Honestly, I don't think offense (or lack there of) was an issue. I think the Refs screwed us that UGA game and don't care how many times I said it or if the SEC or NCAA read this.
That may be the case, but if we had any offensive consistency at all, the bad calls wouldn't make a difference. Oh how I'd like for this team to be capable of putting up numbers like the Fun and Gun used to. But, it looks like the days of being able to score more than 12 points are gone.
You're both right, in that EITHER one NOT being the case would have probably flipped the score our way...add to those the SIX TURNOVERS not having been a part of that "wrong day for a flat performance", and you can see how we really had to WORK at losing that one--It STILL took a fumble inside the 5 as we were driving to tie it, after all...
As for bemoaning the "Fun'n'Gun", we used to lose 2 or 3 games a year with that "super-potent offense", remember...If we can hold onto Pease for at least another 2 or 3 seasons, and build the kind of balanced and relentlessly dominant power-pro offense he has in mind, one that plays off a steady downhill running game behind a tight O-line--with a creatively designed, multi-tier passing game, to force defenses to "pick their poison"--then takes the rest from whatever they therefore inevitably leave open--with Muschamp and Quinn's defense already coming into its own (and for sometime to come, it seems), the Gators could well be everything y'all are hoping for in the seasons ahead.
Big picture-wise, I'll take 10-2 all day. I just hope that the "brain trust" has bigger plans for the offense in coming years.
It would be hard to imagine this offense getting that many wins next year.
BTW, I nominate Caleb for our offensive player of the year.
Our defense will be younger and less experienced next season, but even deeper and MORE talented, and a certain amount of that "experience" IS being developed among the freshmen this season...As for the offense, well, if recruiting goes as well as it appears, how fast a certain portion of the incoming class comes on to fill out that squad will tell the tale: If the returning guys can just stay healthy this time, we SHOULD see an upgrade in our O-line and at WR to go with our already strong play at TE--and with Taylor at RB beside Joyer, and backed up by Jones (who's been showing signs of "getting it", and of why we went after him in the first place)--on balance ours should be a more productive offense in 2013. The trick will be getting to mid-season without losing a game: I believe like most young teams we'll get better and better as the season progresses, the freshman and returning players becoming more and more in sync, working more smoothly together on BOTH side of the ball. We'll be tough to beat, by ANYONE, by mid-October.
As for "taking 10-2 all day"--I WON'T, not in the seasons-to-come: I fully expect this team to regularly challenge for the SEC-Championship on an annual basis from now on, and THAT makes "10-2" essentially a "disappointing" regular season--especially once we get to the year-AFTER-next and the 4-team Playoff begins: Figure that we'll need no-worse-than 1 loss per season to get there each year, and I am actually EXPECTING our first UNdefeated regular season within the next couple of years...we're gonna be that good, and we'll HAVE to be to achieve what we are in fact being BUILT to achieve by this Head Coach and his hand-picked staff.
(Speaking of which: I understand that our current receivers-coach is a young protege of our OC's, supposedly has "a TON of talent", not-to-mention a good relationship with a number of the receivers we have (barring decommits) coming in next Feb., but given his part in finding and wooing this group, once he brings a passel of 'em IN for next season, how much is the onus then ON him that they indeed turn out to be playmakers, and that they develop quickly under him?)
