conferences stand in terms of bowl eligibility — SEC 6 (and that doesn’t include Florida or Georgia), ACC 5, Big 12 4, Big 10 4, Pac-12 3.
