Well, here we are.
Where, exactly, who knows? Yeah, the Big Easy, night game in Death Valley against The Weed Eater (Miles) and his Turf Chewer (Fournette--have I tried gone too far with my spur-of-the-moment nicknames here?)--but emotionally, where this Gator team is at and where its headed is the big question mark.
Before we get into that, there is one more thing I want to revisit concerning what happened with WG.
(This isn't directly game-related--for which I DO NOT apologize, but will understand, even support those who wanna just move on, but I'm gonna say it anyway...Skip the next coupla paragraphs if you are just sick of even thinking about it, and wanna "just get to the GAME"
We DON'T want our team dwelling on any of this--and by all appearances and accounts (by everyone from Coach Mac, to the players, to "sources close to the program") they have not. But that doesn't mean it doesn't still bug the crap out of US, and I wanna bitch about it one more time here.
Let's be clear about all this: Unless I'm wrong, the NCAA isn't gonna budge ONE INCH on the punishment or its length. Never mind any thought concerning "justice" or "fairness" (let alone due process). No bothering to consider relative levels of "guilt" or intent...Inadvertent consuming of an over-the-counter product containing an obscure chemical with questionable, at most marginal "performance-enhansing-benefits" will be punished in exactly the same way and to the same degree as, for example, the long-term, intentional injecting of black market anabolic steroids and masking agents over months and years. Oh, and btw: NOTHING anyone says will convince me this level of inflexibility would be faced if he were a member of, for example, either of the other 2 of the 3 traditionally major State of Florida football programs. At worst, they'd be quietly let off the hook later, punishment time reduced significantly. In our case though, don't hold your breath. So I say once again what I've said many times before: F*CK the NCAA. One day the other major programs across this land will also have had enough, for their own reasons, realize how little we need them, how they hinder rather than help at practically every turn, and together we'll leave them behind. Rendered irrelevant to those programs at the highest levels of play, we'll organize on our own, leave them with their foot-thick rulebook, megolamanaical manipulations and only the hundreds of smaller programs to decide if even they wanna bother dealing with them anymore. It's all that self-righteous, self-serving "Committee" deserves.
So. Enough of that, finally. Its main practical effect, the RE-installing of Treon Harris as our QB, is NOT necessarily the kiss-of-death to our team, program, propects for this and/or next season, or even for this game. We've talked elsewhere here about all the different ways and reasons this makes it harder, but far from the black-vs-white, facile "had a chance but now they don't" analyses we're seeing/hearing from so many now. I don't know HOW many of these "I was ready to pick Florida in this one until the Grier news came in" I've heard from hosts and guests on the radio and TV last couple/few days. Yeah, right. Same folks have already annointed Fournette the 2015 Heisman winner-to-be, go on and on about LSU and goin' into Death Valley at night, etc, but they WERE gonna pick us blah blah blah...Now, Will Grier HAD seemed to somehow "click in", begin to really hit a rhythm with the offense after that amazing 4th qrtr against Tennessee. And Treon DID screw up on himself and his connect with the team the following week, parallel to Will's beginning to look truly comfortable back there. But nothing says that the same kind of alchemy, transformation and sudden growth, player and team, can't and won't happen here with Treon now: This Coach and his staff seem to specialize in, among other things, getting their young charges in the emotional state ideal to do just that. And anyway, we've seen Treon come thru in tough, clutch situations before, all on his OWN (God knows Muschamp & co. gave neither he nor the rest of the offense much in the way of the practical OR emotional tools to succeed--and yet...).
Look, could it all go to sh*t? Sure, 'specially if buncha things go against us early; we've gotta weather that early combo of hyped-and-howling crowd, and whatever Les has them throw at us to do just that--overwhelm us from the start. Whatever your theories are as to how they try and do that, the obvious (Fournette) or the Big Surprise (eg. THEIR Harris throwing long early), we get through that and come out at least still close (7 pts or less down), well then we've got a game.
Where, exactly, who knows? Yeah, the Big Easy, night game in Death Valley against The Weed Eater (Miles) and his Turf Chewer (Fournette--have I tried gone too far with my spur-of-the-moment nicknames here?)--but emotionally, where this Gator team is at and where its headed is the big question mark.
Before we get into that, there is one more thing I want to revisit concerning what happened with WG.
(This isn't directly game-related--for which I DO NOT apologize, but will understand, even support those who wanna just move on, but I'm gonna say it anyway...Skip the next coupla paragraphs if you are just sick of even thinking about it, and wanna "just get to the GAME"
We DON'T want our team dwelling on any of this--and by all appearances and accounts (by everyone from Coach Mac, to the players, to "sources close to the program") they have not. But that doesn't mean it doesn't still bug the crap out of US, and I wanna bitch about it one more time here.
Let's be clear about all this: Unless I'm wrong, the NCAA isn't gonna budge ONE INCH on the punishment or its length. Never mind any thought concerning "justice" or "fairness" (let alone due process). No bothering to consider relative levels of "guilt" or intent...Inadvertent consuming of an over-the-counter product containing an obscure chemical with questionable, at most marginal "performance-enhansing-benefits" will be punished in exactly the same way and to the same degree as, for example, the long-term, intentional injecting of black market anabolic steroids and masking agents over months and years. Oh, and btw: NOTHING anyone says will convince me this level of inflexibility would be faced if he were a member of, for example, either of the other 2 of the 3 traditionally major State of Florida football programs. At worst, they'd be quietly let off the hook later, punishment time reduced significantly. In our case though, don't hold your breath. So I say once again what I've said many times before: F*CK the NCAA. One day the other major programs across this land will also have had enough, for their own reasons, realize how little we need them, how they hinder rather than help at practically every turn, and together we'll leave them behind. Rendered irrelevant to those programs at the highest levels of play, we'll organize on our own, leave them with their foot-thick rulebook, megolamanaical manipulations and only the hundreds of smaller programs to decide if even they wanna bother dealing with them anymore. It's all that self-righteous, self-serving "Committee" deserves.
So. Enough of that, finally. Its main practical effect, the RE-installing of Treon Harris as our QB, is NOT necessarily the kiss-of-death to our team, program, propects for this and/or next season, or even for this game. We've talked elsewhere here about all the different ways and reasons this makes it harder, but far from the black-vs-white, facile "had a chance but now they don't" analyses we're seeing/hearing from so many now. I don't know HOW many of these "I was ready to pick Florida in this one until the Grier news came in" I've heard from hosts and guests on the radio and TV last couple/few days. Yeah, right. Same folks have already annointed Fournette the 2015 Heisman winner-to-be, go on and on about LSU and goin' into Death Valley at night, etc, but they WERE gonna pick us blah blah blah...Now, Will Grier HAD seemed to somehow "click in", begin to really hit a rhythm with the offense after that amazing 4th qrtr against Tennessee. And Treon DID screw up on himself and his connect with the team the following week, parallel to Will's beginning to look truly comfortable back there. But nothing says that the same kind of alchemy, transformation and sudden growth, player and team, can't and won't happen here with Treon now: This Coach and his staff seem to specialize in, among other things, getting their young charges in the emotional state ideal to do just that. And anyway, we've seen Treon come thru in tough, clutch situations before, all on his OWN (God knows Muschamp & co. gave neither he nor the rest of the offense much in the way of the practical OR emotional tools to succeed--and yet...).
Look, could it all go to sh*t? Sure, 'specially if buncha things go against us early; we've gotta weather that early combo of hyped-and-howling crowd, and whatever Les has them throw at us to do just that--overwhelm us from the start. Whatever your theories are as to how they try and do that, the obvious (Fournette) or the Big Surprise (eg. THEIR Harris throwing long early), we get through that and come out at least still close (7 pts or less down), well then we've got a game.
