Writing on the Wall?

Meant to post this BEFORE the game, but got hung up in traffic and arrived just in time to see “IT” coming to pass early on:
Had this feeling this sometimes-LESS-than-Champion-appearing squad might be vulnerable to a 2nd round upset—especially to this kind of “scrappy slowdown style” team like Iowa.
We will see how this plays out, but so far my “bad feeling” seems somewhat more than “possible”.

GEEZ—-THAT was one of the worst “Gator-chokes” I have witnessed AWAY FROM the gridiron that I can remember for some years.
To come all the way back, have the 3-point lead with seconds left and free-throws on the way—and end up blowing it all and losing by ONE?!!
But this one’s on young Todd Golden, my friends.
You all know it. Yeah, cold shooting and an overall lack of real team character played their roles here—but even beyond the Coach’s role in all THAT, the choices he made (more important, the choices he DIDN’T make!) down the stretch at the very end sealed their fate.
Ah well…Return to the background, fade back to your chronic position of “sometimes-an-entertaining-distraction”, boys. Maybe burst forward with some fun moments in the shadow of The Swamp in future years from time to time—one more year of it might have helped better ease us through these “transitional years”, but “Thanks!” for helping us get through the worst of it…
Now: How’s Spring practice coming? Tramell win the QB-1 job yet??!
We all KNOW that’d be by FAR the best case scenario, right?
Jones wins the job outright OVER the guy the new OC brought over as the supposedly “more dependable”, “just-in-CASE”/failsafe alternative. The hard-charging sophomore with the live arm leading an offense that features the best RB in the SEC and the best WR room in the NATION!
If it turns out we have some depth along the O-line as well things could be turning around out there sooner than even newly optimistic Gator fans are surreptitiously starting to whisper to each other about on the 2nd DAY OF SPRING!!!
(And we haven’t even focused on the Defense yet—our hard-charging Head COACH’S area of expertise, being entrusted to one of the most-respected and knowledgeable young DCs in the current college hierarchy.
The only real question there is “Do we have enough of the top talent yet to balance such a promising offense?
We’ll turn to that AND the work being put in on Special Teams as well (“better” WON’T be “good enough” THERE: Live bodies who can count would be an apparent step UP after Napier and his Coaching Crowd’s repeated bumbling mediocrity in that area).
And right here is the difference between a Roundball school (pick one; pick ANY!) and a UF, TOTALLY a FOOTBALL SCHOOL:
Had we managed to come in and lose late after underperforming but coming back, then sloppily breaking down and letting it slip away at the end in, say, an early round CFB playoff game against an overmatched inferior squad, there’d be talk of a LYNCHING!
But given it is basketball, for MOST OF US it is more an “OUCH!…Well, decent season, youngsters—too bad you lack cahones! How many days until the Spring Game (WHATEVER they are calling it now)? Next!”

The worst part is having all the public rehashing and recriminations being blasted in headlines everywhere.
That shot of Golden and 4 of his starters sitting there in abject shock and depression literally moments after leaving the “scene of the crime”, lined up in front of that by now familiar, even iconic blue “Gator Postgame Pressor Tapestry” (in readiness for an entirely DIFFERENT “expected use”) now popping up in all the online places I go hoping to ESCAPE…Entirely predictable, nonetheless for the moment unavoidable—now an additional “image that is (and will remain) burned upon my frontal lobe” for some time to come.
I mean…DAMN.
They don’t get any PART of the whole TP/“Won’t Back Down” legacy going forward from here. ‘Cause they DID—They “BACKED DOWN”!!!
Just when we began to feel pride and hope beginning to stir, saw and felt the seemingly justified familiarity of being spoken of with excited positivity once more.
But now, at least for the next few days or so I will have to make a concerted effort to ignore and further AVOID even much of the Gator SPRING FOOTBALL coverage!

(Well, this may well be the most intensive use of our “Gator Basketball” section I’ve made in YEARS…Will likely be the LAST I bother for a few years more, if EVER AGAIN:
“We” may not be operating with such high level expectations again for some time to come, mark my words—not our Roundball squad, in any event.
And that’s OK with a majority of Gators, myself included.
I know there are a solid minority core who are “basketball FIRST fans”—but this AIN’T Lexington folks!
Lead the REAL GATORS back to where we belong in the scheme of college sports, and all the OTHER UF-squads will get their share of fans-in-the-stands, NIL and all the rest “the modern reality” has to offer in adequate measure as long as Gator FOOTBALL is in annual CFB contention.)