Florida Gators 24 – South Carolina Gamecocks 14
It’s nothing to write home about, but yet another win. For the statisticians, that’s 10-0 and 20 in a row overall. You may not like how they go about it, but
Florida
keeps winning. Curse the television all you want, but beating
South Carolina
means the Gators will go undefeated in the SEC in the regular season. And oh yeah, that didn’t happen in either of the last two national championship seasons. Remember you could be a
USC
fan having just got done watching them get plastered by
Stanford
.
In his last regular season SEC game, Tim Tebow accounted for one touchdown through the air, another on the ground, and two phantom scores to Riley Cooper. Cooper’s an outfielder right? Coming down may hurt, but lay out on one of those and make a play. Tebow is now 1 rushing touchdown away from tying Herschel Walker’s plus bowl games record. With 4 games left, it should be no problem for #15.
10 games in and we’re still trying to find out exactly what the running back plan is. Sounds a little like USF, except of course the fact that Florida is undefeated and #1. Jeff Demps, 9 carries. Chris Rainey, 6 carries. Emmanuel Moody, 3 carries. Brandon James, 1 carry. Whatever gets the win I guess. At one point there was actually a drive where Moody scored a rushing touchdown (his first of the year) and only a few plays earlier, Omarius Hines caught a pass. For a second, I thought it was my birthday. Not only did Hines catch 1 pass, he actually caught 2. The announcers were so kind to inform us that Hines’ first catch of the game was his first of the season. I’m so kind to inform them they were wrong. It was his eighth of the season, but why should they know that, it’s only their job.
Blitz was the word of the day. As in, the Gators still have trouble stopping the blitz and Florida’s defense blitzed too much. There are play designs in which the blitzer is supposed to be allowed a free path. I understand that. Maybe a quick slant or stop. Something in which the ball is supposed to get out of the quarterback’s hands almost immediately. Unfortunately for Florida, the blitz seems to fluster Tebow enough that it stalls the entire offense at times. On the other side of the ball, Charlie Strong and company decided to bring the heat themselves. For three quarters, it worked in a very limited manor. For the most part, it seemed to cause coverage problems when an extra player was putting pressure on the quarterback. In the fourth quarter, Strong softened up and only called for the blitz strategically. Holding back somehow resulted in the defensive line getting pressure and Jermaine Cunningham entering beast mode. Definitely one of those times I’m patting myself on the back for being an absolutely outstanding couch coach.
Our game ball goes to Justin Trattou because without that interception and subsequent 53-yard return, the game could’ve been a lot more interesting that it already was. Interesting makes for good television, but big wins are comfortable and keep me from chugging Pepto. Trattou’s pick was followed by a collectively sigh of relief from the Gator fan base. It was the “phew, we’re going to win another one” moment of the day.
So it’s 10-0 now. Through the conference unscathed. Back to Gainesville for 2 home games before heading to Atlanta and then beyond. And for good measure, remember, when you look back at 2006 (another season where there was plenty of complaining about the offense…and the defense for that matter) all you recall is Florida hosting the national championship trophy at the end of the season.