Tim Tebow plays linebacker, too?

Ah, yes…  Dawg fans, prepare for the victory to be cheapened with the “Tebow was hurt” non-excuse excuse.  Here’s the drill:

… Tebow was also in physical pain. The right shoulder contusion suffered the previous week against Kentucky prevented Florida’s Heisman Trophy candidate from running the ball effectively against the Bulldogs.

“He’s hurting,” Gators coach Urban Meyer said of Tebow’s shoulder. “He won’t tell you. He keeps saying, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m fine.’ ”

Tebow even admitted afterward his shoulder was in pain.

“It bothered me a little bit,” Tebow said. “You’re going to have bumps and bruises throughout the year.”

This was a big bruise for Tebow. Making his first start in his hometown, Tebow rushed 13 times for negative-15 yards and was sacked six times. Tebow had only been sacked five times all season entering Saturday’s game.

“Georgia did a good job of mixing up their blitzes,” Tebow said. “I should have done a better job of making better protection calls and get the ball out. Something we’re going to have to work on.”

For most of this season, though, Tebow has been able to avoid sacks by using his legs to run when protection breaks down. That didn’t happen against Georgia.
“Tim wasn’t as mobile as he’s been,” Meyer said.

Asked if the injury was something Tebow will have to deal with the rest of the season, Meyer answered, “I don’t know.”

Tebow’s inability to run changed Meyer’s gameplan “a little bit,” the coach said. But it seemed to change it a lot. Tebow’s first true rush occurred in the final minute of the first half…

I should note that Tebow himself is too classy a kid to use this as an excuse.

As for the injury’s cause, what do you expect, when you’ve got your QB responsible for 73% of your offensive plays?  And have him averaging almost 18 carries a game?  I’m impressed the kid has held up as well as he has.

Anyway, unless Tebow was prepared to play both ways on Saturday, I doubt his full health would have slowed Knowshon down much.  Florida’s regular linebackers sure didn’t.

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The SEC: welcome to the party.

By the way, this has been one of the greatest seasons of college football I can ever remember.   The competition in the SEC has been riveting, week in and week out.

As we sit here going in to the first week of November, no team in the SEC East has been mathematically eliminated from going to the SECCG, eleven SEC teams have a legitimate chance to become bowl eligible… and South Carolina has to hope that Vanderbilt loses another conference game in order for the ‘Cocks to have a chance to win the East.  Heh.

Danny Wuerffel is outraged.

That was the first time I’d ever seen a kickoff from the seven and a half yard line.  It was worth it.

They showed up.

Boy, did they.

I’ll post something more detailed tomorrow, but right now I’m still basking in the afterglow of one of the best games I’ve ever witnessed.

One thing I will say is that Richt’s opening gambit of letting the team draw the excessive celebration penalty was beyond brilliant. It set a tone that kept Florida off base the entire game. And the Dawgs never quit.

Never.

(photo courtesy AB-H/John Curry)

Oh, yeah. Hearing Danny Wuerffel whine on the Sunshine Network broadcast about the celebration being “classless” is rich, coming from a guy that started a game in Athens that his coach finished with the deliberate move to hang more points on Georgia in Sanford Stadium than any other opponent had. Speaking of class, I didn’t complain about what Spurrier did then, and Wuerffel ought to keep his mouth shut as well. His beloved Gators had the rest of the game to teach the Dawgs a lesson and failed miserably. And along the same line, advising Georgia “to act like it had been there” rings a bit hollow after you’ve devoted a fair amount of thought to how the Gators own the Dawgs.

One last thing. I hadn’t noticed until the end of the game after the Florida fan base had cleared out, but red and aqua blue ain’t a bad color combination…