Gilda Radner could have been talking about the 2009 Florida Gators on Saturday Night Live back in the late 1970s when her character Roseanne Rosannadanna quipped, “It just goes to show you, it’s always something. If it isn’t one thing, it’s always something else.” Indeed, it is always something for the Florida Gators this year and if it isn’t one thing, there is always something else. Or so it seems through the first five games when it seems the Gators can’t seem to go a week without getting hit with a question that takes front and center stage with national media that seem to be probing, looking for something, anything to knock Urban Meyer and the mighty Gators off their number one perch.
The college football season began just six short weeks ago but in the first month Meyer and the Gators had to deal with The Great Scheduling Conflict of 2009, The Mouth That Roared, The Win That Wasn’t a Win, The Great Flu Epidemic and The Great Concussion Debate of 2009.
Meyer doesn’t make the Florida football schedule. He simply gets his team ready to play and win against whoever is next on the agenda. Meyer also isn’t responsible for Lane Kiffin’s runaway mouth and he doesn’t have to apologize for grinding out a 10-point win over an SEC opponent because he does understand that moral victories don’t help you in the BCS standings when you’ve got your sights set on a third national championship in four years.
The flu epidemic was real and enough of a distraction that the Gators used a commercial charter and two private planes to get the Gators to Lexington. On one of the university-owned jets was Tim Tebow, who went down with vicious third quarter hit that created The Great Concussion Debate of 2009. Within hours the debate was raging. Why was Tebow in the game in the first place? How long would the concussion keep him out of action? Would Urban Meyer allow national championship goals to cloud his judgment about when to allow Tebow to play again. It was such a hot topic that a Gator Country TV video report taped shortly after the game was over from the University of Kentucky medical center taped was viewed more than 38,000 times within a matter of hours.
The Great Concussion Debate of 2009 raged for two weeks and it brought out the best in medical diagnosis from experts such as Greg Doyel and another 13,391,612 internet doctors, whose long list of qualifications on the subject could be traced either to an article on WebMD or a first-hand report from the third cousin of a best friend who knows a nurse who works at a hospital where there is a famous doctor who deals in concussions.
From the moment Tebow went down with his concussion until he stepped on the field at Tiger Stadium after being cleared to play last Saturday night, it was a media zoo. While while we were waiting for two very long weeks to pass so the game could actually be played, further distraction was added with the The Great Cell Phone Caper, Part Deux. In The Great Cell Phone Caper, Part Un back in 2007, LSU fans somehow got hold of Tebow’s cell phone number and took time from their busy schedules of figuring out how to rebuild the destroyed Lower Ninth Ward in Nawlins to bombard him with phone calls and text messages, no doubt encouraging him to beat the bejabbers out of their beloved Tigers.
In Part Duex, LSU fans somehow got the cell phone numbers for Meyer and backup quarterback John Brantley and once again they took time away from the ongoing debate about how to rebuild the still destroyed Lower Ninth Ward in Nawlins to bombard Meyer and Brantley with thousands more of those thoughtful, intelligent text messages.
Well, Brantley didn’t play and Meyer changed cell phone numbers about five minutes into the caper. As for Tebow, he got medical clearance to play from Florida’s team of world-renowned concussion experts who somehow disagreed with the expert advice of Doyel and millions of other internet-trained neurosurgeons. After leading the number one-ranked Gators to a 13-3 win over fourth-ranked LSU in Baton Rouge Saturday night, the cell phone caper obviously died and while you might think the sight of a bright, alert Tebow answering questions after the game might silence the internet docs, it didn’t. Doyel used his soap box to actually blame Meyer for doing the WRONG thing by playing Tebow. Little did we know the University of Florida journalism school crosstrains its graduates for a rewarding career in the challenging field of neuroscience.
As of Monday afternoon there was nothing in the way of drama waiting for its opportunity to play itself out on the Andy Warhol 15 Minutes of Fame Stage that is Florida’s 2009 football season. Oh, something like 273, 343 internet-trained assistant coaches have been volunteering their expertise on how to cure Florida’s “anemic offense” — that’s only ranked first in the SEC and sixth nationally — but this is minor compared to the previous weeks. For the most part, the Monday distractions were at a minimum.
“This whole season has been about a lot of stuff,” Meyer said Monday at his weekly press conference, sounding almost surprised that there isn’t some sort of controversy waiting his team this week.
But even if some sort of new media or fan-manufactured controversy pops up in this or subsequent weeks, Meyer really isn’t going to worry that the Gators will lose focus. He’s been saying for weeks he likes the maturity of this team and nothing shows maturity more than games like Saturday night in Baton Rouge when everyone but the Gators was worried about Tebow.
The Gators weren’t worried. They knew they would win the game if Tebow played. They also knew they would win it if he didn’t. As much as they trust Tim Tebow to play lights out when the stakes are the highest, they also trust themselves to get the job done.
That’s why they treated the Baton Rouge visit like a business trip. The order of business was get in, get the win and get out. It didn’t matter if it was a pretty win or a last man standing avoids the autopsy affair. They knew what they had to do and they got the job done with the cold steel nerves of a highly trained assassin. They staked out their target until they had it measured and in the cross hairs, then squeezed of a few rounds, leaving the LSU Tigers ten toes up on the Tiger Stadium carpet.
Arkansas comes to town this week and it’s homecoming. Some coaches worry that the distractions of homecoming will cause their teams to lose focus but this is a group that Meyer trusts to do whatever it takes to make whoever is next on the schedule just another notch on the belt.
“Some teams don’t handle adversity very well and they lose games,” Meyer said. “Our guys handle it.”
It is no longer a question of what happens if adversity and distractions come the Gators way. Through six weeks, Meyer and his guys have already seen plenty and they’ve handled everything thrown their way. But it’s midseason and chances are, the Gators will see plenty more before it’s all over. That’s what happens when you’re sitting on top of the college football world but Meyer sees no reason for concern.
“I trust these guys,” Meyer said Monday.
He trusts them because they’ve earned his trust. He trusts them because he’s got a team with no shortage of leaders and no lack of maturity. So even if there are distractions — if it isn’t one thing it will always be something else — he really doesn’t have to worry. The Gators know Urban Meyer has their backs. He knows they have his, too.