Well, well, well. My, my, my. There is just so much to unpack about this game, I’m getting carpal tunnel just thinking about it. And you better print this out, get a snack and something refreshing to drink, because this is going to take awhile. You may have to finish it tomorrow because it’s nine pages long – but I promise it’ll be worth it. Because this game was like a movie with an unbelievable Hollywood ending, worthy of a lot of movie seeds planted throughout this column. Consider it an Easter egg hunt to keep you from falling asleep because it will be way past your bedtime by the time you get to the last line of this one. Because you’ll have to flip the page on this one nine times, Mrs. Bueller, niiine times. I don’t know where to begin, quite frankly. So I guess I will start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. When you read, you begin with A, B, C. When you watched this game, you were watching history.
His. Tor. Reee!
Sudden Impact
Instant classic. That’s what we saw Saturday. After five years of mostly miserable football with only a couple of games that could be considered classics (at least of the ones Florida won…we provided opponents with a lot of classic victories over that span), Coach Jim McElwain has given the Gator fans a fat handful of them in his first two years. Not just classic finishes, but games we fans can and will watch again over and over again for our pure enjoyment. Of course, we got both right out of the gate last year with the big comeback win over the Vols last year; the Call-Oh-My play; the fourth-and-11-in-a-row dagger to their hearts; the “I Just Saw Magic” game. Then there was the obliterating of #3 Ole Miss in the Swamp, a program-defining win and a peek at things to come for the new coach. Blasting Missouri for Homecoming, exorcizing so many demons from the Homecoming beating they gave us a few years back. And of course completely dominating Georgia two years in a row to the combined tune of 51-13; completely owning the Dawgs for 60 minutes is always a classic. But this one beats them all.
Only a great fool would fail to recognize that this was an enormous victory for the team. We are not great fools, so we clearly cannot choose the wine in front of you. But we need to let it sink in, just what a huge, program-impacting win this was. I would argue that this was the biggest, most important win since the 2008 national title game. And I don’t think it is even close. When Coach Mac took over, the meme was pretty universally accepted and parroted: it will take at least a couple of years to clean up the mess left behind and to rebuild the roster and the depth and the brand and the facilities and heck probably even the benches outside the stadium. Nobody would expect to compete for any championship until 2017. But along came the fast start last year, and even though it sputtered to the finish line due to losing our only viable quarterback after the sixth game of the year, the Gators still rode into the FSU game at 10-1 and ranked in the top 10. Unfair as it was, that bumped up expectations for 2016 many unreasonable notches. Heck, it even bumped up expectations for the end of 2016, despite having no quarterback and facing three of the best teams in the nation that year to finish the season.
That late-season collapse already had the natives throwing rocks and feces at the coaching staff that just exceeded expectations by the length of the Santa Fe River. Enter 2016 and expectations were raised even more. Exit another starting quarterback, this time to injury and this time after just two games and change (although he made an injured go at it for a couple games later before being knocked out of the box for the year). Yet expectations oddly just kept on rising as fast as the pile of injured Florida starters this year. Rival fans didn’t have to invent the smack talk – rival coaches didn’t have to create the negative recruiting narrative – Gator fans did it for them. Even though Florida limped into Baton Rouge down nearly half their starting roster, and was given zero chance of winning by everyone (most firmly by Gator fans), the line was somehow drawn in the sand: Mac had to win this game or his tenure would be in jeopardy. Even if just in the minds of many fans.
As much of a staggering absurdity as I found this (could you tell?), there is no denying that fact or fiction, a coach needs to have fan buy-in if he wants to be successful long-term at a program. So as ridiculous as it was, Mac really did need to win this game. This unwinnable game. That should have been played in Gainesville. Many weeks ago when Florida was almost completely healthy.
And he did it. THEY did it. And speaking for the fans who made the trek to Baton Rouge for the game, and those who filled the field at the Swamp in Gainesville to watch the game together on the stadium big screen, and heck those of us who didn’t abandon the team and join the LSU players in openly questioning the players’ manhood on social media – WE did it. But mostly they – they did it. And suddenly the entire image of the Gators has changed. In the eyes of fans, in the eyes of media (though some are slow to grasp it), and most importantly in the eyes of the recruits. Florida isn’t a team on the rise anymore, a team that is on the cusp of beating the elite teams in their own house and challenging for titles every year…they just by God did it.
We all know that Mac just pulled off a SEC first as the only coach to ever win a division title in his first two years with the team. That’s East or West. Not even Saban did this. But looking a bit closer in, this is the first time Florida has gone to consecutive SEC title games since 2008-2009. Interestingly, in the 25 years, the SEC title game has been held, only four other programs have gone to consecutive championship games. Alabama, of course, has done it three times, with one back-to-back, and two streaks of 3-straight. Three other programs have gone to two consecutive title games: Georgia (twice), Tennessee and Missouri (both once). This is Florida’s fourth streak of consecutive appearances, joining the back-to-back East titles in 1999-2000 and 2008-2009, and the 5-straight appearances in the first five SEC title games. The Gators won the last 4-straight games in that series, the most in SEC title game history. No other program has ever won more than two of these games consecutively, but Alabama will try to break that mark if they win their third-straight this year.
The Challenge of the Super Friends
There were ubiquitous chatter, smug mocking and outright shouting all week from television and sports radio talking heads, rival fans and of course many downtrodden Gator fans about how the Gators simply couldn’t rise to the challenge in Red Stick. Because of all our injuries, we were simply outmanned by LSU. If we had our full starting team healthy, maybe we’d have an outside shot, but with the walking wounded doing a weekly off-Broadway production of M*A*S*H*, even keeping pace with the Tigers was just a pipe dream. Maybe if Florida had managed to negotiate the game to stay in Gainesville, but in the dreaded Death Valley, our goose was cooked. LSU had us outclassed, outflanked, outgunned…outmanned.
Well, apparently nobody told the Gator players any of this (though it was clear from Mac’s post-game presser that he had gotten the word loud and clear, especially from some Gator fans). Because the Florida players rose to the challenge. They did it for the man playing to their left and to their right. They played like true Super Friends – with every play revealing a new hero contributing a new wrinkle to the drama. The Gator offensive line owned the line of scrimmage on offense, getting the push and keeping defenders out of the backfield on almost every play. The defensive line more than held their own and got a good number of tackles at the line of scrimmage, plus five tackles for loss. And with the game on the line and the Tigers at the one yard line, and the Gators’ defense, missing over half of their best run defenders to injury, beaten up and worn down from over 59 minutes of leaving it all on the field, bowed up one last time and STONED LSU for no gain two plays in a row to win the game. In the end, they strangled them with muscle. All week – all season, really – LSU fans, players, and even administration questioned Florida’s manhood. But in the end, when all the talking was long over and all the action had been done, the Gators beat them in their own house because they simply out-MAN-ed the Tigers.
And think of this: for all the smack talk about how Florida wasn’t man enough to beat LSU, the Tigers couldn’t even beat one single man: the littlest Gator on the team. Kicker Edie Pineiro – 170 pounds in full uniform and soaking wet – tied LSU all by himself, matching their ten-spot with three field goals and an extra point.
Man!
Get Ready Little Lady: Hell’s Coming to Breakfast
LSU made a big mistake when they started and continued to call out the Gators on their manhood. They thought they were going to intimidate them by calling them out. Well, when the Gators responded to the classless pregame thuggery of breaking up their practice session, they answered loud and clear: “You called down the thunder. Well, now you’ve got it!” The Gators were, in fact, LSU’s huckleberry. They let the bully tactic Tigers know before the game started that they are coming. And hell’s coming with them.
Hell’s coming with them.
And make no mistake that what LSU’s players, fans, and administration did was a full-blown act of cowardice. I mean back when this whole thing started. Taking to social media, and in fact taking the personal affronts directly to the real media, they were picking on an injured opponent. They were talking absolute trash about Florida’s courage and guts when over 50 of Florida’s players had family and homes in the direct path of the deadly hurricane. That’s bootleg. And while they enjoyed many weeks of shooting off their guns and their loud mouths in the town square, Saturday the posse came for them. And as the Florida players said afterward, there was nowhere on social media for those cowards to hide.
So let’s recount some of the shootouts at the OK Corral that brought these purple and yellow villains to justice. Starting with the most entertaining on-field crowd pleaser. CeCe Jefferson made two incredible goal line plays Saturday. First was the sack that ultimately forced them into settling for a field goal when a touchdown would have taken the lead. But he also had a play on the final goal line stand that was just as important as the 4th down stuff. On 3rd down, the second-to-last play of the game, LSU sent the fullback up the middle on a play that had worked for a few yards and a conversion every. Single. The time they tried it in the game. On the snap, CeCe immediately split a double-team block, met the FB at the LOS with the offensive tackle still holding and pulling his jersey, and most impressively and crucially, CeCe absorbed the fullback’s freight train momentum and turned him parallel to the line of scrimmage and brought him down without getting close to the goal line. To me, that was more impressive than the fourth down stop because it was a play they had failed to stop all day, and it took a monumental display of strength and athleticism at the point of attack to stop and turn the fullback sideways to deny him the goal of falling forward into the end zone.
Though everyone will remember the 4th down tackle that Marcell Harris made (or at least he shared the tackle, being the one responsible for stopping his forward progress as he went airborne), that was the third great play of the goal line stand. Before Harris, Jordan Sherit, and CeCe Jefferson wrote their names into Gator lore on 3rd and 4th down, Kylan Johnson made a play that was just as important but will likely be forgotten in time (if it was even acknowledged at all). Johnson was responsible for stopping Derrius Guise for only 1 yard on first and goal, and that first down stop for only a yard was JUST as important as the third and fourth down stops, because, on second down, Guise got loose and ripped through the gut of the defense and NEARLY popped it into the end zone. That would have ended the game. If Kylan would have allowed him more than a yard on first down, that second down run would have been a game-winner. But it kept the distance just one yard shy of pay dirt, and allowed the rest of the Gator defense to do their work on third and fourth down. And by the way, Johnson is also the one who combined with David Reese to stop that second down run from reaching the end zone. And oh, by the way, Johnson was also the one who grabbed the Guise fumble inside the Gator 10 yard line to deny LSU points on the first of three trips inside the UF 7 where the Tigers got zero points. Johnson’s efforts have already been lost in the shuffle of all the great feats by the Gator Super Friends Saturday, but I would like to place a sticky note on this page of the script where Kylan’s huge role in this Hollywood plot gets its major character development.
Now let’s talk about the goal line stand on LSU’s first drive of the third quarter. After Leonard Fournette easily drove the ball 7 yards to the three, LSU’ quarterback Danny Etling went on a rollout where Fournette, the intended receiver, was first blown up and off his route by Jordan Sherit and then placed under a blanket by Vosean Joseph. With no pass available, Etling saw that he had a clear path to the end zone pylon, and he went for it. That’s when the true freshman linebacker Joseph got to the pylon first and nailed Etling into next Thursday, just inches shy of the goal line. It is a hit that was so powerful it has already taken its place among the great Gator hits of all time. And oh, by the way, Joseph was the one who wrestled the ball away from an LSU player after the fumbled fourth quarter kickoff, the recovery of which led to the field goal that ultimately spelled a Gator win instead of a tie game and overtime. Then on third-and-goal about 12 inches from the goal line, Caleb Brantley shot his gap, jumped over an attempt to take his legs out, and brought down Fournette over 2 yards behind the line of scrimmage. That was Brantley’s second game-saving play inside the 5-yard-line on the day. The other being the amazing diving strip of Guise as he appeared headed for the end zone.
Most of the focus of taking the insults personally has been on the defense, but truly the offense had its share of MEN stepping up to answer the bell. The entire offensive line deserved game balls, led by supposedly diminutive and overmatched freshman backup center TJ McCoy, who simply dominated the middle of the Tiger defensive line all day long. Outside of the linemen, there was another MAN who deserves special recognition. Jordan Scarlett ran like a man possessed that Florida fans have seldom seen since the days of Errict Rhett. Not only did he notch his third 100-yard game of the year, he only got 28 of his yards in the first half. He absolutely carried the offense and the team on his back when they needed it most by driving to 80 yards in the second half.
Manhood (or womanhood, mind you – however, women don’t play football, so please pardon the patriarchal diction) is most steadfastly revealed when things look their most bleak. And in the closing minutes of the game Saturday, things looked bad. Really bad. LSU’s final drive was almost stopped at midfield when they faced a 4th and 10. Wouldn’t that have been nice for our blood pressure, ulcers and migraines? At that point, the Tigers were the only team in the entire country to be a 0-for-the-season on 4th down. Gator fans were feeling guarded but very strong optimism. But LSU got their only 4th down conversion of the year on that play against the Gators, thanks to Quincy Wilson hitting the turf (they say he fell down, but he was clearly shoved to the ground by the receiver – no call), putting them inside the red zone with 1:53 on the clock, nearly 2 minutes to move the ball 18 yards to win the game. NOW Gator fans had a much different outlook. The horrors of the five – count them FIVE – fourth down conversions LSU used to beat Florida at the buzzer in 2007 came trickling back into the brain pan. At that point, things for Florida looked terribly bleak. Dire. Baleful. It’s a word; look it up. We were in the Pit of Despair. We all knew it. This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it. Two quick plays later, they had 0:59 seconds and four plays to move the ball 6 yards to win the game. At this point, things looked downright fatal for the Gators. Four plays to move it 6 yards, but when the clock read 0:00, they’d only moved it 5. And all the demons of the LSU blind luck, trick plays and improbable finishes in recent years were washed away. And Gator fans were reminded: sometimes you eat the b’ar; sometimes the b’ar eats you.
And if you’re familiar with the Coen Brothers, you know that this line works on a second level, both in The Big Lebowski and in the case of this game. In this phrase, “b’ar” (bear) refers to the Jungian model of the human psyche where the b’ar symbolizes the divide between the conscious and the unconscious. So Sam Elliot is saying that sometimes the conscious mind is in control of the psyche, and sometimes the unconscious mind is in control. And thus the psyche of the Gator fan is revealed in its true sense under such trying and historical circumstances.
I’m Sam Elliot in this analogy. Got the cowboy outfit ad everything. Moving on…
Les Was More
While on the subject of the haunting Gator foibles against LSU in recent years, how many times did LSU fans have pangs of regret Saturday that they no longer had the Mad Hatter calling the shots on the sidelines? On the fumbled field goal attempt, did you all happen to notice how close LSU came to completing a TD pass on that play? It’d be a lot cooler if you did. It was almost completed to the intended receiver in the end zone, and then almost grabbed by a diving LSU player on the ricochet. If Les Miles were still the coach, that’s exactly the kind of blind, dumb, grass-eating luck you’d expect to fall their way. Every. Single. Time. But then, if Miles were still the coach, that would’ve been a fake field goal trick play in the first place. And so would the other field goal that was actually kicked. For the Gators, this game held on by the thinnest of strings for 60 minutes, right down to the last second. And you know that if Les Miles were still the coach, that final series would never have been played straight. He would have thrown some crazy off-the-wall 0%-chance-or-working gimmick play to try to steal the game. And it would have been doomed from start to finish…and it would have worked anyway. Don’t think for a minute that this isn’t invading the 15-or-so firing synapses of the average LSU fan…or at least it will when they sober up in mid-February.
Plays of the Game
There were just so many of them, I will take a stab at celebrating just a few. I know you’ll populate the thread with all the ones I missed, so they will get their props as well.
1) This goal-line stand that ended in the botched field goal attempt may have been even more important than the goal-line stand that ended the game. Because by keeping them out of the end zone, they ultimately created a 14-point swing. For as we will all remember the rest of our lives, after they botched the field goal attempt, Austin Appleby hit Tyrie Cleveland for the second-longest touchdown pass in school history – and the longest ever thrown by a quarterback – and the entire game was turned around. That goal line stand turned a 14-3 deficit with all the wind gone from the Gator sails to a 10-7 lead and an upper hand in confidence and momentum that the Gators never relinquished. Not even when the game was later tied at 10.
2) Everyone is giving props to Appleby for the big throw – and rightly so – but he really should get equal props for his discipline *before* the throw. Because without it, there is no touchdown. With Jordan Scarlett swinging to the left out of the backfield, action appeared left, and Austin stared down the left side of the field like a statue. He didn’t even sneak a tiny peek at Tyrie until he pivoted, loaded and let ‘er rip. By looking the coverage to the left, both safeties moved away from the real action. If Appleby had not sold that so well when Cleveland had to break stride and wait for the under-thrown ball and then take a couple of slowed steps to throw off the cornerback (literally), the safety would have easily been there to clean up. It would have been a really nice 40-yard connection to flip the field, but it would not have been a touchdown and likely would not have led to a touchdown later in the drive. After all, Florida never had a drive before and only had one after that came close to finding the end zone, and the only time they were close, they couldn’t get punch it in from the 1 (for both teams, penetrating the red zone was like trying to break into Fort Knox). So this pre-throw attention to detail was absolutely essential not just to scoring the touchdown, but to winning the game.
3) The unsung play of the game: LSU just drove the field for the tying field goal, and other than the one 98-yard 1-play drive, Florida’s offense had been MIA all day. Facing 2nd-and-7 from their own 25, under 12 minutes to go in the game, Austin Appleby tossed a pass right into the hands of C’yontai Lewis, but as he does at least once or twice a game, he dropped an easy catch. LSU was feeling it. The fans were feeling it. They just tied the game, they were about to force a 3-and-out and go back to pounding our defense that already had let them into the red zone 4 times. All the momentum was theirs. Florida was on the ropes. 3rd-and-7 and we couldn’t pass a lick, we couldn’t pass block a lick, we couldn’t hang onto a pass. So naturally Appleby drops back, gets a pocket that would make Mr. Clean proud, and drills a 10-yard laser into the hands of Tyrie Cleveland. Not only did it extend the drive, it seemed to shake LSU’s resolve because Jordan Scarlett and Lamical Perine started running through them like a hot knife through jambalaya. Six and a half minutes later, Florida is at the LSU 1 and then takes the lead with a field goal. A lead they would build and never relinquish.
Wait’ll They Getta Load’a…These Stats
- The 98-yard TD pass is the longest play by an opponent in the history of Tiger Stadium. It is well-advertised as the second-longest pass in Florida history, but it does set the record for the longest pass thrown by a Florida quarterback. It also set the UF record for the longest pass play and the longest touchdown pass against a SEC opponent, breaking the 96-yard connection between Gator legends Kerwin Bell and Ricky ‘The Rocket’ Nattiel against Georgia in 1984. And finally, Tyrie Cleveland wrote himself into the Florida record books a second time on that play, with the longest play – reception or run – by a true freshman in UF history. Say what you will about the Sundance Kid, the Cisco Kid, Kid Lester, the Frisco Kid, Kid Reid and the Waco Kid – this Kid Cleveland is a game changer.
- Florida won as an underdog of two touchdowns or more for the first time in 40 years. Not since 1976, when the highly underrated Mel Brooks classic Silent Movie hit theaters. I’ve dropped more lines into this column from that movie than any other.
- Although LSU rushed for over 200 yards on the Florida defense, the Gators held Leonard Fournette and Derrius Guice to 109 yards below their combined season average.
- Caleb Brantley had a career-high 3 tackles for loss – all solo – including a sack and a game-changing forced fumble among his 5 total tackles.
- Jalen Tabor had a career-high 5 solo tackles to go with the biggest UF pass breakup of the season.
- Marcell Harris had 11 tackles, besting his previous career high by 4.
- David Reese set his career high in tackles for the second-straight week (12 this week, 11 last week)
- It really should not have been a surprise that Florida clinched the Eastern division title on the road. They have made a habit of it. Though they clinched last year’s title at home, they clinched the East title on the road in 2009, 2008 and 2006. Until last year, the Gators hadn’t clinched the division at home since 2000.
- This year has seen a lot of great accomplishment for the Gators that haven’t been turned since Tim Tebow’s senior season in 2009. Add one more to that list: that was the last year Florida won in Baton Rouge. Florida almost had to play with a backup quarterback that year, too, but the bye week preceding the game allowed Tebow just enough time to recover from the concussion he suffered in the second half of their previous game against Kentucky.
- How disciplined were the Gators Saturday? They were only called for one penalty all day. That is a program record only matched three times in Florida history. Incontheivable!
The Thin (Orange &) Blue Line
So it looks like I got something quite wrong after the Arkansas game. I said that offensive line coach Mike Summers was most likely coaching for his job the rest of the year, and the offensive line was going to have to show marked improvement the rest of the year for his job to remain secure. That’s not what I think I got wrong. I think he *was* coaching for his job the rest of the year. Because if you are rated as a recruiter by those who know as somewhere between a non-entity and a liability, you have to have a major impact in coaching up your players. Where I got it wrong is when I continued with, “I think we all know that level of improvement is not likely to happen.” Well, maybe in point of fact it wasn’t likely, but it sure appears to be happening. It has snuck up on us, but this marks the third game in the last four where the Gator offensive line has owned the line of scrimmage. They haven’t owned the entire thing, but they were majority stockholders, for sure. And given the level of competition, this game took it to another level.
In the second half especially, the Florida offensive line pushed the LSU defensive front around like we were Alabama. Literally, because Alabama is the only team to run on the powerful Tiger defense this year as well or better than Florida just did. The Tide running backs averaged 3.6 yards per carry against LSU, while Florida running backs grabbed 5.0 yards per tote, both in Tiger Stadium. That’s also better than the mighty Wisconsin running attack racked on them in their win over LSU in their own back yard at Lambeau Field (3.2), and it’s more than Auburn’s high-powered ground game managed when the War Eagle Tigers beat the Bengal Tigers on the Plains (3.1). And although Alabama, the #1-ranked team for the last million years, ran for 0.6 more yards per carry as a team against LSU when you factor in the sacks of Florida’s signal caller and the scramble runs by Bama’s running quarterback, the Gators still scored more points against them. In fact, 60% more points.
And Florida left at least 4 points on the field with the botched pitch from the 1-yard line. And then there were the 7 points we left on the field when Appleby overthrew Cleveland, who had badly beaten the coverage down the sideline. And there was also the 7 points we missed out on when the walk-in pick-6 interception boinked off of David Reese’s hands. Since the game ended, LSU fans have been soaking their sour grapes in a narrative that they should have won the game 31-16, because of the 21 points they missed out on by screwing up inside the ten-yard line on three different possessions. However, if we are to play the game of counting the points that were left on the field, Florida still wins that pretend contest 35-31. And when it came down to cases, LSU failed because its vaunted offensive line failed to stop the battered Gator defensive front from penetrating and making big stops – and Florida succeeded because its much maligned and injury-riddled offensive line plowed the LSU defensive front under. And that’s not something anyone saw coming three weeks ago.
Goal to Geaux? Gators say “Neaux”!
Forget the 219 yards rushing the defense surrendered; forget the 204 yards they gave up through the air. That’s just a little exercise on 90 yards of the inconsequential real estate. Let’s talk about Boardwalk and Park Place: the ten yards in front of the end zone when Florida was on defense.
First off, to give context to just how improbable it was – and what a Herculean accomplishment it was – to hold LSU to only 1 touchdown on 5 trips inside the ten-yard line, coming into the game, LSU had 15 drives that wound up in goal-to-go situations. They scored touchdowns on 14 of them. 93%. Against Florida? 1 in 5. 20%. But let’s go deeper than the possessions. How about going to the play level? On the day, LSU had 16 plays with goal-to-go. In 16 plays, they scored 1 touchdown – that’s a 6% success rate. Pretty stout defense against the team that came into the game sixth in the nation in scoring touchdowns from inside the ten. But let’s go deeper yet: how about the yard level? In 16 goal-to-go plays, LSU gained a total of 23 yards. That’s an average of just 1.4 yards per play. Want to go deeper? How about inside the 1? The Tigers had four plays from the 1-yard line Saturday. On those four plays, they gained zero yards and zero points. Deepest yet? How about the R.O.U.S.’s? Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist.
Making it Hurt Worse
I don’t care that Guise went the wrong way on the last play of the game. Firstly, I don’t think he did go the wrong way. I think it was a misdirection play. I think the offensive coordinator told that to Coach O to save some face. When Guise was stopped short on the last play of the game, the first thing Ed Orgeron did after staring at the field for 15 seconds straight, was flip down his headset microphone and ask offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger, “What happened?” Coach O had no idea what the play call was. I think the timing of the play was off a little, but all indications of the play looked like it was a misdirection toss right, but Guise saw that the right side was completely shut down by Jordan Sherit and company, so he cut up and tried to dive over the pile. Secondly, even if the play were designated to go left (and somehow neither the running back nor the quarterback knew it), I don’t agree with the popular refrain that if he went that way it was a walk-in touchdown. Marcell Harris was free on the left side and Guise would’ve had to beat him in the open field and then hope nobody on the speedy Gator D got there to help. Like Nick Washington, who was standing a yard deep in the hole ready to knock Guise into next week.
But regardless of the truth of the matter – that will never be known to us or even most on the LSU staff – I’m glad that everyone at LSU thinks they only lost because Guise screwed up. Because Guise is one of those who directly, publicly challenged Florida’s manhood and insulted the players, coaches, and the program. And the story is that he’s the one who lost the game by going the wrong way, and by fumbling the ball anyway…and by fumbling the ball inside the 7-yard line in the first half. He deserved it. We all thought it before Mac said it. And I’m glad he got what he had coming.
Final Thoughts & Observations
- Can we please talk to the equipment manager about getting some working cleats? How many weeks in a row has it been now that the defense has given up huge plays, and the offense has had their own plays stymied (or Alfalfa’d) because our players have their feet go out from under them without being touched by another player? Whatever model cleat we are wearing, it is not working well at all, and opponents’ players are not falling down at anywhere near the same rate.
- I don’t know if Mark Thompson is listening to the coaches about holding onto the ball, but Lamical Perine and Jordan Scarlett sure are. They were protecting the ball with both hands on every carry Saturday whenever a defender was near, and it did nothing to slow them down. Mindful ball possession wins games (and wins spots on the depth chart).
- We fans may be talking about Atlanta and the SEC title game, but the team sure isn’t. They’re talking about FSU. That’s the team they mentioned in interviews while still on the field after the LSU game – almost as much as the team they just beat.
- You have to give Jesse Palmer major props for invoking Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka when Chauncey Gardner did a flying cross-body slam onto the pile late in the second quarter.
- The myth of the terrible SEC East is a bit overdone in my opinion, and now we have a little meat on the bone for that argument. First supposedly lowly Georgia beat the hottest team in the West, Auburn, last week without even scoring an offensive touchdown. Then Saturday afternoon, injury-addled Florida took it to LSU in their own house, something everyone said was impossible. Then night fell and low and behold Vanderbilt went out and ran up the score on Cheater-In-Chief Hugh Freeze, the freshman quarterback sensation and mighty Ole Miss. Yes, Vanderbilt, which couldn’t beat East doormat Missouri the previous week. On the whole, the West is most likely better than the East this year, but the meme that the East is terrible simply doesn’t hold water.
- Did anyone else see defensive coordinator Geoff Collins high-stepping onto the field like a Rockette after the fourth down goal-line stand to win the game? If you haven’t, watch the tape again and enjoy. Because it is hilarious and just plain great.
- Another part of the game replay you need to watch if you missed it the first time (or the other 52.5 times you’ve viewed it since the game ended): the shot of the fans on Florida Field celebrating the winning goal line stand. You absolutely have to love the little kid in the #1 Gator jersey on that last play. He correctly signals “no good” by sweeping his arms in front of him several times, then when the refs mark it down and game over, he just starts jumping for joy. Boundless joy. Ah, the unbridled happiness of a little kid – that’s what it’s all about.
- When Lamical Perine plowed through about half the LSU defense for ten yards in the fourth quarter Saturday, I heard a little boy shout, “Look at Superman blasting through all the bad guys!” His dad told him, “He’s not Superman, he’s Lamical Perine.” The boy insisted, “But look at his Superman cape flapping in the wind as he runs!” His dad replied, “That’s not a cape, son. That’s Jamal Adams.”
- I know a lot of folks don’t get him, and some think he gives terrible interview responses, but I think Coach Mac is an absolute hoot with the microphone in front of him. Here are just some of the sequences from him on the field after the game that was pure classics:
“How about that? That was alright, wasn’t it?……we won the SEC East. Didn’t we? Pretty cool, isn’t it?…..and you know what? The Gators came out on top, and I think we’re going to Atlanta, right? Are you going to be there?”…Then when handing off the interview to Jordan Scarlett, after joshing with him for several seconds, he sticks his face into Jordan’s ear and says, “Make sure you say nice things.”
Mac stopped just short of saying, “Alright, alright, alright!” I always look forward to his colorful, ridiculous commentary. And he never disappoints. The Mac abides. Always.