Just six short weeks ago when championships were but a mirage to the Florida Gators, the SEC title game seemed as far way as Siberia. But like Sarah Palin said about the view of Russia from her house, all of a sudden Urban Meyer can see Atlanta out his front window – and well beyond.
Saturday night in Nashville, Meyer’s team got its ticket punched to the Georgia Dome again and the Old World Order of the Southeastern Conference returned to form. The two most familiar names in SEC playoff history are back in the saddle: Florida and Alabama.
Get out those fire extinguishers Atlanta, the hottest team in America is coming to town.
Florida beat Vanderbilt, 42-14, to win the SEC East. And by virtue of Alabama’s overtime win over LSU Saturday, the Crimson Tide has locked up the West and will be Florida’s opponent Dec. 6 in the Georgia Dome.
It came with a vengeance as the Gators exploded for a 28-0 lead early in 17 minutes 59 seconds of total dominance. Aside from the four touchdowns by Tim Tebow – two on the ground, two in the air – they blocked two punts and intercepted a pass.
And that’s not all. The stars are lining up correctly again for the Gators. In fact, it’s one of those even years again when good karma abounds and external forces are working in their favor – like unbeaten Penn State getting knocked off by Iowa Saturday.
Just as in 2006 and 1996 when the late-season upsets catapulted the Gators into a position to play for, and win, the national championship, they now have a clear path to Miami and the BCS Big Boy game. Ranked No. 5 in the BCS, they stand to move up after this weekend. And with a shot at an unbeaten, No. 1 ranked Alabama in Atlanta, it’s all right there in Urban’s window.
The Florida Gators have answered the bell. After a challenge from their coach and a promise from their quarterback following a loss to Mississippi, they have responded by playing their finest football – even if they did play sloppily in the second half against Vandy. With Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina team coming to town next week, Meyer will have some things to complain to them about in those final two quarters. He was shaking his head in disgust in the final minutes Saturday night.
Meyer makes sure to let them know there is a challenge awaiting around every corner.
Urban loves to use the boxing metaphor about a team “getting hit in the mouth and getting up.”
It is official now: The Gators are off the canvas. I don’t agree with all those people who said losing to Ole Miss made the Gators a better team, but I do agree that what happened after that loss did: Tebow delivered his post-game promise that his team would work harder than ever and never again lose a game for lack of effort.
After the Tebow Manifesto, the Gators ripped off five consecutive victories, outscoring their next five opponens 243-57 and playing like champions.
It looks like the Boys From Old Florida are back. It remains to be seen just how far back. But I have a feeling it could be all the way. They are ready to reclaim their rightful place in the SEC pecking order.
Older fans know this championship thing is still relatively new to The Gator Nation.
Taking the long view, the Gators were latecomers to SEC supremacy and are still not even among the top four schools in total number of league championships: Alabama has 21, Tennessee 13, Georgia 12 and LSU 10. Florida has 7, all in the last 18 seasons.
The first title was long in coming. Moses was only in the desert for 40 years. The Gators played nearly 60 years before winning a conference championship. They came close three times and actually won titles in 1984 and 1990 but because of NCAA infractions were not allowed to keep the trophies.
Sometimes just cracking the barrier – as Roger Bannister did with the first four-minute mile – can bring a cascade of glory.
That was the case when Steve Spurrier’s team beat Kentucky to go 7-0 in league play and clinch the SEC back before there were two divisions and a playoff game.
Gator fans have been Singing in the Reign from 1992 through 2006 when playing for the SEC Championship has been as routine as going to an ordinary bowl game. “They set the standards in the early nineties,” Meyer said, “with five in a row.”
The fans should have bought property in Atlanta because that ’94 championship would be the first of five trips to Hotlanta in seven years. If felt almost like a birthright to The Gator Nation to be playing for a conference title.
Then – poof! – one season after the Millennium, it was gone and soon so was Spurrier.
Lightning in a bottle is not easily caught. Funny how excellence can be taken for granted.
After the 28-6 victory over Auburn in 2000, it took six more seasons to get back. Urban Meyer’s 2006 club reversed the Gators’ fortunes in the post-Spurrier era with the 38-28 victory over Arkansas, good enough to jump Florida to No. 2 in the BCS and earn the right to play Ohio State for the national championship.
Florida has won the SEC title every way and at every site possible – the best regular season record (1991); a playoff game in Birmingham (1993); and five championship games in the Georgia Dome.
And now it is time for a reprise of “We Are The Boys …” in the Georgia Dome. The power of that credential has far-reaching implications because to play for the SEC is most likely an audition for the BCS championship.
If there was ever a question how the rest of the so-called experts viewed the power of the SEC, it was answered with that that 2006 leapfrog in the polls. And the experts were vindicated by the Gators’ 41-14 annihilation of Ohio State.
But was this a blip on the radar screen or did Meyer have the program back on track? Saturday night in Nashville, the Gators answered the first part of that equation by pummeling Vanderbilt and earning the rights to their seventh trip to Atlanta and their ninth SEC championship game.
It’s still too early to quantify this accomplishment because it will have to be done so on the field. But just for the moment think about this projection: If getting back to Atlanta indeed proves to be a jumpstart back into SEC dominance and Meyer’s team can sustain this run for the remainder of the year, then The Gator Nation could be in for Spurrier-like numbers, on par with the greatest run in Gator football history.
Consider that the best four-year run in Florida football history was from 1993-96 when the Gators won four SEC titles and a national championship. Those accomplishments will likely never be repeated in Gainesville, but by winning the rest of his games this season, Meyer could be coming close to the 45-6-1 mark of Spurrier.
Should Florida win out, including an SEC and national title, Meyer would be 44-9 with two conference titles and two national championships. That’s an even better record than Spurrier’s first four campaigns, 39-10, and ties him for SEC titles (2) in that first four-year Spurrier span.
And the good news is that with the talent coming back in 2009 there is no reason to expect that to stop.
There’s still time to buy that property in Hotlanta.