Alright—Here We Go:

[DRU2012]

So. First of all, that game Saturday WAS the CFB Semifinal Playoff. We just BARELY lost to what was unquestionably the No. 1 Football Team in College Football. But we are almost THERE: We are missing some parts, and will HAVE to rebuild and re-ADAPT AS WE RE-CLIMB that “road to greatness”...For the goal is NOT merely to “get back” to the SEC Championship but to WIN it, to SURPASS this team’s accomplishments...AVOID the letdowns and pitfalls that circumstances laid in our path along the way.
If you listened/watched Coach Mullen’s postgame presser, paid close heed to the subtleties inherent in comments by Trask and others, you’d take from it ALL, as I did, that where his players are frustrated at not being able to themselves further address the imperfections of THIS year’s campaign, our COACH KNOWS what he intends and what he is doing:
HE at least has a plan, is not “satisfied” (no way, no HOW—in NO WAY, SHAPE or FORM!), and fully, confidently intends, and has this program on TRACK towards, the kind of unique-each-season “realization of common purpose”—a COMING TOGETHER that produces a true “TEAM” that cares for and supports each other on the field and in the locker room.
THIS is why the future appears so bright...and it is its very EMOTIONAL POWER and IMPORTANCE that makes the College Game so great—and why we love it.
So it is right and good that we acknowledge and address that here.
I had already been mulling all of this over as I watched the various press conferences and read the various follow-up columns reacting to this last weekend’s games; OUR game in particular; I was working up to starting and eventually posting THIS Thread as promised, when I came upon a particular column under the weekly heading/site “The Ringer”, by Roger Sherman (the latest one, dated 12/20/20):
I THINK I just had my most basic underlying “secret and TRUE VIEW” perfectly and honestly expressed!:
It is the CHAOS that is always lurking around inherently somehow WITHIN College Football that attracts us hardcore fans—those of us who have finally come to reject the “logical status quo” of the pro game that occupies and sustains the interest of most “mature” fans out there...At a certain point we (relative) few have rejected the mercenary “you break it/you BOUGHT it!” emotional contract at the heart of the pro game. After a while, that all just wears so thin: They don’t “play for us”. Whatever we might ONCE have had in common, whatever might ONCE have BEEN shared is no longer.
No, it is only in the impossible necessity of PERFECTION, in pursuit of some FORMER SHARED AFFILIATION, THAT CONTINUES TO INSPIRE US. ALL of us. TOGETHER, AS A TEAM: Graduates of our mutual once-HOME, and part of a fine, even BELOVED PAST that continues to draw and hold us close, onward throughout our lives! For a player to want, NEED to bust PAST THAT NEXT TACKLER, or even just a front-seated fan who suddenly readies himself, YEARNS to burst out of his seat, leap onto the field and for a brief instant wonderfully, HORRIBLY almost leaps out ONTO the field and tackle the opponent’s star RB as HE is about to streak by and bust free...He doesn’t: It hardly ever happens, in all of history—but it is a wonder that is so, when you think about it.
We all care that MUCH though, don’t you see? I don’t know if that is a testament to our love of Chaos or our ultimate respect for order—or at least for the young warriors who go out there and battle on our behalf.
We wanna win the game—but ultimately there’s a right and a wrong way to see it done (and I can think of some folks who could take this simple, yet fundamental “rule” to HEART...No “President”, for example, can mindlessly rip the shoe from the runner’s foot as he tackles him, then, upon standing to find the cleat in his hand, shrug and chuck it down the field FOR ALL TO SEE—expect officials who see it NOT immediately throw a flag on a play that OTHERWISE CRUCIALLY (once AGAIN) was about to hand us the ball back!...This all gets confusing, you see—but there are consequences to our not showing self-control (or at least there SHOULD BE).
Now, I don’t KNOW if (deserving or NOT) the GATOR Team that just gave that Alabama squad currently, widely accepted as FAR AND AWAY “the best college football Team-in-the-land BY FAR, its toughest competition in at LEAST a year “all it WANTED AND MORE” out there in Atlanta’s Mercedes Dome last night. A team now slated, now all but SIGNED, SEALED, and DELIVERED the eventual “Chrystal Football” signifying 2020’s CFB Nat’l Championship, WHY exactly? (“Oh yeah! BIG TIME TV MONEY ON THE TABLE, and all the COMMERCE YET TO BE DONE AS A RESULT!!!”), inevitably THEN to be crowned
“CHAMPION OF THE COVID YEAR”, nor can WE do anything for the moment but, well, MINIMIZE the pain of once MORE having to “conveniently IGNORE” knowing we might otherwise have been the ONE squad OURSELVES that MIGHT HAVE had a SHOT at being chosen OVER Notre Dame and then BEATEN any of the others in this otherwise seemingly PARTICULARLY unworthy CFB Playoff INSTEAD—had we NOT lost to LSU (a loss that Dan Mullen somehow finally, belatedly expressed and adequately unloaded on our behalf all our latent pent-up grief by-the-way, and until that moment what HAD been “INADEQUATELY-expressed LOSS” was finally put “PAID” in Mullen’s postgame presser, with strangely JUST ENOUGH ROOM to somehow say the UNsayable:
In a season too short and small to hold all this pain, grief, worry and disappointment (and we are NOT just talking FOOTBALL here, either, let’s face it—though I PRAY to GOD that it will NOT ultimately require HIS “intervention” here ANY MORE than it has already DONE).
My GOD, what a strange season—and NOT just football!

 

[Leakfan12]

One of the things we can say that the Gators is they gave 2019 LSU a fight and the same for the Bama team last week though again those were losses. Heisman is still possible for Trask (depending on how many Bama players are finalists, I'm thinking at least two for sure). Yes, the offense is going to take a step back at least because Pitts is gone, Trask, Toney, and Grimes graduate. We're hoping that Jones The Defense needs to improve for sure. It's sad that two plays were the reason that the Gators weren't undefeated before the Bama game though would Gators still been left out after losing to Bama? Also, I wonder if the playoffs should extend (I'm thinking six teams would do it, with the top two getting byes). There are four teams (Clemson, Bama, TOSU, and Oklahoma) that been there four times at least. Not to mention Clemson and Bama only missed out once in seven seasons with the playoffs. Things need to open up otherwise it's going to be the same team over and over and ...................................

 

[DRU2012]

One of the things we can say that the Gators is they gave 2019 LSU a fight and the same for the Bama team last week though again those were losses. Heisman is still possible for Trask (depending on how many Bama players are finalists, I'm thinking at least two for sure). Yes, the offense is going to take a step back at least because Pitts is gone, Trask, Toney, and Grimes graduate. We're hoping that Jones The Defense needs to improve for sure. It's sad that two plays were the reason that the Gators weren't undefeated before the Bama game though would Gators still been left out after losing to Bama? Also, I wonder if the playoffs should extend (I'm thinking six teams would do it, with the top two getting byes). There are four teams (Clemson, Bama, TOSU, and Oklahoma) that been there four times at least. Not to mention Clemson and Bama only missed out once in seven seasons with the playoffs. Things need to open up otherwise it's going to be the same team over and over and ...................................

Read that Roger Sherman article, if you get a chance LF...He makes some good points, goes into detail about some things that have more and more been bothering me (and apparently you TOO) about this “playoff system”:
The short version is that it needs to be re-examined, reCONSIDERED...On first thought, it SEEMED like ANY ACTUAL “Head-to-HEAD” shakeout would improve what we had before—but perhaps NOT:
After all, THAT assumes that “clarity” and/or “certainty” was what we wanted, what we were getting some albeit imperfect VERSION of—or was in fact even doable in the first place...and in the end, now having seen the kind of vague, inexact and unintended (and truthfully, satisfying to NO ONE—EXCEPT for-the-MOMENT ALABAMA!) “Season of Letdowns and Unsatisfying Consolation Prizes” we can now see coming our way—and can anticipate will generally more and more be our lot in years ahead under this “system”...
The fact is that things have been trending in this direction from the very moment we first went to this so-called “CFB Playoff Format”! Even the supposed “stopgap”, “transitional” BCS arrangement left a lot more of the fun and seeming significance in the New Years’ Bowl Games, leaving ONE game with MORE significance as a still-somewhat-“mythical National Championship Game”—those quotes there qualifying proceedings somewhat but even so leaving the FUN OF uncertainty, the chaos and DEBATE in the whole process. The more teams and games we add, the MORE vague and unsatisfying the result.
It’s just less and less FUN. Surely you’ve noticed that.
Along with “Targeting”, long sideline stoppages for replay debates that destroy game flow and STILL don’t get it right, and a bunch of OTHER stuff that’ll follow the PROs right down the DRAIN, I fear we either pull back from and rethink, reconsider and reorganize NOW—or we’re gonna be sorry...
Before we know it, it’ll be the lawyers and agents who run OUR leagues too.
This may be the last chance for THE FANS, the regents, ADs, Coaches and Alumni to reassert ourselves, keep our sport UNIQUELY GREAT.

 

[DRU2012]

( @Leakfan12, :
...and one more thing: It’s OK if there is “continued debate” about who “the best team” or “teams” “REALLY were” after the season is done...That FITS with our game TOO!
Generally, in the way we CONFRONT each other—on AND off the field, YES:
and these arguments PERSIST, in some cases go on for YEARS!
I’m OK with that—in certain ways they ADD to EVERYTHING ELSE, ALSO for years!
Which brings us back to be our Gators, and THIS YEAR:
We are a good team, a VERY GOOD TEAM, the product of a now more and more healthy PROGRAM—one whose Coach has them on path and ON TARGET to hit its stride in seasons directly ahead. Now, I HATE that through bad luck, poor timing and choices and some things IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANYONE to control (eg. a worldwide PANDEMIC??!) it feels as if we have squandered having a diamond-in-rough-QB and freak-of-nature Tight End blossoming forth suddenly and thoroughly here and now, along with a frigging FLOCK of playmakers turning out to be scattered all over the field, but for the confluence of a handful of mistakes and banana peels missed putting it all together for that elusive “Undefeated Season” AFTER ALL!!!
BUT, Then AGAIN: Hopeful as we all may have been coming INTO this season, who saw THAT possibility, a shot finally at “UNDEFEATED” even when (if we were honest with ourselves) we KNEW that’s probably what it would take to carry us PAST Alabama and get us to the Natty—ESPECIALLY once we knew it would be an all-SEC Schedule, and even BEFORE all the REST ensued!
No, man: It has been one crazy ride...
I am DRUNK ON THE EXPERIENCE at this point, no sh*t! But I am proud of this team—and, at this point, after everything, I find I am actually fully eye-wide-open excited and HOPEFUL at our future! No—MORE than just “hopeful”...
I think there’ll be some changes, some may even be SCARY ones—but with a change and redoubling of focus and effort, we are just that close to getting on the express track to GREATNESS.
For eg, if Emory turns out to be what I think Coach thinks he is, young guys step forward (especially unknowns and newcomers on Defense) NOW, we’ll begin to see it from the start in 2021.
Go Gators—WE WON’T BACK DOWN!)

 

[DRU2012]

In short, I am coming around to the idea that rather than endlessly adding more games with inclusion of MORE less-and-less-worthy opponents, all in pursuit of some futile vision of “order and precision” at the top, at the END, we settle for what we THINK SOMEHOW ARE THE TWO BEST and let the rest argue over the scraps and crumbs!
At least there’ll BE a proper “END”.
“An orderly transition of power”.
And, even WITH unhappiness and residual questions, it’s over: Everyone is safe, we move on—and start over again.
“Wait’ll NEXT year!!!”
The alternatives all amount to an ever BIGGER DRAG.
Yes, things being the way they are, this all gets confusing. But clearly the most dangerous thing is to keep fucking with it.
I’m hoping we can just, back, AWAY.
Glad we had this talk. About football. College football.

 

[DRU2012]

AHEM!
(Redo.
MULLIGAN!
Can I get a “Do Over”??!)
At least grant a well-meaning colleague a chance to fine-tune his message?
Although I don’t entirely retract my efforts NOR my intended message(s) here last coupla days, I DO wish to tighten its content and band-width.
I can see how what I was doing, what I REALLY “meant to be communicating” could have been missed, at the very LEAST MIScommunicated there in how they in fact came across.
Mostly, my fear is that the intended SUBTLETIES and intended “sly HUMOR” of my message could too easily have been missed.
So at the very LEAST I would at THIS point return and instead focus more on what I’d HOPED WOULD BE a more “satirically toned and implied generally WIDER warning about where and how our out-going President’s attitude and activities had been taking the hope, confidence and unity of this nation in scattered, negative ways, very much as an outgoing Coach might, purposefully or inadvertently do. Maybe I got “too cute” in the way I did so, as well—I don’t know, but I apologize to y’all, if so. I guess I was going for “subtle”, low key!
We have always tended to stay AWAY from “too much REALITY” here at GE, right? You, me, WE are always “entitled to our “OPINIONS” here—but “TRY AND STICK TO FOOTBALL, DRU!”
At least TRY.