Given that Florida’s true season opener lasted all of one single play and was then cancelled, this might just as well be considered the Season Opener, Part Trois, but let’s just stick with Part Deux, since that is much easier to pronounce. However you count it, the Florida Gator season starts from scratch once again this Saturday in Knoxville.
We knew this re-start was coming all along, of course. We knew that the opening games against lesser opponents would serve as tune-ups and the Alabama game would be a check of the barometer to see where we measure in terms of being an elite program again. But regardless of how any of those games went, we knew we would face Tennessee as the start of our real season. Preliminaries are over, time for the gauntlet, the nitty-gritty, the weekly battle for survival in the SEC.
Because that’s what life is like in the conference of record. Florida fans have been largely shielded from the trials of life in the SEC, at least since 1990, because the Gators have been so dominant for so long. However, no program can stay like that forever and never fall back into the shark tank of the ravenous SEC battles now and again.
The Real SEC
The Gators had been living as part of the proverbial 1% for so long, it was easy for us fans to ignore how the 99% lived. For the rest of the world, give or take a few elite programs across the country, every season is a struggle to survive; every week, every game. Even most of those teams that win in double digits every other year or so still have to fight it out to get to that level. In the last few years, programs like Alabama and LSU have joined Florida in the 1% and Florida has summarily exited the 1%. Auburn has gone to two national title games in the last five years, but they are still not in the elite category. They still fight, scrimp and claw for just about every win, and they did so for a number of their wins in both national title game seasons.
Whether Florida fans like it or not, the Gators are in it. They’re in the scrum. They are in the SEC Hunger Games. And as much as we all prefer to live in the 1% and cruise to ten wins a year like it is our birthright and only have to sweat out a couple contests a season, in the long run perhaps this toil and trauma will be good for us. For most of us I think that being reminded of our SEC roots – before the days when we felt entitled to our weekly Saturday luxury of gloating and feeling superior – being reminded of just how lucky we have been to enjoy such incredible levels of elite success, and for so long, is a good thing. It has been my experience that successes and accomplishments are always more fulfilling and rewarding when I have to work harder for them, when I must overcome greater obstacles and opposition.
For twelve years under Spurrier and for four years under Meyer, the Gators made winning big look so easy. But it was an illusion. It was in truth always difficult. Very difficult. On those infrequent occasions when they would lose, we fans reacted like a reverse miracle had occurred, that we had just witnessed the impossible. That some group of coaches or players had just stopped trying. What else could explain it? However, the truth is that when the Gators would lose, it merely meant that another team was somehow able to out-practice, out-scheme, out-play and out-coach them for one game. And when we lost, wet should not have wondered how it ever happened…we should have wondered how it was possible that it happened so rarely. Because it isn’t easy. It never was.
It is especially difficult now. Now that the Gator program is in rebuilding mode, had a whole season erased from the developmental curve, and find themselves in an SEC that is not only in its strongest era, but is also more competitive top-to-bottom than it has ever been.
And despite this incredible level of difficulty involved, and despite how far behind the curve the Gators are because of their rebuilding situation, this football season that is starting over Saturday in Knoxville could very well turn out to be a championship year. Because regardless of what anyone thinks of where Florida sits right now in the balance of college football elites and petites, what we have learned every single week this season is that almost every team in the country is beatable. This is especially true about all of the Gators’ remaining SEC East opponents as well as all of Florida’s remaining non-SEC foes.
Don’t think so? Let’s briefly run them down.
At Tennessee
Everyone seems to be saying that Tennessee is so much improved over last year’s team. However, I for one do not see it. In my estimation, they played Georgia much better last year than they did this year, while UGA was a much better team last season. The Vols led the game last year by 7 with less than two minutes to go in the contest, and ultimately took the Dawgs to overtime. This year, Tennessee was competitive but never led after the mid-way point of the second quarter. They have some athletes on offense, but very few on defense. For all the talk of how much they have improved, they have shown nothing to warrant the praise. Florida is relatively healthy and has had two weeks to prepare for a team that just put out a supreme effort for two weeks running. Tennessee is a very beatable team.
LSU
After getting spanked hard at home against Mississippi State – in a game that was never really competitive, despite the very late comeback that was facilitated by the fact that the Bulldog team and their head coach had basically never been in that position and did not maintain intensity or focus – is there any doubt that LSU is beatable in the Swamp? They still have nobody they trust at quarterback. And I will have to wait to see what MSU is this year before I concede that LSU lost to a quality opponent two weeks ago. I will have a hard time believing, for instance that these Bulldogs are better than the Kentucky team that took UF to overtime a few weeks ago. Not until I see it proved out over the next few weeks, at least. Mullen has been very average at MSU (to say the most) and this is their first significant win during his regime, in my opinion. LSU is the kind of offense that the Florida defense can contain much easier than one with a strong passing attack. This is a very winnable game for UF.
Missouri
This is a team Florida should beat by a couple of scores at home. They needed a last minute fourth-down touchdown to beat a very-average-at-best South Carolina team that barely put away a terrible Vanderbilt team the previous week. The Tigers are a shell of the team they were last year. This is the squad that lost two weeks ago to Indiana. At home. INDIANA! The only thing that should prevent the Gators from winning is if the mental mistakes and blown assignments in the secondary do not get fixed. And if they don’t get fixed, the season will be a bust anyway. If they do get fixed, this game should be a comfortable win. Should be. We will see.
Georgia at Jacksonville
Georgia is at their low water point for the last four years. The last time they were this beatable was 2010: the last year Florida beat them. And they have a ton of flaws. Frankly, they are one player away from being 1-3. Although even without Todd Gurley, I would only give Clemson a 50-50 chance of beating them. Those Tigers are like Tennessee fans: toothless. If Florida can contain Gurley, this game should be a win. Containing, stopping and stuffing the run have not been any problem for Florida this year. It is the pass that has made them look terrible on defense, and Georgia is not going to terrorize anyone through the air. If the Gators have an effective quarterback running an effective offense, this game could – and probably should – fall to the Gators.
At Vanderbilt
They have shored up a lot of their ineptness, but this team is simply very, very bad.
South Carolina
This is the team that was eviscerated by Texas A&M (which needed overtime Saturday to beat an Arkansas team that hasn’t won an SEC game in its last 14 tries), was nearly beaten by Eastern Carolina and Vanderbilt, and who just lost to a Missouri team that couldn’t even beat Indiana – one of the very worst teams in the very worst Power-5 conference in the nation. The only impressive thing the team has done this year is beat Georgia, which should tell us a lot more about how average the Bulldogs are than how capable the Gamecocks are. This team is so deficient between the ears that Steve Spurrier has practically called them idiots at every press conference since the season began. This is one of the most beatable teams left on our very tamable schedule.
Eastern Kentucky
This is the Eastern Michigan game, only more polished.
At Florida State
Florida State is nothing but a team living on borrowed time. As soon as they play a team that can play even a modicum of competent defense, they are going to go belly-up. Big time. Even their recidivist quarterback is imploding, turning the ball over multiple times a game. If Oklahoma State, shockingly pathetic Clemson or North Carolina State could play even an ounce of defense, FSU would be 1-3 and melting down on the front page. They should have been smoked by the Wolfpack, but the ‘Pack let them back into the game and then bungled the game away late. Because that’s what ACC teams do. Period. And NC State is not a good football team this year. Unless Notre Dame makes a lot of mistakes, they should end FSU’s run at #1, but if they fall apart as well, I expect Louisville’s terrible defense to keep FSU unbeaten until they entertain Florida at the end of the year. I thought after they beat up Southern Cal that Boston College might take them down as well…heck, I had lovely visions Saturday night of all three UF quarterbacks from the 2012 team – Jacoby Brissett with NCSU, Tyler Murphy with BC, and Jeff Driskel with UF – all beating FSU in the same year. But then the real Wolfpack showed up. Just like the real BC Eagles showed up Saturday to the tune of losing to…Colorado State. Hmmm, maybe the Big Ten is NOT the worst Power-5 conference after all. At the end of the day, to repeat a common theme: I don’t know if Florida can right its wrongs to be able to do it, but the FSU team is ripe to be beaten in this game. Ripe like a squishy brown banana.
So there it is. Every single remaining game is winnable for the Gators. A few of them excessively so. The flip side is that all but one of them are also losable, as well. But that’s the SEC. That’s the peril-at-every-turn, survive-and-advance nature of the toughest and most competitive league in the nation (and currently most probably the toughest and most competitive league in history). That’s the way it has always been for most other SEC programs. And the first step – the season re-opener (or three-opener, thank you lightning storm) – to getting back to that plush comfort zone where Florida is back in the 1% and above this sort of weekly struggle for its life…is struggling and scratching out wins this year. One week at a time. One quarter at a time. One play at a time. Nothing is taken for granted. Nothing is a given. Appreciate it, Gator fans: this is why they invented the game.
It’s like Florida gets a mulligan. The Kentucky and Alabama didn’t actually happen. If UF loses to Tennessee, does the season start over again the next week? “IF” seems to be a recurring theme, but “if’ doesn’t win games. When we will see something from you without the word “if?’ I won’t hold my breath.
No please……hold your breath.
I thought it was well written and he actually had valid arguments to back up the point he was trying to convey. I have been saying this to anyone who would listen. We may not be great this year, but the SEC East is not great this year and I don’t think LSU is, either. Beating FSU still seems like a tall order, but I see no reason why we can’t win at least four out of the five against UT, LSU, Missouri, UGA, and SC. For what it’s worth I think Kentucky takes down the Gamecocks this weekend. Just wanted to throw that out there.
As for Snow, to be honest, I am not even sure the word “if” was used all that much. This article is more about the possibility that these SEC games we have coming up are winnable games. That is not an “if” statement. I’m really not sure where Snow was going with this or even he even read the complete article, but on the bright side he was able to get in his usual contrary statement [even if said statement had little to do with the actual article this time, and luckily this time there was no math [i.e. Florida Gator win streaks] for him to butcher.
Actually Snowprint, the title of this column was submitted as “Season Opener: Part Deux”….I have no idea why the editor made up a different title that contradicts the entire column, but still if you read the column, you know that there is nothing about getting a mulligan, and there is nothing about UK and Bama never happening. It’s a little insane to want UK not to have happened, since it was a big and thrilling win against an SEC opponent, but your high level of logic and reason has always made me dizzy.
As for what happens if UF loses to UT, let’s just hope that doesn’t happen.
By the way, if “IF” seems to be a recurring theme….it’s because nobody can foretell the future. “IF” is present in every single sporting event in the world that has not already happened. So, like….what the Sam Hill are you talking about?
David, good article. I agree with your assessment on where you feel the other teams measure-up against us. Like you said, all winnable and all easily lost. I feel Phil Steele in the preseason predictions put his finger on it when he said if we get improved QB play under Roper, and if the O-line can maintain depth, the young defense will carry the team early. We will improve our record later along with the O maturing. If this happens, UF is a contender due to the other teams all having their own issues and deficiency. He felt UF would suffer less so we would win out! He predicted UF will do those things. He predicted UK to be a tougher out due to their seasoned talented defense and QB play. He predicted we would lose to Bama and either lose to LSU or USC or Georgia but would win the EAST. We would have at least one loss in west but no more than two losses in conference. I think he was right and it will play out that way. Of course, I choose to believe. Some of it is blind faith, some of it is based on the cards I see on the table. I’m calling!