ATLANTA – So this is what it tastes like, these bitter herbs of defeat. Been a while, huh, Gator fans? Twenty-two games, 434 days to be exact.
For Urban Meyer and his team, it was like coming home from a fabulous year’s vacation in the Swiss Alps or the Caribbean, only to find out that your house has been broken into, your bank account is overdrawn and your boss wants to see you in his office tomorrow morning.
Life for the loser is a bit different on the other side.
Florida’s greatest ride in football history came to an abrupt crash landing on the artificial turf of the Georgia Dome, where Alabama destroyed the Gators and their hopes for another SEC and possible national championship.
Saturday afternoon, for a change, it wasn’t so great to be a Florida Gator. At least for a day.
There will be no rings this year, no trophies and no Pasadena. Everything was washed out to sea in the current of the Crimson Tide, including another Heisman Trophy for Tim Tebow. The parting gift for Tebow and his teammates is likely going to be the Sugar Bowl.
Forget trying to analyze what went wrong for Meyer’s team, including dropped passes, an uninspired offensive game plan, a sleepwalking defense that couldn’t seem to tackle Tide running backs and the absence of one of their best pass rushers, Carlos Dunlap.
We could go on forever, looking for reasons or excuses.
This just might have been one of those cases where the losers just tip their hats to the other guys and acknowledge they were a lot better. Like another Florida coach used to say, “those other guys got scholarship players, too.”
Meyer pretty much did that.
Twenty-two was a key number in many ways.
The Gator winning streak, longest in the nation, ended at 22.
Alabama won its 22nd SEC Championship.
And Crimson Tide running back Mark Ingram, who wears No. 22, probably moved to the top of the list as the Heisman Trophy candidate, though he ran second to quarterback Greg McElroy, the game’s MVP.
Alabama dominated in every category, including the scoreboard, 32-13, and Nick Saban had the perfect game plan.
Whatever flicker of hope that the struggling Gators may have had in the second half quickly ended when they failed to score on the opening drive and then allowed Alabama to march on a 74-yard drive to kill off the tiny bit of momentum Florida had mustered just before the half to draw within six points.
The death knell was a 17-yard McElroy touchdown pass to tight end Colin Peek, son of former Gator receiver Gene Peek, no less.
After that, though there were still 25 minutes left to play, but there could have been 25 hours and these Florida Gators could not have rallied to beat ‘Bama. They couldn’t even do it after being called together on the sideline and adomonished by their leader, Tebow, veins coursing from his neck, begging and pleading with his teammates to step up as the fourth quarter began.
The bell was not answered this time.
Meanwhile, Tide quarterback McElroy looked like Brett Favre, passing and running to keep his team’s drives alive. Or simply turning around and handing off to Ingram, who gashed the Gator defense for 113 yards and made his would-be tacklers look like they were trying to grab greased lightning.
Florida’s defense was bumfuzzled. Generally known as a unit of good tacklers and one that usually makes spot-on adjustments at the half, Charlie Strong’s gang never really got on track. To make matters worse, they were on the field for long periods of time because the Gator offense had so few sustained drives.
That the Gators lost is not shocking, though they were favored by about a field goal. That they got whacked was rather startling.
Say this about the Gators, though: During that stretch of dominance they were fun to watch, played hard and accomplished much. We all knew it couldn’t last, but almost nobody expected it to end this way.
What happened? Aside from running into a buzzsaw, a hot team that was better prepared, the Gators didn’t have many answers.
From the media dais in the Georgia Dome to field questions from the media, Meyer and Tebow struggled to explain. Urban had felt that the Caleb Sturgis field goal right before the first half, which put his team behind by just six points, 19-13, might change momentum.
It did not.
Their body language looked almost foreign.
“We didn’t execute very well,” Meyer said, confirming the obvious, “but you’ve got to take the good with the bad. We’ve got to find a way to regroup and go win a bowl game. We’re kind of in unfamiliar territory here … We’re not going to win every game we play.”
It just seemed that way during that 434-day magic carpet ride.
Between questions, Meyer kept studying a stats sheet, as if looking answers in a wishing well. Tebow’s eyes were still damp from the trail of tears he had left on the Georgia Dome field and he was still fighting them back.
This is not the enduring image we all have of Tebow, who will be remembered as the Energizer Bunny in pads and helmet, the Man of Steel with the cotton candy heart and the iron clad will to win.
Even some of those on the other side find it hard to see Tebow in this state, as evidenced from a woman from Alabama sitting among the media, who felt compelled to tell Tim he was “loved by every woman in Alabama, including grandmas.”
For just a moment, Tebow put aside his misery to politely thank the woman – as out of place as her comment seemed at a press conference – and resurrected some of the lessons learned out of the famous speech he made 23 games ago after the loss to Ole Miss.
“I take a lot out of this game,” Tebow said, dusting off his search for a silver lining. “Anytime, good or bad, there is still a lot you can get out of it. This is also a feeling we don’t like, so we don’t want to repeat it too many times.”
He said they would work hard to turn things around.
There won’t be but one more opportunity, of course, for Tebow as a Gator. Most likely it won’t be in those white Nike Combat helmets, either. No doubt they will be put away in mothballs, if not trashed, as Florida now must start over trying to establish another winning streak.
Perhaps Tebow can jump-start his legacy again in New Orleans, leaving his old school with a one-game head start on the next winning streak.