DEVIN'S LANDING

Continuing our theme on preseason prognostications, leading into this year just about everyone was on the Florida Gators bandwagon. I just don't understand why.

I should digress to note that this site does not exist solely to gator-bash. We do confess a certain vague, primal instinct that Urban Meyer may be Satan himself, but lumped into a conference with Saban and Petrino, who the hell can tell who is in charge?

Even if Meyer is only the Regional Vice President of Operational Darkness- the man can flat out COACH.

But back to the issue at hand: Those arguing in favor of UF this year had to clear two major performance areas in which the Gators underachieved last season:

1. Defensive Secondary play, and
2. Running back play (or lack thereof)

The secondary was shaky most of 2007, primarily due to youth and injuries. This is certainly understandable, and given the elite talent level in Gainesville it is also reasonable to assume that this could be corrected more quickly than in most programs. Assuming the Gators secondary showed signs of improvement or progression during 2007 and ended the year better than they began, it would be safe to assume this would not be a huge concern in 2008.

So, fast forward to January 1st, 2008, the Capital One Bowl. See Chad Henne rip the Gators all afternoon, ending with 373 yards passing and 3 touchdowns. If you watched the game it looked worse than the stats portray. The Michigan passing attack moved with all the sluggishness and sloth of a post-Indian food enema. Yay shit jokes! Analogies! Whatever that was!...

Point being that instead of the secondary starting off poorly and showing improvement, they seemed to get worse during the year, ending on a terrible note. So making the jump from the Capital One debacle to this year's optimism is some parts premature but mostly ignorant.

On to point #2: Running back play. No need to get bogged down in stats here. Tebow was the only running attack for Florida last year, and despite the accolades all can agree this was not the ideal offensive gameplan for many reasons. But entering this year all were feeling groovy in Gatorland again about the running back sitchiation. Chris Rainey, Jeff Demps, Kestahn Moore, and highly touted USC transfer Emmanuel Moody were going to salvage the running game, allowing Tebow and Percy Harvin (both plagued by injuries last year) to concentrate on areas where they were each better suited. In other words, Coach Meyer would be free to put all that football IQ to good use, choosing players according to the gameplan, rather than choosing a gameplan according to the players.

Fast forward to the Swamp, 9/6/08 vs. Miami, and see Tebow end as the leading rusher for 55 yards, taking punishment from the Hurricanes no different than last season. Harvin ended with 27 yards and Rainey had 13. Moore and Demps had negative yardage, and Moody did not play.

To be fair, Florida still has time to improve in these two areas. But it seems the bandwagon was a bit overloaded this time around. And we haven't even addressed their lack of stars besides Tebow and Harvin, whose heel which was been fucked since high school has miraculously unfucked itself to the tune of 6 touches versus Miami.