Not that ANY of us care to dwell on the details OR the outcome of this last game—but there are some things I realize, more I think about it, that I wanna talk about while I have the chance (but after this, I take my own advice and MOVE ON...):
There are so many issues and influences at work on so many levels when a weird streak is on the line, and they affect people, teams and the just as many “games WITHIN the game”, that they not only unexpectedly entangle both sides in unexpected ways, they end up affecting both teams’ and individuals’ EMOTIONAL balance, EVEN AS BOTH SIDES CONSCIOUSLY DENY IT. In fact, it is often so much a multi-leveled effect that does whatever it does “under the radar” that it can end up being unclear whether it somehow played a part in all the “strange-bounce”/“weird call” occurrences that seem to in turn always end up playing THEIR part in the “luck” that ultimately DECIDES such games. And “streaks” develop in the first place with strings of such “weird luck”, coming repeatedly over the course of years, going the way of the team WITH the dominating streak.
That certainly had been the case for us vs UK...culminating in last year’s succession of mistakes, bounces and calls that led to our coming BACK on them at their place to win one we probably shouldn’t have. That’s the kind of thing that was worrying me coming into this game—for elusive reasons I hint at above, I knew that this sort of thing eventually evens out—and the more that “reversal of fortune” is resisted, somehow put off as “luck” keeps blocking any “evening out of the odds of occurrences”, the more sudden and tsunami-like the crushing wave of breaks, bad luck or otherwise, AGAINST the streak-dominator, hits them. But the very nature of how the momentum of unlikely “good fortune” up til then runs makes it sudden and unexpected when it DOES finally come: As is often the case and was so here, til the very END it could have again gone the other way.
Consider the TWO odd, long shot occurrences AGAINST UF in the 4th qtr: First was that questionable call on the fieldgoal—Not reviewable, But EVERY REPLAY (during telecast and SINCE) appears to show it was INSIDE THE PYLON; Not only was it probably good, but fact is that 99 times out of a hundred NO CREW would have called it the way they did in a close game at that level...It wasn’t just the call being wrong, but the fact that they would choose then and there to make it that was DEFINITELY a long odds “bad luck call”. If counted, then the whole situation when Gators get the ball back late in the 4th qtr is different: They are at that point likely within 2 points and Franks doesn’t NEED the “Hail Mary”. He prob just needs to move us into their territory: With a kid on our bench who made a 60+ yarder last year in high school, we get it to say their 42 yard line and we get a shot at beating them by 1 point again. Not saying we DESERVED it, but the whole STREAK thing would still be in play, an issue (and situation) that carried on...We’d be happy in the aftermath, but given everything else we saw out there, it wouldn’t change ANYTHING except our record at this point (and a whole lot of blah blah blah media bs I am sick to death of in ANY event)—and the factors and warnings I note here would still be there, building further to potentially dog us later.
Even MORE so, what in fact ensued, and what could have, almost DID happen would have exaggeratedly epitomized everything I warn of here: That last play of the game, with all its weirdness, and the “strange bounces” that made it possible (and led more than anything else to a falsely lopsided score, btw), almost came out differently indeed:
Right before the eventual UK player-with-the-ball finally noticed and heeded his Coach’s heated screams to “run to the endzone!!!”, there was a confused pause, BOTH squads thinking the play was over but no one having heard a whistle, apparently an incomplete pass...At that point, the Gator offensive blocker-turned-defender who had rushed over to the UK player who’d picked up the seeming incomplete pass on a bounce, to stop him “just in case”, that Gator stood against him and reached for the ball—and the Wildcat began to HAND IT TO HIM...If HE hadn’t heard/heeded his coach’s calls (Stoops by that time on the field running toward his player screaming), he likely LETS our guy take the ball—and then, well, WHO KNOWS WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?!! At the very least, we get another shot, and the discussion is ALL about that questionable “no good” call on the Gator fieldgoal and its impact on “the streak”...and IF that Gator takes off, runs it the other way and SCORES, well, we’re still LAUGHING even now, UK is devastated—and frankly, though I’m then probably just as much as anyone LOVING that outcome, the truth, what I’m saying here, is that sooner or later all this sort of thing was gonna come BACK on us anyway: We are not yet enough the “Team we’re GONNA be”, the team and program Mullens is in the process of building here now, ANYWAY, to realize any of the kinds of goals and expectations we have for the “team and program we AIM to be”. To expect that means we are living in the past--for we are NOT that elite team now, not yet. No way. If there’s one thing amply shown by everything else preceding the 4th qtr of that game Saturday, it was that we still have a ways, a substantial ways to go, to be anything LIKE that again.
This was as good a time as any to lose one, break the streak and MOVE ON. Start over. Dispense with all the “weird mojo” and let Mullens remake us in his own image: Create a complete unit that has the talent, system and ATTITUDE that wins as a result of vision, talent, time and hard work...wins because we are GOOD, and does so with consistency.
For now, we are still a “work in progress”; clearly there are too many missing pieces and questions across-the-board to expect anything more than some disappointments, at best interspersed with stirring moments where we “rise to the occasion”, show glimpses of what we’ll be—and hopefully some good wins.
As for UK, well, let them have their relief, even if their joy has them exceeding their rational expectations visa vi the future. I will say this: THIS was what you could manage AT YOUR BEST, with everything breaking your way against us AT OUR WORST. Crowing, trying to rub it in with loud talk about how you’ve “DRAINED THE SWAMP” is not just unrealistic but unwise...it plays with fire. With Mullens here and in charge now, we will be pretty damn good, pretty damn soon.
Do not tweak the Gator’s tail. You only get him angry, give him reason to remember and be all the more determined to make you pay. Might have been smarter (not to mention classier) to stand up, shake hands, say “Good game” like it WASN’T (for y’all) some towering event, and generally try to keep it civil. But maybe y’all just HAD to make the most of it all as you could—‘cause deep down you KNOW what’s comin’ for ya, soon and OFTEN, ONCE AGAIN.
There are so many issues and influences at work on so many levels when a weird streak is on the line, and they affect people, teams and the just as many “games WITHIN the game”, that they not only unexpectedly entangle both sides in unexpected ways, they end up affecting both teams’ and individuals’ EMOTIONAL balance, EVEN AS BOTH SIDES CONSCIOUSLY DENY IT. In fact, it is often so much a multi-leveled effect that does whatever it does “under the radar” that it can end up being unclear whether it somehow played a part in all the “strange-bounce”/“weird call” occurrences that seem to in turn always end up playing THEIR part in the “luck” that ultimately DECIDES such games. And “streaks” develop in the first place with strings of such “weird luck”, coming repeatedly over the course of years, going the way of the team WITH the dominating streak.
That certainly had been the case for us vs UK...culminating in last year’s succession of mistakes, bounces and calls that led to our coming BACK on them at their place to win one we probably shouldn’t have. That’s the kind of thing that was worrying me coming into this game—for elusive reasons I hint at above, I knew that this sort of thing eventually evens out—and the more that “reversal of fortune” is resisted, somehow put off as “luck” keeps blocking any “evening out of the odds of occurrences”, the more sudden and tsunami-like the crushing wave of breaks, bad luck or otherwise, AGAINST the streak-dominator, hits them. But the very nature of how the momentum of unlikely “good fortune” up til then runs makes it sudden and unexpected when it DOES finally come: As is often the case and was so here, til the very END it could have again gone the other way.
Consider the TWO odd, long shot occurrences AGAINST UF in the 4th qtr: First was that questionable call on the fieldgoal—Not reviewable, But EVERY REPLAY (during telecast and SINCE) appears to show it was INSIDE THE PYLON; Not only was it probably good, but fact is that 99 times out of a hundred NO CREW would have called it the way they did in a close game at that level...It wasn’t just the call being wrong, but the fact that they would choose then and there to make it that was DEFINITELY a long odds “bad luck call”. If counted, then the whole situation when Gators get the ball back late in the 4th qtr is different: They are at that point likely within 2 points and Franks doesn’t NEED the “Hail Mary”. He prob just needs to move us into their territory: With a kid on our bench who made a 60+ yarder last year in high school, we get it to say their 42 yard line and we get a shot at beating them by 1 point again. Not saying we DESERVED it, but the whole STREAK thing would still be in play, an issue (and situation) that carried on...We’d be happy in the aftermath, but given everything else we saw out there, it wouldn’t change ANYTHING except our record at this point (and a whole lot of blah blah blah media bs I am sick to death of in ANY event)—and the factors and warnings I note here would still be there, building further to potentially dog us later.
Even MORE so, what in fact ensued, and what could have, almost DID happen would have exaggeratedly epitomized everything I warn of here: That last play of the game, with all its weirdness, and the “strange bounces” that made it possible (and led more than anything else to a falsely lopsided score, btw), almost came out differently indeed:
Right before the eventual UK player-with-the-ball finally noticed and heeded his Coach’s heated screams to “run to the endzone!!!”, there was a confused pause, BOTH squads thinking the play was over but no one having heard a whistle, apparently an incomplete pass...At that point, the Gator offensive blocker-turned-defender who had rushed over to the UK player who’d picked up the seeming incomplete pass on a bounce, to stop him “just in case”, that Gator stood against him and reached for the ball—and the Wildcat began to HAND IT TO HIM...If HE hadn’t heard/heeded his coach’s calls (Stoops by that time on the field running toward his player screaming), he likely LETS our guy take the ball—and then, well, WHO KNOWS WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?!! At the very least, we get another shot, and the discussion is ALL about that questionable “no good” call on the Gator fieldgoal and its impact on “the streak”...and IF that Gator takes off, runs it the other way and SCORES, well, we’re still LAUGHING even now, UK is devastated—and frankly, though I’m then probably just as much as anyone LOVING that outcome, the truth, what I’m saying here, is that sooner or later all this sort of thing was gonna come BACK on us anyway: We are not yet enough the “Team we’re GONNA be”, the team and program Mullens is in the process of building here now, ANYWAY, to realize any of the kinds of goals and expectations we have for the “team and program we AIM to be”. To expect that means we are living in the past--for we are NOT that elite team now, not yet. No way. If there’s one thing amply shown by everything else preceding the 4th qtr of that game Saturday, it was that we still have a ways, a substantial ways to go, to be anything LIKE that again.
This was as good a time as any to lose one, break the streak and MOVE ON. Start over. Dispense with all the “weird mojo” and let Mullens remake us in his own image: Create a complete unit that has the talent, system and ATTITUDE that wins as a result of vision, talent, time and hard work...wins because we are GOOD, and does so with consistency.
For now, we are still a “work in progress”; clearly there are too many missing pieces and questions across-the-board to expect anything more than some disappointments, at best interspersed with stirring moments where we “rise to the occasion”, show glimpses of what we’ll be—and hopefully some good wins.
As for UK, well, let them have their relief, even if their joy has them exceeding their rational expectations visa vi the future. I will say this: THIS was what you could manage AT YOUR BEST, with everything breaking your way against us AT OUR WORST. Crowing, trying to rub it in with loud talk about how you’ve “DRAINED THE SWAMP” is not just unrealistic but unwise...it plays with fire. With Mullens here and in charge now, we will be pretty damn good, pretty damn soon.
Do not tweak the Gator’s tail. You only get him angry, give him reason to remember and be all the more determined to make you pay. Might have been smarter (not to mention classier) to stand up, shake hands, say “Good game” like it WASN’T (for y’all) some towering event, and generally try to keep it civil. But maybe y’all just HAD to make the most of it all as you could—‘cause deep down you KNOW what’s comin’ for ya, soon and OFTEN, ONCE AGAIN.