Last week, after seeing that Robbie Andreu, who covers Florida football for the local paper, ranked the Gators’ backfield as the fifth-best in the SEC, I wondered where he’d place the receiving corps in comparison with its conference peers.
If you predicted in the upper half of the group, give yourself a cookie. He’s got the receivers at number seven. And that’s in the face of certain deficiencies glaring enough for him to take notice of:
The only consistent playmaker among the receivers last season was tight end Jordan Reed, and he’s gone, leaving the Gators without an obvious go-to guy heading into the 2013 season. It is doubtful that the tight end position will produce that guy. The Gators have plenty of options at the position, but the four returning tight ends have little experience and even less production on their resumes. Clay Burton, Kent Taylor and Tevin Westbrook combined to catch all of four passes last season, while freshman Colin Thompson redshirted after undergoing knee surgery. The playmakers in the passing game likely will have to come from the pool of wide receivers, but other than Dunbar, there’s not much past production here either. Andre Debose continues to be an enigma and is coming off a disappointing junior season in which he caught only three passes for 15 yards. Latroy Pittman showed great promise as a true freshman in the spring of 2012, but has not done much since to distinguish himself. Solomon Patton has been effective on end-arounds and jet sweeps, but he caught only one pass last season before breaking his arm in the Georgia game.
Florida is so thin at the position that it’s forced to use Loucheiz Purifoy on a two-way basis, but Andreu sees that as a plus.
All I can figure is that this is going to be an epically bad year for SEC passing stats.
Get The Picture 
Overall, yes. Certain programs though, cough cough, are going to ring up the numbers like denture dealers in Tennessee.
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… before ̶b̶r̶e̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶m̶ having his arm broken for him by Shawn Williams in the Georgia game.
Fixed that.
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I thought the same thing when I read it.
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Our db’s have gotten pretty good with those bowtie tackles under grantham
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I have been predicting an 8-4 regular season for the Gators. I may have given them too much respect.
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Phil Steele has their unit ranked 9th.
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Good shot, Mayor. I felt before he ranked the WRs that they belonged between 10-12. That is now revised downward. It would be nice for the author to have given the data as to how many passes were thrown to Debose for his 3 receptions. Part of that problem
resides with the QB. The more they try to paint Driskel as good, the more suspicious I become.
Notice that he got the Dawgs correctly placed; – finally!
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Imagine my shock to discover that a hometown newspaper might write favorable articles on the home team!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME
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Mikey it’s a shock to us too, when the AJC writes a favorable article about Georgia.
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Clearly the final installment will have the Gators in the top three offenses in the conference.
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