There are some things you don’t do when playing the Florida Gators. One of those would be chanting “Tebow sucks” after holding him to a two yard rush on the third play of Florida’s first drive. Did Tebow hear the chant? My guess would be no. But his performance on the field Saturday night made it look otherwise.
Sure the atmosphere wasn’t exactly what Gators expected it to be. This wasn’t the South Carolina team many of us expected. With a banged up secondary, Tim Tebow did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Defense was supposed to be this South Carolina team’s strong point. Limited receiving talent after Kenny McKinley and the always mediocre Blake Mitchell at quarterback, the Gamecocks defense was supposed to hold this team together. But right now, they aren’t succeeding on either side of the football.
When I saw the schedule near the beginning of the season, I figured this would be the game that clinched our berth in the SEC Championship game. While the SEC schedule has changed those plans, there is nothing like seeing the Gators dominate a game in an opposing team’s stadiums.
As great of a game as that was to watch, it was pathetic for me to look across the field and see almost all of the South Carolina sections close to empty near midway through the fourth quarter. That says it all to me. Not only has this South Carolina team given up on this season, but apparently the fans have too.
The defense gave up 384 yards, but most of those seemed to come in garbage time. I was most impressed with how they stepped up at times necessary, which is shown by South Carolina’s 2-12 on 3rd down conversions. 316 of their total yards came through the air, as Florida played more soft coverage when the game was well out of hand.
I’ll admit that I got a little nervous before the game when I heard Harvin would be out for the game. If there was a positional unit we could afford to lose a player from, it would be the receiver position. That’s where back-to-back outstanding recruiting classes come in. When you have an athletically gifted player in Jarred Fayson come in and start his first game, you know you are loaded. Outside of the stadium I heard people talking about how it was “put up or shut up” time for Fayson, and I couldn’t agree more. He only had 45 total yards and a touchdown, but he did a great job of blocking from what I saw. That’s a great way to stay on the field with this high powered offense.
Seeing Louis Murphy’s stat line of two catches for 20 yards is a little bit depressing, after he dropped an easy touchdown in the fourth quarter and a tougher one in the first half. Meyer has been calling him one of Florida’s most accountable players, and he sure had been before his game Saturday night.
The receiver you couldn’t help but be happy for is Andre Caldwell. Can you imagine a better way for the senior wide receiver to exit SEC play? Not only beating an SEC East rival, but gaining 157 total yards and a touchdown in the process.
The real question that should be coming out of this game is why Tim Tebow is not the favorite for the Heisman trophy. I’ve seen Dennis Dixon play and Oregon would be a mediocre team without him. Yet imagining the Florida Gators without Tim Tebow would change the entire Florida playbook. How many teams in the nation trust their quarterback to take their goal line carries? And now the player who broke SEC and school rushing touchdown records in only ten games is not the best player in the country? I don’t buy it.
Tebow boasts a passer rating this season of 177.1 is completing 67.8% of his passes. All the national media could talk about before the season began was the questions around Tebow’s ability to pass the ball, and now he puts up 2,532 passing yards in his first ten games as quarterback. Those yards have complied 23 passing touchdowns with an embarrassment of riches at the wide receiver position. Those statistics alone would be impressive for a quarterback, but they only tell half the story.
His 170 carries for the season have totaled 718 yards. That’s an average of 4.2 yards per carry. What other quarterback can boast that average with so many carries? But then the telling statistic comes in. 19 touchdowns on the ground. For a quarterback? He’s already broke the school rushing record. What else does he have to do? The trust put into him by Urban Meyer is well earned, as Tebow is yet to fumble the football. A quarterback, who has focused his whole life on making throws to keep a starting job, has yet to fumble the football this season on 170 carries. Let that sink in.
With Florida Atlantic next week, the team has the closest thing to a bye week. This should give Maurkice Pouncey a chance to get healthy, and Harvin should be ready to go for a little bit of work against Florida Atlantic. This sets up for the team to be the healthiest we’ve seen all season when Florida State comes to town.