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GameDay: Sat., Oct. 20--Gators vs. Gamecocks in The Swamp

Leakfan12

VIP Member
i think our teams "doubts" can be credited to Pease "holding back" the play calling. I called it along with other members, the old saying goes, if it aint broke dont fix it, we can pass and we've proved it, play honest and beat un on the run, if not then we'll throw on you. Driskle having a good game regardless of stats

I hoping he opens up the playbook against UGA.
 

InkedAdrenaline

VIP Member
I hoping he opens up the playbook against UGA.

I don't think they will unless they need to. Muschamp does enough to win. Which I believe is what's made us 7-0....who would have thought driskel threw 4 perfect td passes yesterday? I would have thought we ran for 4 tds but not thrown... I like the conservative style, it keeps our opponent guessing on what we are capable of...
 

DRU2012

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FrozenGator
(OK--I apologize for SEEMING as if I am repeating LAST week's "novel", but in the name of "catching up" FG makes a lot of points and raises a lot of issues and questions--and it occurs to me in going thru' it that a lot of it may well be stuff OTHER members and guests may have interest in, especially those who MISSED the telecast...)

First, you're spot-on re ALL the players you mention--and if you skim over the GameDay "remarks" (more like "primal therapy") here you'll find similar comments throughout: Burton IS, like, this amazing athlete who we can throw out there to do SO many things--you shut down our "normal" offense and he goes in and gives us a whole different look and set of capabilities: what a unique playmaking-weapon he is!
Driskel is simply the most promising young QB in the nation right now: He's a calm, unique talent with enormous "upside", incredible aptitude and ATTITUDE, ready, willing and able to learn and grow--and hitting his stride as a leader and efficient game-manager (exactly what this team needs from him NOW) already. Each week we have had to change and add certain aspects of offense to our game plan--and he has simply pulled it off, with calm EASE, it has seemed...last week it was a RUNNING record, this week a passing one: What will this kid be doing a YEAR from now, on a healthy, fully balanced team with experience under his and EVERYONE'S belts, a flock of playmaker-receivers and calm confidence in himself and everyone around him?
As for the team we faced, though, Clowney IS a BEAST--we ALL noted and commented on it repeatedly, how could you NOT? He was a one-man wrecking-crew out there, especially in the first half...along with the REST of their defense, he AND they palpably lost enthusiasm and "drive" for the job at hand after that first long drive we ripped through them and shoved down their throats to begin the 2nd half: We just took the ball near mid-field after the great KO-return to start the 3rd, and DROVE on them--and it was somehow "OVER" after that.
Now: Muschamp. More and more, WE ALL LOVE THAT GUY! Believe it or not (and I don't know how big a deal they made about it on the audio "feed" you got up there), but we were repeatedly SCREWED by the refs in that 1st half--or we're up at LEAST a couple of TDs more AND they're missing at least one of their FGs--I mean on their first drive, the stripes just took the ball BACK from us, assessed 30 yards in phantom penalty yards and ESCORTED them into FG-position! I'm gonna talk about this again in a more general post-game analysis here at GE later today, but for now I suggest you check out the site, Aligator Army, scroll down to the blue shaded rectangle-area containing links to "4 Stories" under the heading, "South Carolina vs. Florida", and check out the one that identifies itself as about Muschamp being HOT at the half...what you need to remember, in listening to what he's so "hot"about, has to do with those calls, ESPECIALLY ONE OF THEM: After shutting them down on 3rd down and forcing a punt from their side-of-the field, Depose fielding a short punt on-the-fly giving us GREAT field position and a chance to drive down to score again, there's a flag on the field...it turns out to be for "Interfering with the Snapper" (WHA--?!!)...no one's even HEARD of this one, let alone seen it called before...from the announcer's eventual consultation with a rulebook (and my OWN quick research online), it turns out this is a relatively recent addition to the rules, one of those (as I put it it to my fellow outraged-Gators here at the time) more "PC"-inspired "oh-no-let's-not-let-anyone-get-hit-too-hard-or-feel-any-pain" rules, to wit: "The rusher must allow 1 full second from the instant that the snapper touches the ball with intention of snapping it until he may HIT the snapper with intention of knocking him out of the way and rushing the kicker" (a rule that has a NUMBER of hazy judgment calls embedded in it to START with, obviously), and as the game-announcers themselves showed with a cut-in of the game clock running in a box beside video of the whole sequence, our rusher gave their snapper well MORE than a second, then pushed him over and rushed past--not at ALL "vicious or dangerous"--but this IDIOT striped-shirt throws this asinine flag that hands the ball BACK (plus 15 yards and a 1st down) to the Gamecocks and completely reverses the flow-of-play--at the time, it FELT like we'd had everything we'd accomplished taken away and its benefits now rested on the opposite sideline. With all the other crucial flags called (eg. shortly after that we had a BEAUTIFUL long hook-up Driskel-to-Hines taken away on a flag, too...THEN a late INT was taken away on a phantom-offsides call, yielding instead a long FG at the end-of-half that COULD have made a large difference) exclusively on us throughout the 1st half (it FELT that way, anyway), it felt like we were losing by the end of it--with a 2-score LEAD! It was kinda weird, but that "realization" didn't feel wrong, either...even the CBS-announcers seemed to get caught up in the "Spurrier-and-his-Gamecocks "/"Big light-a-fire-under-HIS-team" halftime-speech as they returned to the field, but it was OUR coach and staff who AGAIN made the necessary adjustments--and oh btw ANGRILY LIT A FIRE UNDER OUR/HIS GUYS--and NOT about those screwed up calls either, really (The "ONFIELD ADVERSITY!!!" that he suddenly blurted out--it turns out that raised-voice outburst was directed at the game-officials, who he is not SUPPOSED to "address" in that manner, but were JUST walking by behind the camera Coach was looking into, giving him an opportunity to scream that for THEIR BENEFIT ), but about going out there, cutting out the mistakes and sloppy play and putting together some steady DRIVES-for-points, which we DID...and pretty well put the game AWAY in the 3rd quarter this time.
One more Gator needs mentioning here, though, FG: Kyle Christy, our punter is having an AMAZING season, and for much of the first half he was our one shining light, in effect our star on offense--culminating in our 3rd and final TD of the half, where after kicking ANOTHER field-flipping over-5o yarder, he ran down on coverage, stripped the ball from the return-man while tackling him, then WENT AND GOT THE RECOVERY! Amazing performance.
Finally--Yes, Georgia and the "Cocktail Party" (back to being its "Unofficial Name"--again "PC"-forces at work--but that's OK: WE know what it is--and what to DO) are next in Jacksonville's Gator Bowl...I have that "superstition" thing going where I don't feel comfortable making bold, straight-on claims-to-future-victory, but I DID say this much at the end of yesterday's online "fun", and will repeat it here: I BELIEVE in this team. I now have a certain bottom-line confidence in the way the whole staff and team goes about its business--in the days leading UP to the next game, and in their performance and adjustments in the course of the game itself. When it comes to this Bulldogs-team, aside from beating handily the team that recently beat the CRAP out of THEM, I believe we match-up well against them.
I'll probably end up being wrapped up tight again as usual by Saturday, but so far, coming into the week at least, I find myself mainly calm and unperturbed regarding this game...do what we have to do, as we have figured out and DONE in every game so far, and we'll win this one too.
Whew--Sorry, FG (and anyone ELSE who followed along)--but I WANTED to respond to everything you addressed...
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
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Great game, it was INSANE there!
Thought of you in there, man--I KNEW that was one to be AT, a PARTY from late-in-the-3rd-qrtr on, right?
...And HEY--Thanx for the pics, IA, ALL of 'em, but especially that A/B-pair, empty/filled-before/during...GREAT!
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
As has been discussed and well-covered above, I agree with the ultimate conclusions reached regarding our Braintrust's basic approach on offense, and the strategy and tactics that result from their "minimalist" route to game-planning. That is, as NaffGutts puts it, while we're working on ALL aspects of our offensive POTENTIAL--along with everything ELSE, as we've done throughout the spring and summer--the idea has been, as much as possible, to "hold back" a large portion of what we have ready to go if we don't actually NEED it in-game--and we generally HAVEN'T, thus far. Look, I've been one of the most vocal proponents of "being ready and planning to GO for it" with various aggressive offensive game-plans each game until now--and I haven't been wrong, per se, just "overwrought", unnecessarily worked up, and prepared to show and do more than we HAD to in order to take control and WIN, as the game and play actually progressed and revealed itself. Instead, we have won smoothly and more-and-more easily--and showed very little of what we in fact were prepared to show and do--and still have "in our pocket" to pull out in the future...we CONTINUE to be more and more "an ENIGMA" that can't be pigeonholed.
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
FrozenGator: All reports indicate he was furious with the referees. I have been hearing that he has some heartache with the refs and he foresees the refs impacting the Gators at some future date, say Alabama. It is pretty much a known fact that calls do not go against Bama, and that calls tend to go against "new" SEC coaches.
 

InkedAdrenaline

VIP Member
Thought of you in there, man--I KNEW that was one to be AT, a PARTY from late-in-the-3rd-qrtr on, right?
...And HEY--Thanx for the pics, IA, ALL of 'em, but especially that A/B-pair, empty/filled-before/during...GREAT!
Ya it was a party from half time on... People dancing in stands just going nutz... Ahhh good times...
 

DRU2012

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Staff member
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Escambia94, FrozenGator
After witnessing that "Interfering With the Snapper" flag--and in our own HOUSE, no less--when it comes to this very issue and the long-whispered "unofficial rules", well, the question arises, "Are there any boundaries to this protect-the-status-quo, limit new entrants, and undeniable anti-Gator bias at ALL?"
I get the impression and understand that there is likely a "method to Chomp's madness", a kind of grab-the-spotlight and send-a-message play off his own image and his team's growing high-profile as if to say, or at least "communicate", "Look, back off--I KNOW how this game, the one OFF-the-field, is played...cut US a little of that slack, that "benefit of the doubt"/leeway the insiders get ALL-THE-TIME, and I'll back off some TOO--I'm just out to protect my team, my guys--We can be valuable "members"--or pain-in-the-butt ADVERSARIES: your choice..." How far he'll really get with this is another question entirely--there's a pretty deeply-entrenched institutional reality/consciousness at work here, one long determined and adept at protecting itself and its original "members, friends and allies". Maybe he just hopes to get "them" to think twice, elbow-out a little room along-the-way that buys him and his team a "break" here and there, maybe even a call that ISN'T made in a big game, at some future "crucial moment". He saw Mack Brown accomplish a bit of this in HIS way, by pouring warm snake oil and honey on it--but Will's no "Used Car Salesman"/glad-handing politician like Mack...his way would HAVE to be more carrot/stick--with a whole LOT of "stick"!
 

DRU2012

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Ya it was a party from half time on... People dancing in stands just going nutz... Ahhh good times...
So, IN the Swamp, y'all could feel it by halftime? Out here, it wasn't at ALL comfortable until that second longish drive that took the clock down to 5 and a 1/2 minutes or so left in the third--THEN, our growing dominance (AGAIN in the 2nd half) AND the amount of (shrinking) time left suddenly began to sink in--"Hey! I think we HAVE this one! In fact, these Gamecocks are dispirited--we may just blow 'em OUT!"
 
Guys I am not going to say we have Anti-Gator Bias. But I will say the penalty calling is questionable; but honestly, I am not worried about bad calls, what I am proud of is that our team fights through adversity; because they have a coach who has their back. Coach Boom does not trip when the call is legit, he coaches up the guys and they go out and do not make the mistake again.

Guys we must understand, most teams would have lost their spirit during that SC game with the calls we had, and even some past great Gator teams.

The penalties and our execution and wins after them, go to my point of this being a NEW GATOR TEAM. I am digging the "Florida Way"
 

InkedAdrenaline

VIP Member
So, IN the Swamp, y'all could feel it by halftime? Out here, it wasn't at ALL comfortable until that second longish drive that took the clock down to 5 and a 1/2 minutes or so left in the third--THEN, our growing dominance (AGAIN in the 2nd half) AND the amount of (shrinking) time left suddenly began to sink in--"Hey! I think we HAVE this one! In fact, these Gamecocks are dispirited--we may just blow 'em OUT!"
To be honest the entire swamp was going nutz after the first play and fumble... It was a good time from then on... But when ur not watching it on tv you don't have the commentators getting in ur head
 

DRU2012

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Staff member
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Guys I am not going to say we have Anti-Gator Bias. But I will say the penalty calling is questionable; but honestly, I am not worried about bad calls, what I am proud of is that our team fights through adversity; because they have a coach who has their back. Coach Boom does not trip when the call is legit, he coaches up the guys and they go out and do not make the mistake again.

Guys we must understand, most teams would have lost their spirit during that SC game with the calls we had, and even some past great Gator teams.

The penalties and our execution and wins after them, go to my point of this being a NEW GATOR TEAM. I am digging the "Florida Way"
Oh, I agree TOTALLY, Dale--and you hit it dead on: That relentless, refuse-to-be-beaten-by-ANYTHING attitude is definitely part of what sets this Gator team apart from all others, "the Florida Way" our Head Coach has talked about to explain what he's looking for (not to mention who and what does NOT make the grade) since he got here...and it makes ME proud, too--how could it not? Some cool-headed combination of coaching confidence and player preparation has these guys bouncing back immediately, not dwelling on what's gone against them or why, and doing whatever they can to turn things to their advantage.
"Our team fights through adversity" to put it MILDLY--and it's no coincidence that when he has a chance to VENT on this issue using the situation at hand to do so (ie. in the middle of answering a question from a sympathetic hometown-commentator, on-field at halftime), Coach Will even refers to the uphill battle, extra layer of pre-planned resistance to his team and program's efforts at every turn, by screaming angrily about "...OVERCOMING THE ADVERSITY ON THE FIELD!!!", as the officials walk by behind the camera he suddenly seems to be screaming into.
For us, going through emotional turmoil is not just getting to be a regular feature of this team's first half performances, it is basically a "luxury" we can indulge in--but one a strangely efficient, never-say-die TEAM like ours cannot waste one moment of time or an ounce of energy on. I know that just by how distracted and drained I am just WATCHING them! However, this kind of treatment we get from the officiating has been a feature of being a Gator ever since I was a kid and understood the game well-enough to notice such disparities.
It has a certain documentable history that goes back a LONG way here in the South, where there was a very real "old boys network" that conspired to hold onto its own claims to recruiting territories and fan-based advertising power (not to mention bragging rights among good-ol'-boy wealthy boosters), what Bear Bryant once famously referred to in the case of keeping UF right where it WAS, "Not to awaken the Sleeping Giant...". Beyond THAT, all of THEM were just competing with, trying to fight off and at the same time IMPRESS the Big Boys, national powers from the Plains and the West, once the aristocracy of college football in the days before scholarship limits, and anything more than lip-service paid to things like "rules" or "ethics" or NCAA-oversight--the "Men Behind The Scenes" in The Big Ten, The Big Eight, The Pac Eight and Notre Dame WERE the NCAA in that era, and they looked down on us "down there in the SEC"--gave the boys here both their model-of-behavior AND a tremendous inferiority complex.
The upshot of all of this was a very real and well-entrenched tradition of conspiratorial control in order to jealously protect and maintain the status quo--of which the University of Florida and its Fightin' Gators were NOT "charter members", and though much has changed, it changed here last and there are STILL covert, unofficial and well-hidden but nonetheless active fragments of that old-school control. These reveal themselves in various ways, in attitude and treatment and sometimes in more obvious manifestations like the interpretation and application of the rules--and that can be with the NCAA officials-on-committee (where who-they-are and what-schools-they-are-associated-with can have ENORMOUS potential repercussions) OR on-the-FIELD, with officiating crews (and if you don't think that happens anymore, then you are eternally doomed to spending whole portions of big games wondering "What the HELL is going ON?!!").
So that's the BAD news...but for us, the amazingly GOOD news is that, as you note, Dale, we now have a Coaching Staff that takes that on when it can, has its players' backs, fights the good fight OUTSIDE the lines but knows when to let go, and makes sure their players don't worry or think about ANY of it--and our players, following the lead, word and deed of their coaches and team-leaders, don't let that or anything ELSE distract them or worry them for long: they bounce back up, turn the page and go after the next challenge.
 

Leakfan12

VIP Member
I don't think they will unless they need to. Muschamp does enough to win. Which I believe is what's made us 7-0....who would have thought driskel threw 4 perfect td passes yesterday? I would have thought we ran for 4 tds but not thrown... I like the conservative style, it keeps our opponent guessing on what we are capable of...


Well UGA doesn't have a great defense (just ask UT).
 

DRU2012

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To be honest the entire swamp was going nutz after the first play and fumble... It was a good time from then on... But when ur not watching it on tv you don't have the commentators getting in ur head
That makes perfect sense--that and a happy crowd that "just KNOWS we are rolling here!", has that on-the-scene connection with the team where we and they feed off each other...I haven't been in a full-on Gator-crowd-in-the-Swamp for too long, obviously.
So even with all those calls against us in the 1st half, especially that "Interfering With The Snapper"-call that gave 'em back the ball and helped (with all the other flags) to continue escorting them down the field on their first drive, the NICE TD-pass called back, all that was just kind of drowned out by the good stuff AND the feeling that we were the better team that day, right?
Like I say, for us here, it wasn't until we came out after the break and did our "take-over, dominate-play, drive-the-field a couple of times and END ALL DOUBT"-routine again that I suddenly realized with about 5-and-a-1/2 min. left in the 3rd and announced here at GE, "HEY!--You know what, Gators? I think we HAVE this one!"...

(Btw, that "connection between players-and-crowd" thing is what makes the Cocktail Party so much fun, but also what makes it either team's game to win, no matter which team is stronger on paper or is having the better season--they BOTH have a riotous crowd behind them there. That's why this team we have now, that doesn't let adversity or set-back of ANY kind affect it, knock it back or get it down for long, should have an advantage in Jacksonville...they'll take what they can from the support, but ignore everything else...)
 

DRU2012

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Ya everyone was feeling it. But really if u look back at the game, sc wasn't moving the ball at all, the refs were moving it... We literally shut them Down all day long...
That's a good way of seeing AND putting it, astute and true--but not always enough, in most games with most teams (ie. there's an ebb and flow--and when so many chances are taken away and fortunes reversed in the 1st half, it often comes back to bite the team on the short end in the 2nd).
This team IS different though--that's more and more clear. I get it, finally: I'm ready to buy in. This team doesn't "blow it". They don't get rattled and they don't cave in just because something goes right for the other team or wrong for them. They get up and go back to work. We can trust them. Man, that's a good feeling.
 

InkedAdrenaline

VIP Member
Inked that was the best Quote about the Game.

Lol ya its funny cuz obviously I wasn't on the forums while I was there, we were just enjoying the game. The mood there was awesome and everyone around me were pumped the entire game.

Then I get on after I get home and starting reading this and find it comical as to how much the commentators can get into our heads about the game.

We were in the Swamp celebrating 21-6 at the half like "hell ya, we stomping them" but when I watch the game back they are talking bout how we are lucky and we're getting shut down haha.
 

DRU2012

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Guess I'M guilty too--we ALL were--but it did FEEL like we had had a LOT taken away from us, and with that last long FG they were handed at the end of the half we were left wondering, vulnerable to the announcers' dark, negative view of US and positive view of Spurrier and HIS team. It was OUR team that came out and took care of business, though--and in retrospect, you and the fans in the Swamp were completely right: we just carried on what we'd already established in that 1st half. We were the better team, and once again we just TOOK OVER in the 3rd quarter.
I believe in this team's growing confidence in itself, especially in the way they get stronger and stronger as the game goes on. With the way our staff is able to help them adjust and take over, use that growing strength to LEAN on the opponent, well, like a dominant pitcher in BB, you better get to us early, or you're in trouble.
One more thing: The SWAMP THING is back. I'd forgotten how much difference that can make, and until you described it, what that in fact FEELS like when you're there--like a tremendous wave of rockin', smilin', can't-lose FUN!
 

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