A Review of the Orange and Blue Game
I don’t do rhyming. At least not when it’s out of its normal comfort zone. Anything outside of music and the occasional children’s poem is outside of that zone in my opinion. This is one of the reasons I’ve never been a fan of “The Foundation for the Gator Nation” and also why I can’t bring myself to refer to the annual Florida spring game as the Orange and Blue Debut.
The game, which took place on Saturday and again on Sunday for those of you that happily turned on the television to see Breakfast with the Gators back, was about exactly what you would expect from a spring game. Some things worked, most looked sloppy, many key contributors watched from the sidelines, and all in all it tells you very little about what to expect from the fall.
The first takeaway is an important one: the orange team wore orange. We saw Florida break out the orange jerseys against LSU last season and although the game ended in a Gator loss, those of us who remember Florida football 25 years ago smiled when we saw them (even if they did look a little bright in high definition). Having the orange jerseys reproduced for last season and then seeing them again in the spring makes one think we’ll also get a look at them in the fall. Florida is a Nike school (see the swoosh on the Tim Tebow statue?) and Nike likes money. There’s a reason the Gators wore four different jerseys in 2010. We’ll set the early over/under at 3.5 for 2011 with three almost being guaranteed.
Speaking of the statues, they were a nice touch and if you’re going to honor individuals, those are the three you probably start with, but I can’t help but bring up that Tebow is so recently a member of the Florida football team that you half expect him to still run out of the tunnel on Saturdays. He will always be considered one of the Gator greats – and not one on the list of 25 or 50, but one you count on one hand – but we’re just over one year removed from #15 playing in Gainesville and we have a sign inside the stadium, the speech has been immortalized, and now a statue. Not saying he doesn’t deserve it, but can we give it a little more time? It took Steve Spurrier 45 years and Danny Wuerffel 15. Again, Tebow deserves it as well, but it’s okay to give it some time. For another interesting take on the statues, check out Alligator Army where a great point is brought up – what about the back-to-back National Champion basketball teams?
In addition to jerseys and statues, there was a game played. One that further promoted Quinton Dunbar’s coming out party. There are two thoughts here: 1) wow, the practice reports were right; and 2) please don’t be Dallas Baker 2.0. Before anyone gets all uppity about that last comment, that’s not a shot at Baker who ended up putting it all together his final season. But before that, Baker was one of the spring game stars who struggled when the contests mattered in the fall. He ended up making his mark during a National Championship season so all is forgotten, but I’m already hoping the same doesn’t happen to Dunbar. He has a legitimate shot at playing time this fall and if he can keep doing what he’s doing now, there’s reason to be excited. Not only does it look like Dunbar has good hands and a solid understanding of the offense, he knows how to block. It’s not every day you find a college wide receiver with blocking skills. Dunbar has them and showed them to Darren Kitchens who may have gotten up clapping, but definitely didn’t see the hit coming. It’s not too late to join the Dunbar bandwagon although it’s pretty full already.
Sticking with the offense, the quarterbacks looked shaky. It’s hard to sugarcoat it because that’s exactly how they looked. It’s the spring so this happens and this is really the biggest area you can’t take anything from. Last spring, they looked much better and we all remember the 2010 season. What is most concerning though is the decision making. A good amount of the incompletions were so because they were thrown into heavy coverage. Deep balls weren’t always necessarily off the mark, but were thrown regardless of two defenders being in the immediate area. You want an incompletion to have virtually no chance of getting intercepted. Those are throws that can’t be made during the fall. Although it’s John Brantley’s job to lose, it’s hard to say any of the quarterbacks that played looked ready to go on Saturday. Plenty of needed time until September.
The defense looked like the more prepared of the two, but still wasn’t quite there yet. It was evident however that this is a unit with a lot of young talent and plenty of depth. Players may be starters in name only during the fall because plenty of fresh athletes will be rotated in. One of those athletes that looked good on Saturday was Josh Shaw. Shaw is competing with Josh Evans for a safety spot and showed flashes of Reggie Nelson with his ability to cover great distances in only a few seconds. Shaw still has some growing to do, but looks like he could be one to take a leap from his first year to his second one. If you’re not excited about seeing him and Matt Elam on the field together, you don’t have a pulse.
Again, don’t take too much out of these games. Things could look very different by the time September rolls around. Those missing will be healthy, hopefully a quarterback will find his accuracy, and schemes will be fully installed. For now, it’s fun to speculate, but that’s all it is.