Posts tagged Florida Gators
Not a Good Week for Gators, No Complaints Here
Mar 25th
Wow! Coach Urban Meyer, of the Florida Gators, is finding it increasingly difficult to control his inner Woody Hayes.
All of you have heard it and seen it by now.
Nobody enjoys watching Gators suffer as much as I do. Over the years, the University of Florida’s success, in a myriad of sports, has only served to throw gasoline on the fiery hatred I have for all things Gator.
I hated the Doug Dickey, Charlie Pell and Galen Hall squads just because that is how I was raised. My hatred became an obsession when Steve Spurrier returned to Gainesville and made a mockery of the WLOCP. The hatred was no longer a cultural thing, it was personal. It was real.
Ron Zook, meh. Urban Meyer, this crazy man is worthy of my hate. I was not happy when Spurrier left Florida. He went out on top, at least from my vantage point. I wanted the Dawgs to supplant him. Alas, he left and history will not be changed.
Which brings me to the latest of many Urban Meyer meltdowns.
I want Urban in Gainesville as long as it takes to “right” things in my world. Where I come from, we don’t say “uncle”, we say “two out of three.” If that doesn’t work, we say “three out of five.”
Anyway, I want Urban to stick around for a while. Unfortunately, I don’t think he will be able to. The man is about to implode. If he makes it long enough, I imagine sometime shortly after the 2010 NFL Draft Coach Meyer is going to challenge Todd McShay to a duel.
Many of the Gator faithful see Meyer’s actions as merely standing up for his players, both past and present. He reasoning for the thinly veined physical threat was Keonte Thompson is a good kid and didn’t deserve that…. He told Fowler to call Thompson’s family and apologize.
Yada, yada, yada. This was about Tebow, and more importantly, the root of all Tebow criticism, Meyer himself.
I find any narrative about Urban Meyer generally caring for his players to be fiction.
Lost in all the drama surrounding Urban Meyer, his health, his retirement, his sabbatical, and daughters getting their daddy back, is this man’s character.
He hired a NFL guy to serve as the Gator’s Defensive Coordinator for recruiting purposes only. Period. He lost his DC, it was going to effect recruiting so he addressed it by bringing in a guy just for recruiting purposes.
He got these kids he cares so much about to sign 4 or 5 years of their lives away on false pretenses. The day after the ink dried on all those blue-chip defensive studs, Mr. NFL bolted back to the NFL. That is Urban Meyer in a nut shell.
Urban Meyer and the university of Florida are a match made in, well, let’s just say they are a match.
Coach Meyer, please follow doctor’s orders. You also may want to have one of those skillful Gator lawyers by your side at all times. I don’t want anything to get in the way of our annual Jacksonville get together.
Hey, Hey, Hey, it’s Albert and his Junkyard Band
Feb 28th
“Fat” Albert and the Junkyard Band were know for playing songs. Saturday, Georgia’s Albert Jackson played a little swat.
With the game on the line, two players were isolated, one a Florida Gator, the other a Georgia Bulldog. While the Gator thought, the bulldog acted. The Bulldog, Albert Jackson, attacked the Gator making the game saving play.
I like college basketball. Usually, I can do a pretty good job of breaking a game down. I have no idea why we played the way we did. Frankly, I am shocked we were able to win this one. Thankful, happy and amazed, but still shocked.
So many things were against us. The overtime heart-breaker just 48 hours prior. An opponent consisting of McDonald’s All-Americans playing for their NCAA lives. “Big Money” Billy Donavan against little ole Mark Fox. The officials, Lord, did Donovan ever get rewarded by that technical foul. If Trey Thompkins simply looked at a Gator they blew their whistles in the second half.
This is why we play the games. Anything can happen.
Georgia can struggle once again from the line, yet, despite a late game shooting draught, still manage to hit on near 60% of their shoots from the floor.
Georgia turned it over 15 times to Florida’s 11 but managed to block 5 Florida shots. Most of these blocks came early in the game and altered the Gator’s strategy going forward.
Georgia could not protect a 15 point lead in the second half. With 9:45 to play, the Dawgs led 67-52. Florida pulled to within two, 71-69, at the 5:46 mark. Coach Fox called a timeout. Whatever play we wanted to run out of the time-out was foiled, but Dustin Ware heaved up a three as the shot-clock expired and it went in.
Still, the Gator onslaught continued. The Dawgs were running on fumes. The quick turnaround from Nashville, the pace of the game, and probably emotions all worked to drain these Bulldogs.
The game would be a nail-biter the rest of the way. Surely, every Dog on the court, in the stands, and watching at home were thinking of all the other games hat had followed this script. All the heart-breaking, oh so close losses.
I for one, clutched my chest as if my hands could somehow protect my from the suffering that was sure to come.
Dustin Ware’s 3 came at the 5:08 mark. The Dawgs only points to follow would come on a shot-clock beating, turn-around jumper by Trey Thompkins with 3:30 to go. The Dawgs would not score again.
In the end, defense saved us. Our offense rarely got a shot off in the final minutes. We were simply spent. Somehow, the Dawgs mustered up the energy needed to extend their defense beyond the arc and challenge the sniping Gators.
In deed, Albert Jackson’s last second game saving play came from the paint. Jackson attacked from the post to defend HALF the floor as he challenged the the ball 18 feet-away from the basket. Where he got the energy to make that play I haven’t a clue. I still can’t believe what I saw!
Opryland, here we come!
Top Performers Florida: C. Parsons 29 Pts, 6 Reb, 6 Ast, 3 Stl Georgia: T. Thompkins 20 Pts, 7 Reb, 5 Ast
FLORIDA GATORS
STARTERS
MIN
FGM-A
3PM-A
FTM-A
OREB
REB
AST
STL
BLK
TO
PF
PTS
Kenny Boynton, G
34
8-13
6-9
0-0
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
22
Vernon Macklin, F-C
25
5-8
0-0
0-1
4
6
0
0
0
3
3
10
Chandler Parsons, F
35
10-16
3-5
6-7
1
6
6
3
0
1
3
29
Erving Walker, G
32
2-9
2-6
1-2
0
2
4
2
0
4
3
7
Alex Tyus, F
21
0-4
0-0
0-0
2
4
2
0
0
2
0
0
BENCH
MIN
FGM-A
3PM-A
FTM-A
OREB
REB
AST
STL
BLK
TO
PF
PTS
Ray Shipman, G-F
13
1-3
0-1
0-0
0
1
1
1
0
1
0
2
Kyle McClanahan, G
5
0-0
0-0
0-0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Dan Werner, F
27
2-8
0-2
0-0
2
4
1
2
0
0
1
4
Erik Murphy, F
8
1-1
0-0
0-0
0
1
0
0
0
0
3
2
TOTALS
FGM-A
3PM-A
FTM-A
OREB
REB
AST
STL
BLK
TO
PF
PTS
29-62
11-23
7-10
10
25
15
8
0
11
13
76
46.8%
47.8%
70.0%
GEORGIA BULLDOGS
STARTERS
MIN
FGM-A
3PM-A
FTM-A
OREB
REB
AST
STL
BLK
TO
PF
PTS
Travis Leslie, G
22
5-9
0-0
2-3
0
2
0
0
3
2
3
12
Chris Barnes, F
11
1-1
0-0
0-2
0
0
1
0
1
2
2
2
Ricky McPhee, G
32
1-4
1-4
0-0
1
4
6
0
0
3
2
3
Dustin Ware, G
32
3-6
2-3
2-2
0
1
2
1
0
3
0
10
Trey Thompkins, F
35
8-14
2-2
2-2
1
7
5
0
0
1
2
20
BENCH
MIN
FGM-A
3PM-A
FTM-A
OREB
REB
AST
STL
BLK
TO
PF
PTS
DeMario Mayfield, G
4
2-2
0-0
1-2
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
5
Ebuka Anyaorah, G
14
3-7
2-3
1-2
2
3
0
1
0
0
1
9
Vincent Williams, G
15
1-3
0-1
0-0
0
3
3
0
0
2
0
2
Albert Jackson, F-C
11
1-2
0-0
0-0
2
3
0
0
0
0
1
2
Drazen Zlovaric, F
2
0-0
0-0
0-0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Jeremy Price, F
22
6-6
0-0
1-2
3
5
3
0
1
2
1
13
TOTALS
FGM-A
3PM-A
FTM-A
OREB
REB
AST
STL
BLK
TO
PF
PTS
31-54
7-13
9-15
9
28
21
2
5
15
12
78
57.4%
53.8%
60.0%
The Orange Stain Remains the Same
Feb 4th
Oh my!
Georgia takes a so-called “beating” on signing day due to the changes on the defensive staff and how long it took us to find replacements. Perhaps Mark Richt would have been better served doing things the Urban Meyer way. Should he have just lied and said we had our man? Should he have hired a place holder for recruiting purposes, then resumed the search after signing day?
Of course not. He is too good a person to do anything like that.
The same cannot be said for Urban Meyer, Warden Head Coach of the Florida Gators.
If Urban Meyer told me 2 + 2 = 4 I would begin to doubt my math skills. This man is despicable.
Less than a month after taking Florida’s defensive coordinator position, George Edwards is leaving to take the same position with the Buffalo Bills, a UF coach confirmed to the [Orlando] Sentinel.
Edwards was officially hired by Urban Meyer on Jan. 8 and now leaves the day after the Gators signed one of the best defensive recruiting classes in history.
Perhaps the health problems this man suffers from cold be alleviated if he were to conduct himself in a more forthright manner. That is assuming he actually has health problems. You never know with Urban.
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