NaBloPoMo 2010 Day 13 -- Season Review

I know the season isn't over, but for all intents and purposes, it is. I watched tonight as my Gators had a chance to redeem this season with a win over South Carolina and UF's former coach, Steve Spurrier. The game was at home in the Swamp, but it didn't matter. Tonight was a microcosm of the season, and tonight ended with a loss.

In no particular order, here are my thoughts about the season (well, I guess there is an "order" because the thoughts are numbered):

1) Urban Meyer made a mistake by not revamping the offense for the skill set of John Brantley. In 2005, when Meyer came to UF, he attempted to run his Utah offense with Chris Leak, a traditional drop-back passer. It didn't work. During the bye week before the game against Georgia, Meyer and his offensive coordinator, Dan Mullen (now the head coach at Mississippi State), retooled the offense to take advantage of Leak's skills. And the remainder of that season was saved, and it paved the way for the national title the following season. I expected Meyer to follow that template with Brantley this season. For whatever reason, he did not. The team has suffered because of it. Perhaps Meyer's health issues last off-season affected his memory.

2) The play-calling for the last two years has been questionable at best. After winning the national title game again at the end of the 2008 season, Dan Mullen was hired away by Mississippi State. Meyer had two options in selecting a new offensive coordinator: Steve Addazio, the offensive line coach with a couple decades of coaching experience, or Billy Gonzales, the younger wide receivers coach. Meyer went with Addazio. And Gonzales was not a happy camper. He stayed for last season, but he took a job with LSU at the end of the year. Last season, Addazio had Tim Tebow to bail him out of a lot of bad calls, but the offense did not run as smoothly as the year before when Mullen was calling plays and Addazio was just coaching the offensive line. This year, without Tebow, the offense has looked anemic. Meyer and UF are in a tough spot with Addazio, because he stepped in to run the program when Meyer resigned and then returned but took considerable time off last spring. He was a great O-line coach, so I don't necessarily want to lose him, but he needs to yield the play-calling responsibilities.

3) Meyer and co. need to decide what kind of team this is going to be ... and what kind of program he is going to run. It's OK if this is going to be a spread program. That means UF will never get a pro-style drop-back QB prospect, but so what?!?! If that type of QB can't run your offense, why recruit them at all? It's worse to recruit a pro-style QB and say that you can adjust to his talents, when in fact, you don't really want to. The Chris Leak situation tells me that Meyer can adjust his offense to the talents of his QB, but this season with Brantley tells me that he doesn't really want to. Fine. Tom Osborne ran his running offense through the '90s for multiple national titles because that was his offense. He still got players who could run it and run it successfully. Meyer just needs to own that the spread, read-option offense is what he prefers.

4) This three-headed QB system can't work long-term (or against teams not named "Vanderbilt"). Because Meyer won't commit to one offensive approach, he has now gone to 3 QBs -- none of whom can get enough reps in practice to do more than one thing. That means that defenses know exactly how to play against each of them. Brantley gets blitzed snap after snap because they know he's the passer. Trey Burton gets 8 in the box because they know he's not going to throw. Jordan Reed can throw the ball, but he doesn't get enough reps to run more than a minor portion of the playbook to be effective yet. This goes back to #3 above, but Meyer has to commit to one way of doing things and pick the best guy to run that offense and give him the most reps.

5) The offensive line has struggled throughout the year, and I think it's directly related to Addazio's offensive play-calling responsibilities. There is a reason for position coaches. There is a reason that some guys are great position coaches and not good coordinators. I think Addazio is one of those guys. He could be a good head coach, but he's not a coordinator. And those responsibilities are making him a poor position coach this year as well.

6) Meyer's top priority in the off-season needs to be to find Addazio a new job somewhere else. The program probably owes Addazio at least that given his willingness to step in for Meyer when he was away from the team. Once he handles that, he can then find a new play-caller. I would not be opposed to Meyer bringing Gonzales back if that relationship can be patched.

7) There is a considerable amount of youth on the team this season. But after the 10th game, I would expect to see more maturity and/or development.

8) Hopefully, this down year follows Meyer's pattern at UF. Each down year has been followed by a solid and/or championship year. I wouldn't mind that pattern repeating itself.

NaBloPoMo 2009 Day 28 -- Rivalry Weekend

The weekends on either side of Thanksgiving are riddled with football games between in-state rivals. Thursday through Saturday this week especially saw matches that often pit family members against each other. Combining family dysfunction, holidays and football is a dangerous mix.

There were a few upsets this weekend too. South Carolina got the best of Clemson in Columbia. NC State pulled the upset over North Carolina. As I am writing, Georgia is leading #7 ranked Georgia Tech, but Tech is driving for the winning score. Tech failed to get the winning score. Poor play-calling on Tech's part on that final possession. All of a sudden, Tech tried to win the game through the air before it had to. There was time on the clock for Tech to try to win with their option attack and shorter, surer passing routes.

In Gainesville, Tim Tebow left The Swamp with his fourth win in a row over arch-rival Florida State (Florida's sixth win in a row over FSU). Tebow threw for 3 touchdowns and ran for 2 others. His play keeps him in the Heisman discussion, but he has to have a 400+ total yards performance next weekend in the SEC Championship game to have any hope of winning the award for a second time.

Colt McCoy kept Texas' championship hopes alive defeating Texas A&M on Thanksgiving night. But he also edged ahead in the Heisman race with an incredible offensive performance against another swiss-cheese Big 12 defense. Texas faces Nebraska in the Big 12 championship game in Dallas next weekend. That Nebraska defense could be the antidote to the Texas offense and ruin the lives of many Longhorn fans. But if McCoy can perform well against that defense, he likely would cap off the Heisman race and book a slot in the BCS championship game.

It's been another great regular season of college football. Hard to believe that it's almost over. I'm not quite ready to watch college basketball yet. But don't worry; I will be.

NaBloPoMo 2009 Day 23 -- Final Home Game

This is the end of an era. Saturday, the Florida Gators host their in-state rival, the Florida State Seminoles. In any given season, this game is huge for both schools. Like Auburn-Alabama or Georgia-Georgia Tech or Oregon-Oregon State or USC-UCLA. It's rivalry weekend all across the nation.

But in Gainesville, this week is the last home game for Tim Tebow. The Heisman-winning quarterback that many Gator fans like to call Superman will run out of the tunnel at The Swamp one last time. All season, Tebow has run out last in an effort to soak in his final season in a Florida uniform. It is senior day this weekend, but the crowd will be there to watch the guy who will go down as the greatest Gator of all time and perhaps, the greatest football player in college football history -- at least the greatest to this point.

The reality that this is the last home game for Tebow hit his coach today at Urban Meyer's Monday press conference. Below are the highlights of the press conference, but at about the 2:10 mark, he comments about the impact that Tebow has had -- not only on the football team, but also on him as a person. Coaches build strong ties with their players in all sports, but rarely does a player have an impact on a coach off the field. In Tebow's case, his consistent, unselfish, God-centered lifestyle impacted Meyer so much that he took his family on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. Those things don't happen every day.

We can debate Tebow's abilities as a quarterback and whether he can succeed at the next level, but you can't debate the young man's ability to inspire his teammates, coaches, fans, friends, and even complete strangers.

NaBloPoMo 2009 Day 14 -- Saturday Sports

Another Saturday, another stilted performance from the Gators. This has been such a hard season to watch the Gators which is somewhat difficult to believe because they are 10-0 after winning today on the road at South Carolina. The game started well with a long pass play from Tim Tebow to Riley Cooper, but as has happened in most games this season, things bogged down after the first quarter. In the end, they remain undefeated. They finished the SEC schedule undefeated and await Alabama on December 5th for the SEC Championship Game at the Georgia Dome. I try not to complain when the Gators have won 20 games in a row, but these close games are giving me (more) gray hair than I want.

Ole Miss took Tennessee to the wood shed today. I saw many a pundit calling for UT to win this one on the road. Given all the distractions in Knoxville this week, I had a hard time seeing it. Dexter McCluster ran all over Monte Kiffin's defense. Good win for Ole Miss. I'd like to see Snead stick around for another season at Ole Miss to see if he can lead that team farther next season. I suspect Sam Bradford's experience at Oklahoma this year will weigh heavily at the end of the year when he contemplates his decision.

My Saturdays in the fall usually start with English Premier League matches. Most Saturdays, there is a "lunch time" match that starts at 7:45 a.m. eastern, followed by a handful of matches at 10:00 a.m. But this weekend, there is a break in the Premier League schedule to accommodate the last small group of matches for World Cup qualifying. There were also a number of international "friendlies" for the nations whose World Cup fates were already decided. So there were some matches on this morning, but I wasn't interested in watching a friendly that didn't matter.

I was glad to see the University of Kentucky become bowl-eligible today with a win on the road at Vanderbilt. That makes four consecutive seasons that UK will head to a bowl. They've won the last 3 bowl games. Here's to a fourth consecutive result in their favor.

Hats off to Georgia Tech. With their win at Duke University today, the Yellow Jackets are 10-1 and will play in the ACC Champhionship Game on December 5th. Paul Johnson has a talented group that has bought into his option system, and they wear down teams over four quarters. Lately, they are also getting some big pass plays from Josh Nesbitt at quarterback when on the few occasions they let him throw the ball.

Stanford scored 55 points against Southern Cal today -- the most points EVER given up by USC. EVER. Jim Harbaugh has done a great job at Stanford in his short tenure there. This year, he has 2 huge wins against Oregon and USC. I suspect some major programs are going to be knocking on his door very soon. Notre Dame anyone? I wonder if the Michigan man will get a call from some wealthy boosters about coming back to Ann Arbor to restore the Big Blue tradition given Rich Rodriguez's struggles with installing his spread system.

I'm not a huge NBA fan, but I can't ignore how well the Atlanta Hawks have started the season. They are winning again tonight and will move to 8-2 for the first eighth of the season. Last night, they earned a huge road win in Boston against the Celtics. I applaud the Hawks ownership for sticking with the coaching staff over several years as the team was rebuilt through the draft and the occasional free agent pick-up. The addition this season of Jamal Crawford and Joe Smith seem to be the final pieces that could propel the team into the conference finals if everyone stays healthy and continues to build on the quick start.

How did your favorite teams do this weekend?

Happy Birthday to my sister Anita today. She's enjoying a birthday weekend in Athens.

Timmy HE15MAN

The last 48 hours have been fairly busy. We had a progressive holiday party in the neighborhood on Saturday night (where I may or may not have participated in a little Karaoke). And then decorated for Christmas all day yesterday (in the 70-degree weather!!).

We stayed behind at the appetizer house on Saturday night to catch the official announcement of Tim Tebow, Heisman Award Winner! The first sophomore ever to win it! Herschel didn't do it. Bo knows nothing like this. Pat Sullivan? Nope. Barry Sanders? Negatory.

The numbers speak for themselves. In his first year as a starter, Tebow threw for 3132 yards and 29 TDs (with only 6 INTs). He also ran for 838 yards and 22 TDs. For you Athens grads/fans, that's a total of 51 TDs. The first player in D1 to ever run and throw for 20 TDs in a season. I suspect he'll be a 30-20 guy after the bowl game against Michigan. He's thrown at least 1 TD and ran for at least 1 in every game this year. He played the 8th toughest schedule in the country (compared to Hawaii's 117th toughest schedule -- can't wait to see June Jones in Gainesville on August 30th so he can observe Tebow run Meyer's "system" all over his Rainbow Warrior Princesses!). His 22 TDs this season are the most ever by an SEC player. More than Herschel, Bo, Shaun Alexander, Billy Cannon or Lars Tate! More than anyone who's ever toted the rock in the SEC.

But beyond all the stats, Tebow is a great guy. He has a strong relationship with the Lord. He was born in the Philippines when his parents were missionaries. He regularly visits the Philippines in the summer to preach at his father's mission. When his family was planning the trip to NYC for Saturday night, they were not expecting one of his sisters to come. She and her husband are missionaries in Bangladesh. Tebow received a call on Thursday night while he was at another award show (Where he won the Davey O'Brien Award as the nation's top quarterback and the Maxwell Award as the nation's top player. Ho hum.). It was his sister on the line. They were going to be able to fly from Bangladesh for the presentaton. Who cares about some trophy at that point? It would be the first time the whole family would be together since last Christmas. They planned to throw a party to celebrate that -- regardless what happened on the stage that night.

But of course, we all know how things worked out on Saturday night. It is rather amazing that a kid who came in with such hype has actually lived up to it -- if not surpassed it. Freshman year? National title. Sophomore year? Heisman. Junior year? SEC title? Another national title? At this point, can we really doubt that he won't deliver?

So UF now has three Heisman winners. Three QBs. Spurrier, Wuerffel, Tebow. All three have one thing in common. They are all PKs -- Preacher's Kids. But even there Tebow is a little different. He's also an MK -- a Missionary Kid.

Here is a video including all 51 of Tebow's TDs.

There is no theory of evolution

There is no theory of evolution. There is only a list of species that Tim Tebow has allowed to live.





Go Gators!!