I'M SORRY BUT TWO CALLS BOTHER ME MORE THAN ANYTHING. ONE, DRISKEL'S ARM WAS GOING FORWARD IN THAT "FUMBLE" WHICH GOT UGA THEIR FIRST TOUCHDOWN. ALSO THAT BS HOLDING WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN A FOURTH DOWN GIVE THOSE LEGHUMPERS NEW LIFE AND LATER ON A TD. THAT'S PISSES ME OFF. DID THE SEC HIRED THE REPLACEMENT REFS FROM THE NFL?
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I BELIEVE THE REFS THREW THE GAME FOR UGA
- Thread starter Leakfan12
- Start date
Leakfan12
[I apologize to everyone going IN here: I KNOW this is a "friggin' novel", but Lf's observation raises a big issue that is MORE than just an "angry rant". Just so y'all know, I already also put up a thread for THAT, a place to VENT, at "Pickin' Thru' the Bones: Post Mortems on a Dark and Stormy Night".]
I'm glad someone else said it--I felt at the time of each that the two were the worst of several (at best) "questionable" calls, EACH of which turned the game in UGA's favor at key points. I'm not going to examine them all here (they're there in our GameDay thread, if you have the stomach to review it like I did), but in the case of those two in particular, they were "the bookends" that encapsulate the forces arrayed against us...But let's face it: We STILL had chances to win, and screwed ourselves REPEATEDLY to LET them beat us--the refs AND the Bulldogs. Sure, it lifted Georgia higher and knocked us further back on our heels, but what else is new? We have to rise above, endlessly come back from such crap anyway.
It must have seemed a nightmare for the haters to see us coming back down the field AGAIN with a chance in that game--after everything, only another great play by Jarvis Jones, their "Clowney", (helped by an uncharacteristic , momentary lapse-of-proper-technique by Reed), kept us from grabbing one more chance of tying it at the end.
Sorry, Lf...I am SO used to years of us being short-shafted by the officials... I mean, how else to explain the reversal of the call-on-the field that gave them a 3rd-and-5 instead of 3rd-and-10 there in the 4th--a whole different call for both offense, and more importantly, our defensive secondary in a game where we were already vulnerable there--setting them up for the TD on the very next play? Maybe he held it JUST long enough for that knee to "brush the grass-blade-tops" before the ball started CLEARLY coming out, and maybe he didn't--but it was called "incomplete" on-the-field, and there was NO "indisputable evidence", no WAY! I KNEW it was coming though: that has been the way of it for a long time--at LEAST since the SOS days.
From the moment he arrived, Spurrier questioned that sh*t relentlessly, TALKED openly about the "Gator Haters" (that's where I first heard that term, as I recall) among the officials, the SEC and NCAA hierarchy. It was no doubt there before then, part of a longtime effort by the "old boys" in the SEC to "keep 'the Sleeping Giant' in its place" and hold onto their OWN power, and the NCAA to keep the SEC from busting loose--the way it HAS as the they have become somewhat marginalized. Key calls will go against us in key games. Period. We HAVE to win on our own DESPITE them--we can afford less in the way of screw-ups than ANY of our SEC-opponents, and we racked up literally a SEASON'S worth on Saturday, no exaggeration--and it STILL took that strip/fumble inside-the-five with 3+ min. left to put us away.
No, the odds are ALWAYS stacked against us--so we have to be all the BETTER. That performance was NOT "all the better", by ANY means. In fact, while I'm sure we've had a worse 1-game offensive-performance, for the life of me I can't remember WHEN--and I've followed Gator football closely for DECADES (to really put this in perspective--I was there for every game, home and away, in '79, "0-10-and-1", and while that team showed futility across a whole season on BOTH side of the ball, I do NOT recall a single-game offensive-debacle like this one before EVER, not even THEN!).
They should just "throw out the film", not bother showing it to the team in the usual manner of their early-week routine (at MOST maybe the COACHES go through it, pull what they can that can help THEM)...This next week and game will be like "starting over" ANYWAY--if I were them I'd approach it in just that way. Let's face it, along with all the other "face the truth", "return-to-reality", "true nature unmasked" themes that'll be thrown around and onto our team in coming days, we are "back to square one" in everyone else's eyes...We don't have to BELIEVE it, though, don't have to "buy in". Who really cares what "they" think? I won't be listening or watching ANYTHING FOOTBALL-related except for this site, for at LEAST a month--probably longer, no matter WHAT. Come to think of it, this is exactly what being a "Gator" has always meant: ignoring it all and standing proudly alone--together and apart.
We're a MUCH better team than we thought we were coming into this season. We have a lot to do, fix and learn now--but we AREN'T as bad as yesterday, either. The next 5 games are nowhere near as difficult or dangerous as the first 7 were. Go out with something to prove to OURSELVES, and we can rebuild our pride and confidence, find ourselves in good shape facing the Moles to end the regular season. This loss is gonna hurt, now AND later, all the more so if/when we find ourselves with just that one, facing FSU and KNOWING "what might have been", but WE SHOULD NEVER FORGET: People and those they represent WANT it this way, and we MUST NOT OBLIGE THEM.
We can't hand back our chances to disappoint them. We've got to remain calm, efficient. Forget about what's past (the hardest part of all): Take from it what you can, drop the rest, turn quickly and MOVE ON. Things will be taken away; nothing will be given to us. Don't get down, get even. Success is the best revenge.
We are F L O R I D A. F*ck 'em. Go Gators!
miltongator
Gator Fan
Oh shoot, forgot that call on that "Catch" before the TD I believe. SERIOUSLY THAT WAS A CATCH? THAT WAS LESS OF A CATCH THAN THE CATCH IN THE 2000 NFC TITLE GAME WITH THE BUCS VS RAMS (DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THAT CATCH BESIDES THE FACT IT WAS A CATCH AND I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS). THE BALL CLEARLY HIT THE GROUND MEANING INCOMPLETION.
Thanks, mg--glad you see it that way (in more ways than one)...was afraid it would be taken as "more DRU going off for WAY too long", and not read. I really MEANT this one.)
NaffGutts
Gator Fan
I've been bitching about the calls in every thread since after the game. Never seen a Rivalry game get shut down by the refs like this. I wouldn't put it past the SEC committee to try their hardest to get an SEC team (Bama) into a title game. So, of course they would want the weaker team to play Bama so there wouldn't be much chance of an upset.
I noticed so many bullshit calls that either gave them new life on a 3 & out, pushed our line of scrimmage back, or killed any momentum we had on drives.
I noticed so many bullshit calls that either gave them new life on a 3 & out, pushed our line of scrimmage back, or killed any momentum we had on drives.
NaffGutts
Gator Fan
this sums up the game
^ no call, yet we get a holding call behind the line of scrimmage? which by the rule book, doesn't exist
^ no call, yet we get a holding call behind the line of scrimmage? which by the rule book, doesn't exist
Not even the 2003 FSU game while the Gators were the home team? Surprise those got out unscate. Also agree with your another post. THAT WASN'T CALL PASS INFERENCE BUT THE SCREEN PLAY WAS?
Leakfan12 ( NaffGutts It is NOT our "paranoid imagination".) Here is an answer to the last point you raise above, having to do with "replacement refs"...I wasn't sure whether you meant that simply as a side-comment/rant, something that was just meant as a footnote to your "larger" complaint, or you MEANT to open up another, related-but-itself-huge a subject with historical underpinnings running parallel to the other questions you raise. As you see, I KNEW it was a big one, too big to answer above, so I left it out...I made some notes anyway, and out of it came this...If it's too much, for ANYONE out there, please move on with my apologies and blessings. For myself, I'd rather be doing THIS than watching TV sports or thinking about yesterday--for me, THIS is "distraction"(along with a few beers--I didn't drink ENOUGH on Saturday: I felt EVERY "sling and arrow of outrageous fortune"--pretentious? maybe, but there WAS something Shakespearian about the dramatically unexpected, thorough and heart-wrenchingly shared shock of our "fall from grace")...but I know I'll never "understand" it enough. Soon, I will have to "turn quickly and walk away". After this one I am almost there. In the meantime, though, here it is:
Basically, we DID get the "NFL replacement refs", Lf--I mean, not in the actual body-for-body individuals, but those NFL-scabs were DRAWN from a pool of college game-officials who made lists created from local and regional pools (for eg., a Chicago home-game would be officiated by guys from the Big Ten)--no one, not media and LAST OF ALL the NFL EVER wanted to say out loud what was so obvious: these local small-timers, guys who have normal jobs like "Tax clerk at H. and R. Block" (no shame in that, just "vulnerability", is what I'm getting at) and the like are wide-open for big fat bribes--a million bucks in an offshore account, just for swinging a couple of key calls, calling a hold that keeps a TD off the board, that keeps a score within a certain point-spread in a big game, highly wagered-on--and what's a million dollars to the Gambling Industry (and that's EXACTLY what it is--with over a BILLION wagered EVERY WEEKEND just on the NFL!)?
My argument/analysis went on from here to prove a point about the complete inundation of ALL of football by the longtime influence and inclusion of gambling money and the organization behind it--a kind of shadow-commission that transcends all other "visible" authorities, there as much to COVER and camouflage gambling's power and influence as to regulate the actual "leagues" with which they are associated. I go on to show the long history of their involvement FIRST with COLLEGE ball--how it predated pro-football and for a long time eclipsed it in popularity and importance financially--"above board" in the many communities in which it was played to huge crowds, the "shadow economy" which had always existed and whose actual "receipts" DWARFED the legitimate ones, and the gray-area linking the two--most obvious in the whole BOWL system. Why do you THINK a "playoff system" took so long to happen at ALL? Under far too much scrutiny to involve the underworld directly, there had to be negotiated something that minimally affected "the traditional Bowl system"--oh the "nostalgia" we had to hear about from so many shills on TV...what hypocritical BS!--and similar separate local organization for the "cities" that bid and won each year, the only "oversight" being that joke of a regulating body, the NCAA Central Committee.
Then there are all those officials, from so many regional and local "bodies", loosely "qualified and regulated" by God-knows-who. Put it all together: So much money, so widely distributed for so long (more than 80 years!)--and the whole time, through wars and depressions and boom times and change everywhere else but "HERE", in a land where "Money Talks" and "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies"...well, who is so naive as to think things "couldn't, WOULDN'T" turn out the way it did? I suppose the same sorts who refuse to see what is staring them all in the face NOW. I understand why the "Officials" continue to play out their wide-eyed-blind performance--That IS their job, and their very lives, positions of respect and well-being depend upon its continued success. I even understand the media's ongoing performance in the role of the crowd along the parade-route, admiring "The Emperor's New Clothes"...but why are so many of us out HERE so willing to go along? Everyone sees an absurd scene like that ending in Seattle, and STILL anyone who says, "That's GOTTA be an OBVIOUS case of the fix being in!" is at best chuckled at for his "over-wrought over-reaction". A case of the "strings attached to the puppets unintentionally REVEALED!" if there ever was one, this was an example of what happens when the corruption of some guy(s) who is part of a less-scrutinized, more widespread level of weekly local corruption suddenly finds himself operating on camera on the most visible stage--the kind of casual absurdity that normally is drowned in the mass of quick-cut highlights in the wee hours on Sat.night/Sun.morning now finds itself (HIMself) in Primetime. They talked about "getting a deal done QUICK" after that because of public perception and pressure, and they almost got it right--except it was about public BLINDNESS and KEEPING it that way. It wasn't about the "incompetence" of the college officials, it was about their less well-honed and "professional" level of enforcing corrupt influence.
Believe it or not, that's the "short version"--I CUT most of the actual history and evidence, development of the argument that it has and continues to be COLLEGE Football, once DWARFING the pros in National attention and importance and STILL the larger financial and regional social influence (both in "legitimate" and "underground" economies), but I have them ready to go, if anyone here truly questions these points.
That is the crossover: the history of the growth of college football's importance, the parallel growth of gambling's place along side, and the manner in which the rise of "good ol' boy" power interests and money--legitimate, illegitimate, who knew? Who CARED?--more and more worked hand-in-hand right from the start...and HERE is where OUR problems are rooted, fellow Gators, and why "rooting them out" is such a hopeless task.
The current strategy and best hope is the one taken by our supposed "allies" at SEC-Central: "the Conference thrives, we ALL benefit, gain more power", the logic supposedly goes, and there seems something to it. Always remember, though: we are outsiders to them and always have been, Bear Bryant's (one of the "Smiling Friendlies" who worked for and with the powers that worked at keeping us down for so long) "Sleeping Giant" that shouldn't be awakened--a potential threat sitting on top of a powder keg of talent without a clue, and since awakening we have led a jailbreak out of contented mediocrity--but really we haven't BEGUN to reach and settle INTO the kind of annual dominance at-or-near the top that has always been within our reach.
With our talent base, FAN base, facilities, setting and above all HUGE endowment and big time money and power in our alumni/booster backing--over-shadowing even those of all the institutions that once kept us down COMBINED--we have it in our power (with the right young coach and staff installed, accepted and not going anywhere) to finally build the kind of program that truly reflects all that potential. You think "they" won't be pulling out ALL the stops now? You think they won't use everything they've got now to keep us down as long as they can, hoping maybe it gets this coach out of here before he actually hits his stride, has US hitting OUR stride, and they HAVE to either "bring in those Gators", or worse, find that we don't want 'em, "don't need 'em NO more"--that the jig is up, their "game"over, at least getting to play with anyone ELSE'S future but their own.
Even if/when we get past the old guard at SEC Headquarters, we'll still face what's left of the NCAA. They despise us, first for being from the SEC, then all-the-more for standing alone, not needing even the sodden, corrupt old fools they held their noses and agreed to deal with long ago. They are losing control, influence and RESPECT, the illusion on which the other two are ultimately based, everywhere around them--and at that point, once we are installed at the top of our Conference AND the soon-to-come Playoff System on a near-annual basis (and make no mistake: that is what Muschamp, Pease and Co. are quietly, determinedly aiming for), WE will hold the strongest hand. In the meantime, they will do ANYTHING to try and prevent that, make any deal with anyone at any level to wreck our plans, to knock us off course...They see it as their survival being at stake, and maybe they're right. We might need to make our peace with the SEC at some point (a move that becomes easier and more palatable as our AD, UF President and Regents work with their counterparts at other member-Institutions to take greater control of that group and its various responsibilities), but the current group running the NCAA are such corrupt individuals, so hostile to us and our interests IN PARTICULAR (long story in and of itself, having to do with history of the people themselves, and where they came from), that once we reach that position, they will be in effect "enemies already defeated"...We won't NEED them anymore, for ANYTHING. THEY will have to make peace with US--after working against us for so long.
So: Bigger, deeper story than it may seem, no? You can see why I left it aside above--especially when once I started to consider it I realized what a HUGE can-of-worms it WAS. Above, then, is "the short version", that probably won't grab the extended interest of most GATORS (though that may be MY fault), let alone anyone else.
Basically, we DID get the "NFL replacement refs", Lf--I mean, not in the actual body-for-body individuals, but those NFL-scabs were DRAWN from a pool of college game-officials who made lists created from local and regional pools (for eg., a Chicago home-game would be officiated by guys from the Big Ten)--no one, not media and LAST OF ALL the NFL EVER wanted to say out loud what was so obvious: these local small-timers, guys who have normal jobs like "Tax clerk at H. and R. Block" (no shame in that, just "vulnerability", is what I'm getting at) and the like are wide-open for big fat bribes--a million bucks in an offshore account, just for swinging a couple of key calls, calling a hold that keeps a TD off the board, that keeps a score within a certain point-spread in a big game, highly wagered-on--and what's a million dollars to the Gambling Industry (and that's EXACTLY what it is--with over a BILLION wagered EVERY WEEKEND just on the NFL!)?
My argument/analysis went on from here to prove a point about the complete inundation of ALL of football by the longtime influence and inclusion of gambling money and the organization behind it--a kind of shadow-commission that transcends all other "visible" authorities, there as much to COVER and camouflage gambling's power and influence as to regulate the actual "leagues" with which they are associated. I go on to show the long history of their involvement FIRST with COLLEGE ball--how it predated pro-football and for a long time eclipsed it in popularity and importance financially--"above board" in the many communities in which it was played to huge crowds, the "shadow economy" which had always existed and whose actual "receipts" DWARFED the legitimate ones, and the gray-area linking the two--most obvious in the whole BOWL system. Why do you THINK a "playoff system" took so long to happen at ALL? Under far too much scrutiny to involve the underworld directly, there had to be negotiated something that minimally affected "the traditional Bowl system"--oh the "nostalgia" we had to hear about from so many shills on TV...what hypocritical BS!--and similar separate local organization for the "cities" that bid and won each year, the only "oversight" being that joke of a regulating body, the NCAA Central Committee.
Then there are all those officials, from so many regional and local "bodies", loosely "qualified and regulated" by God-knows-who. Put it all together: So much money, so widely distributed for so long (more than 80 years!)--and the whole time, through wars and depressions and boom times and change everywhere else but "HERE", in a land where "Money Talks" and "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies"...well, who is so naive as to think things "couldn't, WOULDN'T" turn out the way it did? I suppose the same sorts who refuse to see what is staring them all in the face NOW. I understand why the "Officials" continue to play out their wide-eyed-blind performance--That IS their job, and their very lives, positions of respect and well-being depend upon its continued success. I even understand the media's ongoing performance in the role of the crowd along the parade-route, admiring "The Emperor's New Clothes"...but why are so many of us out HERE so willing to go along? Everyone sees an absurd scene like that ending in Seattle, and STILL anyone who says, "That's GOTTA be an OBVIOUS case of the fix being in!" is at best chuckled at for his "over-wrought over-reaction". A case of the "strings attached to the puppets unintentionally REVEALED!" if there ever was one, this was an example of what happens when the corruption of some guy(s) who is part of a less-scrutinized, more widespread level of weekly local corruption suddenly finds himself operating on camera on the most visible stage--the kind of casual absurdity that normally is drowned in the mass of quick-cut highlights in the wee hours on Sat.night/Sun.morning now finds itself (HIMself) in Primetime. They talked about "getting a deal done QUICK" after that because of public perception and pressure, and they almost got it right--except it was about public BLINDNESS and KEEPING it that way. It wasn't about the "incompetence" of the college officials, it was about their less well-honed and "professional" level of enforcing corrupt influence.
Believe it or not, that's the "short version"--I CUT most of the actual history and evidence, development of the argument that it has and continues to be COLLEGE Football, once DWARFING the pros in National attention and importance and STILL the larger financial and regional social influence (both in "legitimate" and "underground" economies), but I have them ready to go, if anyone here truly questions these points.
That is the crossover: the history of the growth of college football's importance, the parallel growth of gambling's place along side, and the manner in which the rise of "good ol' boy" power interests and money--legitimate, illegitimate, who knew? Who CARED?--more and more worked hand-in-hand right from the start...and HERE is where OUR problems are rooted, fellow Gators, and why "rooting them out" is such a hopeless task.
The current strategy and best hope is the one taken by our supposed "allies" at SEC-Central: "the Conference thrives, we ALL benefit, gain more power", the logic supposedly goes, and there seems something to it. Always remember, though: we are outsiders to them and always have been, Bear Bryant's (one of the "Smiling Friendlies" who worked for and with the powers that worked at keeping us down for so long) "Sleeping Giant" that shouldn't be awakened--a potential threat sitting on top of a powder keg of talent without a clue, and since awakening we have led a jailbreak out of contented mediocrity--but really we haven't BEGUN to reach and settle INTO the kind of annual dominance at-or-near the top that has always been within our reach.
With our talent base, FAN base, facilities, setting and above all HUGE endowment and big time money and power in our alumni/booster backing--over-shadowing even those of all the institutions that once kept us down COMBINED--we have it in our power (with the right young coach and staff installed, accepted and not going anywhere) to finally build the kind of program that truly reflects all that potential. You think "they" won't be pulling out ALL the stops now? You think they won't use everything they've got now to keep us down as long as they can, hoping maybe it gets this coach out of here before he actually hits his stride, has US hitting OUR stride, and they HAVE to either "bring in those Gators", or worse, find that we don't want 'em, "don't need 'em NO more"--that the jig is up, their "game"over, at least getting to play with anyone ELSE'S future but their own.
Even if/when we get past the old guard at SEC Headquarters, we'll still face what's left of the NCAA. They despise us, first for being from the SEC, then all-the-more for standing alone, not needing even the sodden, corrupt old fools they held their noses and agreed to deal with long ago. They are losing control, influence and RESPECT, the illusion on which the other two are ultimately based, everywhere around them--and at that point, once we are installed at the top of our Conference AND the soon-to-come Playoff System on a near-annual basis (and make no mistake: that is what Muschamp, Pease and Co. are quietly, determinedly aiming for), WE will hold the strongest hand. In the meantime, they will do ANYTHING to try and prevent that, make any deal with anyone at any level to wreck our plans, to knock us off course...They see it as their survival being at stake, and maybe they're right. We might need to make our peace with the SEC at some point (a move that becomes easier and more palatable as our AD, UF President and Regents work with their counterparts at other member-Institutions to take greater control of that group and its various responsibilities), but the current group running the NCAA are such corrupt individuals, so hostile to us and our interests IN PARTICULAR (long story in and of itself, having to do with history of the people themselves, and where they came from), that once we reach that position, they will be in effect "enemies already defeated"...We won't NEED them anymore, for ANYTHING. THEY will have to make peace with US--after working against us for so long.
So: Bigger, deeper story than it may seem, no? You can see why I left it aside above--especially when once I started to consider it I realized what a HUGE can-of-worms it WAS. Above, then, is "the short version", that probably won't grab the extended interest of most GATORS (though that may be MY fault), let alone anyone else.
DRU2012: Holy preamble to the Constitution, Batman! That is a long post. Let me summarize that for the rest of us that have attention deficit disorder:
WE GOT HOSED!
WE GOT HOSED!
I warned anyone/everyone at the top...so this time I won't apologize: There is HISTORY to all of this--and to anyone who wonders if it's just something we're screaming about to make us feel better, that though I acknowledge OUR screw-ups, I wanted to put on record the very real BACKGROUND to this business of "us gettin' HOSED!" (Btw--for the first time, I actually reached and PASSED the "10,000 Word-Limit" and had to cut this down! Lol)
PS I mainly posted it for the benefit of Leakfan12, who has dedicated this THREAD to this very question, and thought he and it deserved a detailed response--of course, as I say, this IS my "distraction", in a way, and with so many things about that game still swimming circles in my gut, I find this more constructive an outlet than sitting around trying NOT to think about it all,,,I DO hope SOMEONE reads it, though--mainly 'cause it's TRUE, damnit, and should be KNOWN, at least by us, its direct "victims" (of course, as a writer nowadays I'd only be working on something else, something I "SHOULD be" working on, while TRYING not to think about "the game", OR not doing anything but feeling bad--about NOT writing and/or trying not to think about "the game" ANYWAY, so you see my dilemna...or maybe not? Maybe this, my 5th Heineken is messing with my logic AND literary skills?)
It has been mentioned in other circles that SEC referees "guide" the game to a preferred "winner". There are different theories to this phenomenon:
1. Coaches as lobbyists. In the 1980s, the Gators had calls go against them quite often. In 1984 and 1985, there were plenty of coaches lobbying against Florida when it came time to be proactive and strip Florida of its title. The Gators overcame some bad calls in those years by being head and shoulders better than the opponents. The Gators this year cannot live on that margin.
2. Predetermined, preferred outcome. The SEC wants to generate buzz by building up a story, a meeting of the two teams most likely to generate the most buzz. Others will say (secsportsfan.com) that during the Nick Saban and Urban Meyer overlap years, both Bama and Florida got the majority of favorable calls in their favor when they played other teams. This year, the preference appears to be Nick Saban and anybody from the East other than the Gators. Why Bama? Bama has always been the cash cow of the SEC. On top of that, Nick Saban is one of the most respected men in college football.
3. Coaches in the referees' good graces. Nick Saban and Les Miles know how to get along with the referees, and to some degree, with the media. Urban Meyer was also good with the media. Will Muschamp is not good with the media. He is not good with referees.
What does this mean? It means that the Gators need to be that much better than the opponent in order to win the game.
1. Coaches as lobbyists. In the 1980s, the Gators had calls go against them quite often. In 1984 and 1985, there were plenty of coaches lobbying against Florida when it came time to be proactive and strip Florida of its title. The Gators overcame some bad calls in those years by being head and shoulders better than the opponents. The Gators this year cannot live on that margin.
2. Predetermined, preferred outcome. The SEC wants to generate buzz by building up a story, a meeting of the two teams most likely to generate the most buzz. Others will say (secsportsfan.com) that during the Nick Saban and Urban Meyer overlap years, both Bama and Florida got the majority of favorable calls in their favor when they played other teams. This year, the preference appears to be Nick Saban and anybody from the East other than the Gators. Why Bama? Bama has always been the cash cow of the SEC. On top of that, Nick Saban is one of the most respected men in college football.
3. Coaches in the referees' good graces. Nick Saban and Les Miles know how to get along with the referees, and to some degree, with the media. Urban Meyer was also good with the media. Will Muschamp is not good with the media. He is not good with referees.
What does this mean? It means that the Gators need to be that much better than the opponent in order to win the game.
Escambia94
OK, I guess it's 'cause you're the one staking out certain POVs, E-, but apparently this my night for taking the COUNTERpoint:
First of all, I notice you do NOT address the underlying forces long at work at SEC- and NCAA-levels that must be taken into account in explaining the reasons for all the more recent biases--themselves EFFECTS of causes that came before. Without understanding those, everything since, like the ones you raise here, can be dismissed by most as merely excuses, things anyone can pick and choose from among the complexities of recent history and make unfounded claims about. Even fellow Gators can begin to wonder...
However, these ARE the more well-known "theories", and deserve examination here:
(1) COACHES AS LOBBYISTS-- Those "other coaches" in and out of the SEC, didn't have to lobby very hard when it came to gaining advantage over us IN games, nor with whatever authorities when it came to rulings on ANYTHING, whether it was taking away scholarships, banning our post-season play, or stripping our titles ) and oh, incidentally, leaving those titles then to slide to THEM, wattayaknow?
(2) PREDETERMINED/PREFERRED OUTCOME-- We all KNOW that there is every string pulled to control/manipulate/influence (Choose one/Choose ALL) "the story", generate "buzz", etc. regarding maximum exposure and continued dominance of a certain hierarchy of "interested parties", where 'Bama rules this roost (and again, deeper HISTORY shows how and why this is so) and Saban is both beneficiary AND current High Priest of "The Church of Southern Ascendancy" --and, importantly to us, UF has LONG been a dangerous, once-unrealized threat, Bryant's "Sleeping Giant" that was best kept chained and drugged, and that once out of its cage had to be kept outside, cruelly beaten and repeatedly cut-down-to-size...We have gained education in spite of them: They hate us all the more, and will do what they can to keep us down, away from their pot'o'gold--but we CAN beat them: It just will take time, a plan of our own, and the patience and determination to see it through, all of which now exist and are in motion with the arrival of Muschamp & Co....However in the meantime our former "keepers" have weapons and connections still to sting us and drive us back for a time, especially if we are too bold and don't fully prepare and protect ourselves...as for Saban and the respect he has gained: in college football, especially Southeastern Conference football, "respect" is just another word for "fear"--and it only goes as far as the the thing that is behind it, the POWER to enforce your will on another coach's team on the field-of-play. Given all of the different nuances to how THAT is accomplished, some huge and obvious and others subtle and covert, the big winners are the ones who are in it for the long haul. We need to keep this coach and his staff here and together.
(3) COACHES IN THE REFEREES' GOOD GRACES-- That brings us your last point--the identities, images and actual qualities of the coaches themselves. I'm not going to bother addressing or arguing about the other coaches in the SEC, least of all the relative popularity of our FORMER coach with the officials OR media when HE was here, but I would clarify your summation/judgment? concerning our coach's relationships with each: "not good" with either sounds like a clear description, but in reality is vague and misleading. I submit that Will Muschamp's relationships with each, referees and media, are separate and intentional, each approach with its own set of methods and aims. What they have in common is that they well-represent his own personality and how he intends his team to reflect it. His first aim coming in and always is what it says to his team, who (as far as the ones who stayed, who he wanted here and who wanted to stay with HIM) quickly came to love and follow him, and next what it said to Gator Nation, who are finally now coming to love him as well. He shrewdly understands the priorities here.
Now, to YOUR points: as for the referees, he is not there to coax them...that would be totally out-of-character and ring hollow to EVERYONE--including whatever forces BEHIND the various pressures and biases that are made clear "off-the-record" to officials by the folks who REALLY sign their checks. No, his only choice is to be "Muschamp being Muschamp", to make sure EVERYONE knows he will focus VERY PUBLICLY on too many or too extreme "tendencies", knowing as well as anyone (he played IN the SEC UNDER Saban, for eg.--and another politician, one who played the game a DIFFERENT, more oily, glad-handingly "friendly" way, Mack Brown) that there are forces at work that he can only influence, not end. He hopes in a way to put a certain fear into going too far--none of 'em want too much of a spotlight on "bad calls", on their "crew" OR (especially) on themselves...and let's not completely ignore the power of Will's personality, however much of it is real or contrived for a particular audience (necessarily a part of any coach's repetoire )--real or not, Chomp is a REALLY SCARY GUY when he's angry (I have a big grin when I recall that look he had as he bit off whatever he was saying to one of his kids towering over him, who'd just screwed a 3rd-and-short with a "false-start" penalty yesterday--but I doubt I'd be smiling if on the other end of it)...roll it all together, and I bet you begin to think twice about blowing your whistle unless you're sure it is THERE, that it isn't a "phantom call" that his later loud protestations can be supported on film--and that is his aim, a "win" if he can eliminate all or at least most of the ones an official isn't CERTAIN of. Hell, as a Gator, that would be an absolute TRIUMPH.
Finally, the media: This is simple. Win. Win and they'll LOVE you for your personality, whatever it is--and if it is prickly (Saban is no charmer, for eg.--hell he's both dour and bland, normally a losing combination in TV-Land!), or at times combative, well, you give us all a winner and they'll package and spin it as "colorful" and they'll love you all the more. Will is already mostly OK with the locals--he treats them with a clear difference than outsiders, the national guys that he is more careful with--and even with closed practices and misleading statements concerning who is injured and who is in the doghouse and what ANY of it means as to who will play on Saturday, they are more and more focussing on the positives, chuckling at his bursts of anger and glowingly backing his "passion" and "drive".
What does it all add up to? Where does it leave us? Pretty well at the same place as you conclude, E-...I'm not sure about our "margin for error", but we have to accept, as I'm sure Muschamp does and did coming in here, that no matter who we play, "The Gators must be that much better than the opponent in order to win the game"...where in our case "much better" means "CLEARLY able to best them that day, on that field, no matter what is thrown at us".
OK, I guess it's 'cause you're the one staking out certain POVs, E-, but apparently this my night for taking the COUNTERpoint:
First of all, I notice you do NOT address the underlying forces long at work at SEC- and NCAA-levels that must be taken into account in explaining the reasons for all the more recent biases--themselves EFFECTS of causes that came before. Without understanding those, everything since, like the ones you raise here, can be dismissed by most as merely excuses, things anyone can pick and choose from among the complexities of recent history and make unfounded claims about. Even fellow Gators can begin to wonder...
However, these ARE the more well-known "theories", and deserve examination here:
(1) COACHES AS LOBBYISTS-- Those "other coaches" in and out of the SEC, didn't have to lobby very hard when it came to gaining advantage over us IN games, nor with whatever authorities when it came to rulings on ANYTHING, whether it was taking away scholarships, banning our post-season play, or stripping our titles ) and oh, incidentally, leaving those titles then to slide to THEM, wattayaknow?
(2) PREDETERMINED/PREFERRED OUTCOME-- We all KNOW that there is every string pulled to control/manipulate/influence (Choose one/Choose ALL) "the story", generate "buzz", etc. regarding maximum exposure and continued dominance of a certain hierarchy of "interested parties", where 'Bama rules this roost (and again, deeper HISTORY shows how and why this is so) and Saban is both beneficiary AND current High Priest of "The Church of Southern Ascendancy" --and, importantly to us, UF has LONG been a dangerous, once-unrealized threat, Bryant's "Sleeping Giant" that was best kept chained and drugged, and that once out of its cage had to be kept outside, cruelly beaten and repeatedly cut-down-to-size...We have gained education in spite of them: They hate us all the more, and will do what they can to keep us down, away from their pot'o'gold--but we CAN beat them: It just will take time, a plan of our own, and the patience and determination to see it through, all of which now exist and are in motion with the arrival of Muschamp & Co....However in the meantime our former "keepers" have weapons and connections still to sting us and drive us back for a time, especially if we are too bold and don't fully prepare and protect ourselves...as for Saban and the respect he has gained: in college football, especially Southeastern Conference football, "respect" is just another word for "fear"--and it only goes as far as the the thing that is behind it, the POWER to enforce your will on another coach's team on the field-of-play. Given all of the different nuances to how THAT is accomplished, some huge and obvious and others subtle and covert, the big winners are the ones who are in it for the long haul. We need to keep this coach and his staff here and together.
(3) COACHES IN THE REFEREES' GOOD GRACES-- That brings us your last point--the identities, images and actual qualities of the coaches themselves. I'm not going to bother addressing or arguing about the other coaches in the SEC, least of all the relative popularity of our FORMER coach with the officials OR media when HE was here, but I would clarify your summation/judgment? concerning our coach's relationships with each: "not good" with either sounds like a clear description, but in reality is vague and misleading. I submit that Will Muschamp's relationships with each, referees and media, are separate and intentional, each approach with its own set of methods and aims. What they have in common is that they well-represent his own personality and how he intends his team to reflect it. His first aim coming in and always is what it says to his team, who (as far as the ones who stayed, who he wanted here and who wanted to stay with HIM) quickly came to love and follow him, and next what it said to Gator Nation, who are finally now coming to love him as well. He shrewdly understands the priorities here.
Now, to YOUR points: as for the referees, he is not there to coax them...that would be totally out-of-character and ring hollow to EVERYONE--including whatever forces BEHIND the various pressures and biases that are made clear "off-the-record" to officials by the folks who REALLY sign their checks. No, his only choice is to be "Muschamp being Muschamp", to make sure EVERYONE knows he will focus VERY PUBLICLY on too many or too extreme "tendencies", knowing as well as anyone (he played IN the SEC UNDER Saban, for eg.--and another politician, one who played the game a DIFFERENT, more oily, glad-handingly "friendly" way, Mack Brown) that there are forces at work that he can only influence, not end. He hopes in a way to put a certain fear into going too far--none of 'em want too much of a spotlight on "bad calls", on their "crew" OR (especially) on themselves...and let's not completely ignore the power of Will's personality, however much of it is real or contrived for a particular audience (necessarily a part of any coach's repetoire )--real or not, Chomp is a REALLY SCARY GUY when he's angry (I have a big grin when I recall that look he had as he bit off whatever he was saying to one of his kids towering over him, who'd just screwed a 3rd-and-short with a "false-start" penalty yesterday--but I doubt I'd be smiling if on the other end of it)...roll it all together, and I bet you begin to think twice about blowing your whistle unless you're sure it is THERE, that it isn't a "phantom call" that his later loud protestations can be supported on film--and that is his aim, a "win" if he can eliminate all or at least most of the ones an official isn't CERTAIN of. Hell, as a Gator, that would be an absolute TRIUMPH.
Finally, the media: This is simple. Win. Win and they'll LOVE you for your personality, whatever it is--and if it is prickly (Saban is no charmer, for eg.--hell he's both dour and bland, normally a losing combination in TV-Land!), or at times combative, well, you give us all a winner and they'll package and spin it as "colorful" and they'll love you all the more. Will is already mostly OK with the locals--he treats them with a clear difference than outsiders, the national guys that he is more careful with--and even with closed practices and misleading statements concerning who is injured and who is in the doghouse and what ANY of it means as to who will play on Saturday, they are more and more focussing on the positives, chuckling at his bursts of anger and glowingly backing his "passion" and "drive".
What does it all add up to? Where does it leave us? Pretty well at the same place as you conclude, E-...I'm not sure about our "margin for error", but we have to accept, as I'm sure Muschamp does and did coming in here, that no matter who we play, "The Gators must be that much better than the opponent in order to win the game"...where in our case "much better" means "CLEARLY able to best them that day, on that field, no matter what is thrown at us".
@InkedAdrenaline, @miltongator, @Dale J. Rodriguez, @Leakfan12, @Escambia94
I have spent a night having drunk (& other things) myself back to, if not sobriety, at least perspective: thanx to the patience, humor and ministrations of my lady (now sleeping soundlessly beside me while I--QUIETLY--tap this out on her laptop...I'm over at her place, having wisely gotten out of MY "mancave"/office/place-where-I-hole-up-when-we-lose", finally--also thanx to her) I have arrived at a startlingly simple addendum to the "starting over" philosophical nugget that I have come to embrace and recommend to our team...
Please understand that this in no way negates all the well-considered and deeply held thoughts, observations and beliefs developed here and elsewhere among the threads, where we have traded ideas while decompressing from frustration and disappointment these last 36 hours or so, but I do now take another tack:
With regard to our need to take from what we've done and seen thus far, and where we should go from here...
"LET'S BUST OUT SOME FRIGGIN' OFFENSE!!!"
Thank you very much. --Dru2012
I have spent a night having drunk (& other things) myself back to, if not sobriety, at least perspective: thanx to the patience, humor and ministrations of my lady (now sleeping soundlessly beside me while I--QUIETLY--tap this out on her laptop...I'm over at her place, having wisely gotten out of MY "mancave"/office/place-where-I-hole-up-when-we-lose", finally--also thanx to her) I have arrived at a startlingly simple addendum to the "starting over" philosophical nugget that I have come to embrace and recommend to our team...
Please understand that this in no way negates all the well-considered and deeply held thoughts, observations and beliefs developed here and elsewhere among the threads, where we have traded ideas while decompressing from frustration and disappointment these last 36 hours or so, but I do now take another tack:
With regard to our need to take from what we've done and seen thus far, and where we should go from here...
"LET'S BUST OUT SOME FRIGGIN' OFFENSE!!!"
Thank you very much. --Dru2012
DRU2012: This is just how the game is played--on the field, on the sidelines with the referees, in the board rooms of the SEC officials, and on the Destin golf course during the SEC symposium.
Allow me to offer a good example of a politician that gets things going his way when he should be fired--Mack Brown. Oddly enough, Mack Brown did not teach Will Muschamp the CEO skills it takes to be a head coach that gets preferential treatment. Coach Boom does not play golf with guys in nice polo shirts. We love him for his "SEC personality", but he is not going to get the preferential treatment--and that's okay. It just means that the Gators need to be more blue collar, since the coach is not a white collar, golf playing, schmoozer like Urban Meyer, Nick Saban (yes, it's true), or even Les Miles.
Is the SEC morally corrupt? No more than the NCAA is morally corrupt. This is big business, and these same things happen in big business.
Allow me to offer a good example of a politician that gets things going his way when he should be fired--Mack Brown. Oddly enough, Mack Brown did not teach Will Muschamp the CEO skills it takes to be a head coach that gets preferential treatment. Coach Boom does not play golf with guys in nice polo shirts. We love him for his "SEC personality", but he is not going to get the preferential treatment--and that's okay. It just means that the Gators need to be more blue collar, since the coach is not a white collar, golf playing, schmoozer like Urban Meyer, Nick Saban (yes, it's true), or even Les Miles.
Is the SEC morally corrupt? No more than the NCAA is morally corrupt. This is big business, and these same things happen in big business.
DocZaius
Gator Fan
I can't concentrate on all this reading without my tinfoil hat, and I left it at home today.
Yes. We do get emotional after a loss, but I still believe that it is contingent upon the players to be that much better knowing that their margin for error is within the "margin of bad refereeing".
Escambia94
First off, funny you should mention Mack Brown--his name came up tangentially when I was talking specifically ABOUT the question of the refs (Incompetent? Corrupt?) and various coaches' relationship with them above...Don't forget that Will was his heir apparent, the official "Head Coach-in-Waiting" (who was meanwhile in charge of their defense) at Texas. He SAW how Mack did it, "up close and personal", as they say--and when he got here and embarked on his OWN journey, he chose to do it a whole different way. HIS way, and it couldn't be much more different than Mack's OR Nick's.
Next you note how "we love him" like this...You're right, and we wouldn't want him any other way--that was my conclusion too (no great revelation): He had choices, both in jobs and role models, but he came HERE, to be Will Muschamp--and to do it his way. He came in with a plan, has adapted according to circumstances, and underlying everything, even the things others see as drawbacks--ultimately, that he is NOT like Saban or Brown--are the things that MAKE him unique, and that in turn make the manner in which he, his coaches and his TEAM undertake to deal with these people and problems you mention INTENTIONAL, part of that original plan. Our Head Coach knows himself, and that priceless self-awareness guided his choice when the job here at UF was offered. Along with all the other reasons that made this job attractive (hometown, SEC, etc.), maybe the biggest (although not widely understood or anticipated) WAS his "plan". He saw how "Muschamp's Way", underlying everything, could be "the Florida Way". None of it is inadvertent: From philosophy of team play to interaction with referees, instead of hiding it or "toning it down", Will's personality is there up front--and just another conscious part of his plan from the start. It's still early in the process, but we can see its outlines AND its success already--and this is just the beginning.
First off, funny you should mention Mack Brown--his name came up tangentially when I was talking specifically ABOUT the question of the refs (Incompetent? Corrupt?) and various coaches' relationship with them above...Don't forget that Will was his heir apparent, the official "Head Coach-in-Waiting" (who was meanwhile in charge of their defense) at Texas. He SAW how Mack did it, "up close and personal", as they say--and when he got here and embarked on his OWN journey, he chose to do it a whole different way. HIS way, and it couldn't be much more different than Mack's OR Nick's.
Next you note how "we love him" like this...You're right, and we wouldn't want him any other way--that was my conclusion too (no great revelation): He had choices, both in jobs and role models, but he came HERE, to be Will Muschamp--and to do it his way. He came in with a plan, has adapted according to circumstances, and underlying everything, even the things others see as drawbacks--ultimately, that he is NOT like Saban or Brown--are the things that MAKE him unique, and that in turn make the manner in which he, his coaches and his TEAM undertake to deal with these people and problems you mention INTENTIONAL, part of that original plan. Our Head Coach knows himself, and that priceless self-awareness guided his choice when the job here at UF was offered. Along with all the other reasons that made this job attractive (hometown, SEC, etc.), maybe the biggest (although not widely understood or anticipated) WAS his "plan". He saw how "Muschamp's Way", underlying everything, could be "the Florida Way". None of it is inadvertent: From philosophy of team play to interaction with referees, instead of hiding it or "toning it down", Will's personality is there up front--and just another conscious part of his plan from the start. It's still early in the process, but we can see its outlines AND its success already--and this is just the beginning.
I forgot an important example too...I remembered it when I reviewed our GameDay Thread (the only way I could "review" this game; watching my recording this time was just too much), then somehow forgot it again in the discussion of everything else--then remembered it again with news of Patton's injury: That happened on the play I am referring to, that HORRIBLE clothesline/horsecollar that (AGAIN, of course) WAS NOT CALLED. He was litterally yanked-by-the-neck to the ground, his body hitting the ground awkwardly (like a ragdoll) and HARD,,,you just knew he was hurt--and he was: a broken arm and (probably) out for the season.
I was apoplectic at the time, and in recalling it AND discovering that we have lost him, a blossoming playmaker (and at a position we are already thin at, btw) and good, enthusiastic player and kid, am angry all over again. This sort of thing goes BEYOND "unfairness" into the supposed reason for these rules and penalties, PLAYER SAFETY. In making this something unevenly enforced according to convenience, they make a mockery of the game. I cannot WAIT 'til next year.
