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Gator NON-Game Day: A Nation of Woosies

DRU2012

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(At the risk of adding fuel to the fire, or at least offending some or all of you--where "putting out fires with gasoline" has been my lifelong predilection, after all...)

Talk about your "morning after"...
I'm up WAY early Sunday with the worst feeling I've had since last season's Georgia Southern aftermath.
I mean, naturally, it's better than a loss, but on a wider, state-of-the nation P.O.V., this was emblematic of who we've really become, the things we've somehow come to accept with little question as "beyond our control" (and I'm not just talking "GATOR Nation" this time).
When did we cross the line, give in to the overarching idea that "things are just the way they are", and the most we can do is grumble and accept? Oh, as Americans we TALK a good game--we'll even honor American boys we send off as sitting ducks, in truth world-police protecting the planet's corporate oil supply, then wave the flag, pat ourselves on the back and thank them for their service when they come back broken--and for what? For whom?
All of which may seem over-the-top irrelevant to the relatively "small" matter of a prematurely "terminated" football game, but I'm not so sure. Just as we continue to take that and more as our standard-of-living AND our rights are steadily eroded, never doing much about it and by now accepting it as an article-of-faith that there's nothing we CAN do, least of all actually "Throw the bums OUT!", as opinion-polls show is how we'd LIKE to deal with the shill-politicians in Washington. They tell us what they think we wanna hear, then carry on exporting our jobs and generally dismantling everything that once made us healthy and strong as a nation and a society. And yet, we don't. Nothing about the overall trend changes. The beat (or rather "beat down") goes on.
In similar fashion, we get "bent over and abused" by officials running scared that they might get left holding the bag if it is somehow perceived by ANYONE ANYWHERE that anything theoretically "DANGEROUS" was allowed to transpire somewhere in an American football stadium. Time was when football was played in ANY weather and/or conditions--"long as it's the same for both squads" was the ethos. Now, a lightening strike within 8 miles of a stadium is grounds to clear the field and send everyone home after one "play"...and we're left to bitch'n'moan, then what? Just "suck it up" and move on? WTF?!!!
Sure, I'm pissed. And I'm not SURE what we should, or even CAN do about any of it, after the fact. Except maybe to make this a bigger, lingering issue than simply something the media sh*theads get to revise and reframe as somehow "right and proper", "proper action taken", "for our own good", etc. etc. blah blah blah...This began immediately last night, btw, with the game announcers on ESPNU going on and on about how this was "the right call", "the only thing that COULD be done", that the conditions were too dangerous what with all the WATER on the field and look at that TERRIBLE SPLASH and slide the (aptly-named, "isn't that funny?" Not) Showers took at the end of the one run-back play... WHICH IS BULLSH*T!!! Football is played in ANY conditions--dense fog, howling winds, monsoon torrents, "frozen tundra", remember? Whatever nature throws at them, "long as it's the same for both squads" (that's why they change ends every quarter). It's a dangerous game: we give 'em the best equipment modern technology can develop that minimally impedes, often even enhances, their ability to perform out there, then turn 'em loose to go out and confront each other according to the rules-of-PLAY.
What do we do? What CAN any of us DO about any of this? In my view, the "softening up" of America is taking place before our eyes, proceeding apace with that "dumbing down" we DO hear about, and similarly little is done for. All I can think of, at this point, is to raise hell about it everywhere we can, especially online, the modern instant-public-forum that has the scary-to-politicians potential to at least affect their "path-of-least-resistance". And don't think "politicians" are only in ELECTED positions of power and responsibility nowadays. What organizations are more inundated with their ilk than the NCAA, or television and the entertainment industry for that matter? So we HAMMER on this, everywhere we can. Otherwise, it's not just "all for nothing": We get screwed, things continue to slowly get worse, and what was once "outrageous" soon becomes "accepted modus operendi".
I'll leave it to all of you to flesh out all the ways we, as Gators, the team and "the Nation", get screwed by this having already happened. It is going to affect our season in all kinds of ways, direct and indirect, way I see it. But I'm still too close to it all, still too disappointed, angry and frustrated, to turn to all those infuriating, "sinking-feeling"-details at the moment. Frankly, I'm just too damn PISSED.
 

DRU2012

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OK. Got THAT off my chest. Still too put-out to check the Sunday rehash of all that happened, see what's being said about comments from the respective institutions and what's likely to happen now, if/when it'll be "made up", and so on. I don't see us jumping on that Oct 25/free-date a week before the Cocktail Party, though. I mean, how does that help us, do anything but detract from one of the few breaks, pieces of good luck we got in this schedule in the first place? Then again, I just don't know WHAT to make of, let alone expect, from our season now. May just wait for it all to settle, further news to trickle down to me from elsewhere over the coming days and weeks--unless someone fills me in here at GE.

So: What do y'all make of the talk re our actually playing this one, making it up on that Sat. by-week before the Game in Jacksonville? NCAA has given it their blessing, but don't both schools have to agree to it? On first blush at least, I am against it: As I say, that off-week directly before The Cocktail Party is the only "break" (in every meaning of the word) we were handed in this schedule. We already got screwed in a dozen different ways "losing" our opener (as in, "ERASED", taken entirely away from us), especially in this "Never mind"/"Jokes on you!" fashion. Unless someone can mount an argument I'm missing so far as to how playing it at all, let alone that weekend, is to our positive advantage in ANY way, I am against giving it any further thought whatsoever, unless it turns out we HAVE to, not our choice. I wouldn't have been against seeing it FINISHED today, somehow naturally thought that's what they'd try to do--but once they used the word "terminated", apparently, that was that.
No, not "any further thought whatsoever", now that I think about it. Here's how the program, staff, and by extension the whole team should approach what happened last night:

We got screwed. We're angry. Now we go back to work, redouble all efforts and take it out ON THE WORLD. "They" are all out to get us anyway. Doesn't matter. Don't care WHAT they throw at us. We will make them all pay. Starting NEXT Saturday...and every Saturday thereafter, right through to December, our spot as the East-rep in Atlanta, and beyond.

Hell, even I'M buying it. It's all we've got to grab onto, at this point.
 

Leakfan12

VIP Member
I'm pissed because it was called for "Field Conditions" really did anybody know what the Gators played through in Tally Hally six years ago? Plus it was opening day, I sure we wouldn't been as angry if it was the sixth or even the second to last game. I hope Idaho does return. Oh well wait until next Saturday to see the Gators kick off.
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
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I would rather not lose that bye week before the WLOCP. Give Idaho its $975k, get NCAA to rule that by playing 10 seconds of football that the three players served their suspensions, and let everyone be on their way.
 

DRU2012

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I would rather not lose that bye week before the WLOCP. Give Idaho its $975k, get NCAA to rule that by playing 10 seconds of football that the three players served their suspensions, and let everyone be on their way.
You mention one of the more immediate "dozen or more ways we got screwed" I previously referred to, E-, the matter of those 3 suspended players (there are some other ones that'll rise up and bite us later on, I'm telling you--but we'll get to all that in due time). I LOVE your "suggestion", but I just assume that won't be the way the NCAA sees it--one more way the E. Mich.-game won't be the "2nd, considerably more challenging tune-up" it looked to be starting the season, but rather a bit of a tense dog fight, at least the first half or so--unless we can go in and just cut loose, rip 'em a new one in wild, angry "f*ck you ALL!"-fashion, as I suggest above we now finally approach the whole damn season. (And btw, if they're still hanging around come the 2nd-half, unless our Head Coach has learned, and/or Roper is truly given the freehand all claim he now has, well, it'll likely be back to the "let's just play it tight and smart and get the win"-philosophy that served us SO well LAST season, and so much of the rest of Muschamp's tenure--note intended sarcasm).
I've been mostly out of touch all day (more or less intentionally), and only moments ago hit my laptop thru wifi and read an email from my friend "on the scene" that notes an agreement of sorts among the 2 programs, one apparently acceptable to the NCAA (but at time of email not yet formally approved): The teams would meet back in the Swamp on the weekend directly after the regular schedule ends--IF the Gators don't make the SEC-Championship Game in Atlanta that same weekend. If they DO play there as the SEC East rep, then the Vandals game will simply NOT be played, Idaho would nonetheless be paid off the something-like-$975,000, and that would be that. The Oct. 25 date was supposedly rejected out-of-hand by UF. Works for me, all around. Here's hoping this is an accurate report that clears whatever official hurdles are left...perhaps folks out there are already aware of further developments in this matter, but that's all I've got. I'm still too "raw" to wallow in the media trough; I've had a nice day frolicking in the Pedernales River with a beautiful woman, "HARDLY" thinking about any of it, and am not inclined to "mess with my zen thing", kill my buzz, however you wanna put it. There's friends, beer and bar-b-que tomorrow, and work I'm sorta putting off I'll have to rebury myself in after that...Will stay away from everything EXCEPT GE as late into the week as I can manage, hopefully be at least mid-week and the NEXT "Game Day" pending before I begin to fully reconnect.
 

DRU2012

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(...Oh,and BTW--cue "Twilight Zone theme--wasn't it exactly 10 years ago that we had to cancel an opener 'cause of weather, that time a hurricane? And here's the WAY weird part: The next week we played our "2nd Try" opener against EASTERN MICHIGAN, as we will again THIS time...Then came a frustrating, "good but not quite good enough"-performance against "da EEWWW", as I recall. Um, look at our schedule. Hope the freaky parallels end there: I'm thinkin' that was the death-knell year for the Zooker, way I am remembering it anyway. I am REALLY hoping that we're NOT about to face a season where a clearly-talented Gator team shows flashes of "what could be", on the way to a lot of up-and-down, close-but-no-cigar performances and outcomes, consistent only in LETTING US DOWN. Zook showed that bringing good recruiting and a fired-up, high energy spirit to the job just aren't enough in and of themselves--not if you wanna win CHAMPIONSHIPS, especially at THIS level. You could argue "what changed everything more" after that, Urban Meyer or Tim Tebow, but it all DIDN'T exactly happen overnight--and anyway, it's far from certain that EITHER kind of "game-changer" are out there on our horizon this time: They don't grow on trees. Might take a bit longer to reclaim our glory if we find ourselves starting from similar question and disarray in a post-Muschamp, post-crash-and-burn era at UF this time...Now, Muschamp IS a first-level, even uniquely talented defensive mind, a great leader and program manager too, so if he ever DID get "the right guy" at OC and had the sense to turn him loose, as we're all hearing and hoping is finally the case THIS time, then this DOESN'T have to be one of those "history inevitably repeating itself" plot-trajectories after all--in fact, it could be a "one more chance, this time we get it RIGHT"-tale instead)
 

DRU2012

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I'm pissed because it was called for "Field Conditions" really did anybody know what the Gators played through in Tally Hally six years ago? Plus it was opening day, I sure we wouldn't been as angry if it was the sixth or even the second to last game. I hope Idaho does return. Oh well wait until next Saturday to see the Gators kick off.
Your main point, that "Field Conditions"-BS, is the real kicker of course. The lightening business is the ONLY reason they are empowered to postpone, even cancel a game due to "weather". Now, lightening HAPPENS in Central-to-Northern Fla, as we all who lived/went to school there and numerous times drove up and down that state know. Shoulda been some way, at least more smarts and better effort to get that game in...and it happening this way, this year, to start our season (where we're ALL chompin' at the bit, just SO charged to get this thing ROLLING!), well, it seems they "woulda shoulda COULDA" gotten it in on Sunday, at the worst. Now, well, gotta turn the page.
(As for Idaho, see my "latest news" above...while by time you're reading this it may have been settled, in that or some other way, the one constant here is that there is no way for it to be "fixed", truly "made right" now. We just try and minimize the downside and go from there)
 

DRU2012

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In all kinds of weather
We'll all stick together
for F-L-O-R-I-D-A
Hope you meant to make a positive point here, 'cause "WE" DID "Stick together"...20,000 rabid fans stayed even after the game was officially called, chanting and singing in the rain and lightening that came on sometime later, by all accounts. For my part, like all of Gator Nation I woulda GLADLY stayed up half the night, and/or rearranged my Sunday plans in order to see us play that game, somehow "get it in" this past weekend.
We take a lot of sh*t, BEEN taking buckets of it slung our way everywhere, all the time, this past off season especially for being a fickle, ungrateful, "nasty" fan base that "ran it's two best coaches out of town" somehow, only shows for a winner blah blah blah--but WE know better: Gator fans everywhere KNOW what it means, KNOW what it's worth--every time we encounter a UF-, Gator- or Swamp-themed bumper sticker on another vehicle in some distant town we're living or visiting in, or they see ours--pulling up with big grin behind or beside us, the horn-honking, wild arms-extended Gator-Chomp-while-driving (!), the big Gator Flag flying out front of certain houses every Gator Game Day each fall, even here in the middle of Longhorn-land. No, it AIN'T just "words to a song most of 'em don't even know all the words to".
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
@Escambia94,
(...Suspensions cleared, at any rate, as of this morn', according to our Head Coach)

As long as NCAA agrees with the clearing of Demarcus Robinson, then there is no issue. UF controls the suspension of the other two, but NCAA can always pull some obscure rule on D. Rob.
 

DRU2012

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I'm assumin that the NCAA signed
As long as NCAA agrees with the clearing of Demarcus Robinson, then there is no issue. UF controls the suspension of the other two, but NCAA can always pull some obscure rule on D. Rob.
I'm assuming that the NCAA signed off on D-Rob--but you're right, of course: Stranger has happened, and I don't know for a fact that Coach made this public only after official word.
 

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