Florida Gators: SEC Champs!

I’m still getting used to the idea that we’re playing for the National Championship in a few weeks. It seems as though we’ve been struggling since the second half at Auburn, and yet we’ve done nothing but win since that game. Here are my thoughts on our win over Arkansas in Atlanta last weekend:

We had our best offensive showing since LSU. Hopefully we’ve turned a corner and we can take advantage of OSU’s soft defense.
The final score didn’t really demonstrate how much we dominated Arkansas. We had four pass interference calls on our defense; two of them kept an Arkansas drive rolling and both of those were terrible calls. Both of those bad calls led to an Arkansas touchdown on the subsequent play. Half of their points were on plays that never should’ve happened.
Leak threw two interceptions, but I think both of those were due to Arkansas calling tricky coverage as opposed to Leak making bad decisions. All in all, he played a great game and made good decisions all night.
Our freshmen had a really big night, which is good news for us in the Championship game. If they show up in Glendale like they did in Atlanta, we’re going to be a very dangerous team
Meyer’s fake punt call was probably a “bad” play call, but I love it from a psychological perspective. Our team had lost momentum and we needed something to happen to change the tone of the game. That play was exactly what we needed and it was a very well designed play.
Wilbur is a fantastic punter and he had another good game on Saturday. It was nice to see him make some big plays to win the SEC Championship, help get us into the National Title game and start erasing the memory of the blocked punt at Auburn. It was also hilarious to see him mock Arkansas’ punter at the end of the game.

Now, I just have to see about getting tickets (game and plane) for Glendale. So far, it looks like the trip will cost about $2000 and I’m not sure I want to spend that much money. I’m also not sure I’ll forgive myself if I pass on the game and we win.

Road trips!

Road trip 1: Tonight, for the first time in about three years, I went running (outdoors and everything!). I’ve been doing various cardio exercises–ridin’ the bike, the crazy elliptical thing–for a few years, but I hadn’t gone for a run in a while. It was actually pretty relaxing and wasn’t as tough as I anticipated. I went about 3.3 miles in 30 minutes (nine-minute miles). That ain’t great and it ain’t awful. On the up-side, I did have to run a bit of a hill, so I’ll tell myself that slowed me down a bit.

Road trip 2: Tomorrow night, I’m heading to Atlanta to watch the Gators in the SEC Championship game. When I was a student, we pretty much expected to play for the SEC Title and we were always hoping to get into the National Championship game. Nowadays, playing for the SEC Title is a big deal and I want to be there if we win it. Also, it’s a pretty good excuse to go hang with my friends in Atlanta (I haven’t been since last Christmas). So, I’m leaving right after work tomorrow and I should get there around 10:00 tomorrow night. I’ll be heading back on Sunday afternoon.

Road trip 3: In honor of all the road-tripping, I picked up Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (audio book). I figure it’s just a bonus that Beatniks likely weren’t opposed to partaking of the acid from time to time (of course, that’s speculation based entirely on some stereotype I have for reasons I can’t recall).

Florida Football limping, sputtering to wins

Well, it’s been several weeks since I posted (I guess I’ll need to be more intentional with finding time to post), and the Auburn game remains our only loss. Our wins haven’t been impressive, but they have been wins, and we’re in the driver’s seat. Although a bye might be nice next week, I think it’s good that we’ll have a tune-up game against Western Carolina. We need to work on our offense and hopefully find some kind of rhythm. Our defense and special teams seem to be just fine. Actually, that’s a pretty big under statement… our defense and special teams are pretty awesome. They’re really the only reason we’ve won games since they just don’t allow other teams to put any points on the board.

I’m pretty tired so it’s time to wrap this up. We’re winning games and possibly en route to a National Championship appearance (thanks to some pretty big upsets today). I’ll take it.