Don't Hate the Coach - Hate the Game
Seems some Vol fans are complaining that Meyer and the Gators ran up the score on them.
Rocky Top Talk’s accusation -
“Worst gamesmanship. Urban Meyer and the Florida Gators, for keeping the starters in, throwing bombs, and calling time outs, all with a 49-20 lead and only ten minutes left to play.”
Evidently, some Tennessee players agree.
Initial reaction – Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Secondary reaction – Agreement with Orson Swindle at EDSBS :
Why was Florida still throwing deep in the 4th quarter up by 20 plus? Because you were still on the field. This is Sparta.
Madness? THIS... IS... FLORIDA!
But upon more sober reasoning – Sorry UT fans, but you might have you noticed that “running up the score” is the way it has to be done. Sure, in “days of yore” there might have been noble, unwritten mercy rules, but in these “days of polls” you had better beat your rivals without the merest glimmer of compassion if you want to get the national media attention necessary to achieve.
Did it work? Absolutely, as Florida went from 5th in the AP poll to 3rd gaining 67 points. (In the USA Today Poll Florida didn’t make quite the same move, staying at 3rd, but gaining 15 points.)
And what else could we do? The Vols had already lost on the road to Cal 45-31. In the game of mindless score based poll voting, didn’t we need to look better than that?
Well it worked again, with Cal ranked 6th in the AP and 8th in the USA Today.
Last year the oft-repeated rap on Florida was that they won “too many close games” to merit inclusion in the BCS Title game. Meyer was said to be either be “lobbying” or “complaining” when he pointed out the relative challenge of Florida’s schedule.
Well this year apparently Meyer, with the offensive talent to back it up, is going to let the scoreboard do the talking.
Don’t like it?
Then stop us.
Because as it is now, and barring any upsets, the October 6th game at LSU will be between the 2nd and 3rd ranked teams in the country with the winner taking an edge to play in the BCS title game.
Mentioned in Austin Murphy's book 
9 comments:
I am pretty sure that the reason that we kept scoring had nothing to do with the polls, but rather with the fact that there was still time on the clock. We have a coach that would prefer to keep his foot on your throat, then be embarrassed the way Miami embarrassed us a couple of years ago.
Boo-hoo-hoo! Hey, if the Vols can't accept the fact they lost then that's THEIR problem. They had their chance to stop us and should have made better adjustments during the game if they wanted to try and stage a comeback.
As far as "running up the score", we FIRED Zook in 2004 - hello!
Yes Mergz, that's the way Florida does things now, and it's the MEYER way. We played 4 solid quarters of football and were ALWAYS on the attack - no more morphing into a "prevent" mode to avoid a loss ala Zook. So Cam Newton scored a TD late in the 4th - he was doing his assignment, Vol fans! Call it running up the score if that makes you feel better, Vols, but REAL Gator Football has returned to The Swamp. Accept it and LIKE it!
Take it on the chin and accept the loss, Rocky Top. You had your chance and blew it.
And as far as out "winning two many close games" last season, when all was said and done WE were the ones playing for the National Championship. I'm sick and tired of other fans saying we "begged" for the right to go to Glendale, "begged" for our wins and other assorted drivel - hey, in the end WE were the ones who proved that we earned our right to be there. WE had the last laugh!
Bottom line: If you ain't a Gator, you're Gator Bait.
"Don’t like it?
Then stop us."
Agreed.
It's one thing to run up the score on some weak sister like Temple or FIU. But I thought this was the SEC and Tennessee we were talking about. It's an indicitment on them that they wanted us to trat them like the aforementioned also-rans of college football. Tennessee must really suck right now for them seek refuge in that lame argument.
I think another thing we have to remember is that no matter how good this team is, its still incredibly young. Any experience is good at this point, even if its garbage time. Allowing Tebow to get a few more snaps is a good thing. He has some hard tests coming up soon, and we need this team to be ready. This probably isn't the only reason, but its probably one of them.
Good points, Henry and Matt.
One good thing about "garbage minutes" at the end of the game is that allows a coach to assess the strength of his bench; also, I see the Florida Atlantic game in November as being played similar to Western Carolina last year - let the starters play for part of the game and then hand it over to the rest of the depth chart. In a way, that game gave Meyer and staff a "sneak preview" of how his up-and-coming talent could perform and allow them to make an evaluation of their positives and negatives.
As far as accusations of our "running up the score" go, we were definitely the stronger team on Saturday, were very well prepared for this game, and our guys did their assignments albeit for a few mistakes that were made. Tennessee's whining about it makes them look like a bunch of sore losers. We're a young team with something to prove, and we did just that last Saturday. If this is a sign of things to come, we could be looking at a VERY successful season ahead of us, but we need to approach EVERY game remaining on our schedule the same way that we did last week. No game is a "gimme".
FAU is a dangerous team. They just upset Minnesota. Granted Minnesota is no great shakes but they are a big school in a big conference. Howard Schnellenberger has that FAU team playing well.
Minnesota can't seem to get it together lately; they fired Glen Mason after last season in part due to poor recruiting, and his predecessor John Gutekunst was a disaster. The last time they were anywhere NEAR a decent team was way back in 1963, which happened to be their last Rose Bowl appearance.
We don't have any real "cupcakes" on the schedule this year and a brutal one next year, but I'm hoping we can at least get our starters out of the FAU game early if we can establish ourselves right off the bat.
It doesn't surprise me one bit that the Gaylosers would pull that crap. They have NO CLASS WHATSOEVER! Urban Meyer is a fucking asshole. I hate the Florida Gaylosers with a passion. I am huge Georgia Bulldog fan, and have been since 1970. The Dawgs have CLASS in every way.
All of you Gator people can go FUCK YOURSELVES! I hope to hell that Tebow gets hurt.
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