I’m conflicted. On the one hand – and I say this with a total absence of snark – Alligator Army deserves much credit for being the first Florida source to acknowledge that the Georgia-Florida series has entered a new phase.
On the other hand, Florida 41 – Georgia 27? C’mon guys, seriously? I’m not discounting the possibility that the Dawgs lose this year, but this Florida offense scoring the most points in Jax in the post-Tebow era? Grantham’s boys ain’t as bad as that, sorry. Barring a one-sided turnover fest, I’m not seeing it.
Agreed. The Gators will have a strong defense by that point in the season and could “hold” our offense to 27 (if our Offense is as good as I’m hoping, 27 points would be holding them down somewhat), but I don’t see them putting up 41 points on us. I suppose if we threw a couple pick 6’s or something it’s possible, but if we were to lose, I’d imagine something more like 27-24 or thereabouts.
LikeLike
I’m just glad we don’t roll into Jacksonville anymore waiting for bad things to happen and an eventual L. That being said a score like the one predicted is entirely possible given our propensity for turnovers down there. Like the cocktail parties before whoever wins the turnover battle will win the game. Hopefully this is the year Murray puts the Jacksonville jitters behind himand lights up the Florida D. It would be a fitting farewell to his home state.
LikeLike
My God, Chatlotte, where have you been? Murray has won the last two.
LikeLike
Right because nerves haven’t been an issue for Murray against Florida, even though he and Bobo have stated as such. All I’m saying is if the guy plays against Florida as well as he typically plays against everybody else he and the team will be in a good position to make it three in a row possibly in dominating fashion.
LikeLike
I agree Chatlottedawg, I think Murray is due for a big game this year–as opposed to the adequate performance he’s logged in the last two. Would be great to see him play lights out.
LikeLike
Thinking the same…Wouldn’t surprise me if AM torched them like a roman candle, but we’ll see.
LikeLike
Are we forgetting 2 fourth down touchdown passes. Those 2 passes stand ALONE as a great game.
LikeLike
Not saying he sucked, just would LOVE to see him blow the doors off the Gators before he goes to the NFL.
LikeLike
And on other fronts, at least 2 stories report Aaron Hernandez failing multiple drug tests while at Florida. Nice try Corch.
LikeLike
Sorry I forgot the link
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/
LikeLike
Cowherd wants to give Meyer a break for this, since Jimmy Johnson and Bobby Bowden all had player issues in a state that generates a lot of “troubled disadvantaged youth”. Someone needs to tell him about that fancy top 1% of 1% talk and other crap that flows from Urban’s mouth.
LikeLike
And Aaron didn’t exactly grow up in Florida.
LikeLike
“a state that generates a lot of ‘troubled disadvantaged youth’.”
That’s nothing. Wait until they interact with our troubled disadvantaged privileged adults.
LikeLike
Like you?
Warm Personal regards.
LikeLike
Not only am I a mentor, I’m a mentee
LikeLike
As long as you aren’t dating Kenny Bania
LikeLike
It’ll take a while for people to break out of the mindset established during the last 15 years. To most younger Florida fans, these last two games are probably just a hiccup in the natural order of things. To them, it is only a matter of time before Florida falls back into their dominating ways.
This article says it begins this year. We gotta keep winning this game. The streak must continue.
LikeLike
+1. If UGA wins 3 in a row some assholes are really going to pucker up in Gainesville and all across the state of Florida.
LikeLike
Plus a few other FU-favoring places. ESPN? Would love to see them squirm and make excuses again.
LikeLike
It’s so long ago but were we this delusional going into the 91-93 games? I was a freshman in 89 and I just can’t remember.
LikeLike
I’m not certain of a UGA win but UF’s offense under Muschamp hasn’t regularly displayed the ability to put 40 points on a good defense (South Carolina last year is an exception. I’m still not convinced Muschamp is HC material.
LikeLike
They are crazy optimistic about that Florida offense. For a team that averaged 26.5 pts/game last year, lost significant playmakers on defense, and the only proven receiving threat on offense… they project through the UGA game that they will score 34 pts/game. The offense will be a full touchdown per game better this year.
And, don’t forget that muuuuch of that 26.5 pts/game came courtesy of the defense and special teams. Heck, the turnovers from the USCe game alone bumped up their scoring average by 2 ppg for the year.
I think they’ll be fine, and I agree that they’ll likely be 6-1 coming into the UGA game, but I don’t see this offensive explosion that they predict. I think Pease is a really good coach that can get something out of nothing, but I think the cupboard is more bare on that side of the ball than Florida partisans are willing to admit. He is still trying to recover from two years of Addazio with a half-ass committed Meyer and one of Weis.
LikeLike
They also lost Gillislee. While I don’t think he deserved the 1st Team SEC honors he got over Lacy and/or Gurley depending on the selecting party, he was still a good RB and was their workhorse for the season (first 1000 yard back for Florida since at least Ron Zook). They can’t just replace him either.
The homer love for their offense is boggling.
LikeLike
I just know that it hasn’t been all that long ago that we were the ones making the outlandish, wishful predictions. I prefer it this way, frankly.
LikeLike
I just don’t see Georgia’s defense dropping off as much as a lot of people seem to think. But we’ll sure as hell know by the time the Florida game rolls around.
We’ll either be #1 or #2 in the country, or barely ranked.
LikeLike
I don’t see the defense slipping either, because I just don’t think there’s much farther it could drop from last year’s mediocre incarnation. I expect it to have better yardage totals and force fewer turnovers, which would make it about a wash.
LikeLike
I think he just got his teams mixed up. Georgia winning 41-27 makes much more sense.
LikeLike
Whatever gelling needs to happen with our defense will have happened by Halloween. That’s been the case several years running with Grantham’s D, and we’re four years into this system. That’s an opinion based on an admittedly small, yet still empirical data set — not homerish conjecture. The only offense with the scheme, personnel and schedule timing to put up 40+ on this defense is Clemson’s.
Florida is going to need some combination of injuries, epic bedwetting by our offense and special teams, and multiple overtimes to get more than 28 points in this game.
LikeLike
this nouveau obsession the Gata nation has with the WLOCP is invigorating and refreshing.
LikeLike
I’d just like to gradulate Gata Alley for that genius piece of satire!
LikeLike
To me, his estimation of the Dawg D is 1 part realistic analysis, 2 parts wishful thinking. I mean, there will probably be some drop off on defense, mainly because the biggest disadvantage of the 3-4 is that most high schools don’t run it because it’s complicated and requires specific personnel. Everyone remembers how squishy Grantham’s D looked his first year. That was mainly due to lack of personnel, but having the entire team learning a new scheme was a factor. Tennessee anyone?
To have that kind of pessimism about Georgia’s defense but bordering on profound optimism for Florida’s offense…let’s just say his orange-colored spectacles are showing here.
LikeLike
That’s one of the most blindly one-sided pieces of garbage I’ve ever read. Which is good, as I will re-visit it in October.
Gators, gators..
LikeLike
If you take out that 1990 through 2010 run the Gators would be about 30 down in the WLOCP series. That’s why they always engage in creative accounting when it comes to that game. They had their 20 year run and STILL are on the losing side of the series.
LikeLike
If you take out that 1904 to 1951 run, where does that leave us? Who is picking the arbitrary starting point now? The whole thing seems silly to me. I’m 45 and the record is 23-21-1 in favor (barely) of my Gators in my lifetime. I’m happy with that (calling it an even series, that is), although I understand why folks would be mad at the 22 year old gator bandwagon jumpers.
LikeLike
You don’t “take out” anything, or select any particular time slot to make a distorted point. UGA leads he overall series, UGA won the last game, the most recent set of games were even. Over the history of the series, both teams have been dominent at times but all in all, it is a solid rivalry by every one’s criteria and worth watching. Analysis beyond that is simply homer bias.
Slicing and dicing is for chefs, and that includes my last six games comment, it just happens to be all the games played since the current players could drive a car…..which makes it more relevant than previous slicing and dicing. Two predictions: 1) The team which is less concerned about history and more focused on winning this year’s game will have the best chance. 2) Any fan discussing the series outside the above paremeters has an agenda and should be ignored….just walk away.
I hope we bury FU in Jax this year but if we win the next ten I will not regard them disrespecfully and minimize the rivalry, and I will still have that game circled for the following year just like the FU coaches have sweated the UGA every year during their hot streak while their imbecilic fans ran their mouths in bars and on the internet. The games have generally been competitive even when one side dominated the win column. What is the average point differential for the 90+ games? My guess is in the 2-5 per game range.
LikeLike
Re: point differential
We’ve scored 1805; they’ve scored 1492 for a point differential of 313. That is, of course, including the game against UF they disregard. That comes out to ~3.4 points per game.
LikeLike
Thanks for that. The point is that despite all the bravado and bluster of fans, long time rivals always sweat the next game and point to the win as an accomplishment. All this while trivializing the opponent, thus diminishing the victory. Case in point, UGA dominate GT anyway you want to cut it but you always hear Dawg fans express concern about losing to them and how having them on our schedule justifies us playing more weak OOC teams. Many of these are the very same fans who cower to fu and say they own us and we will never beat them again…especially in Jax. Go figure.
LikeLike
What say you all that we show them the gate this year. Then we dub them “Gaters”. Or Dawg “Gaiters”.
LikeLike
Seems to me that the disappointment in last year’s D stems from the underperformance of that highly vaunted 1100-pound interior d-line. The NFL didn’t fall all over themselves to draft John Jenkins, Abry Jones or Geathers.
Maybe a slimmer, faster line will execute Grantham’s schemes more efficiently.
LikeLike
We had a slimmer, faster line in 2010. Didn’t work great. But I applaud your wishful thinking.
LikeLike
We had a Defensive Line that was recruited to play in a 4-3 in 2010 that was learning and entirely new scheme, but thanks for you eternal pessimism.
LikeLike
Javedon Clowney, Spence.
I wager you’ll never see another 3-4 line with two 360-pounders. Remember all the preseason happy talk how Motel 6 was gonna make everyone forget Mt. Cody?
They lacked versatility and stamina.
In ’11, UGA had the heaviest football offensive line on the planet.That didn’t work out, either.
LikeLike
Last time I saw Florida play, Louisville whipped ’em. Why all the love for this offensively challenged team?
LikeLike
By this game our Defense will either;
A) Put it together
B) Be as porous as the French Army vs. Nazi Germany in WW II.
LikeLike