Mr2Bits
Gator Fan
Gang, July's just around the corner - that means a brief hiatus from Gator sports until the start of fall football practice. The Gators' 2009-2010 sports season officially ended last Saturday with our heartbreaking loss to that team out west in the College World Series in spite of a last-ditch effort to rally back, but there's still some news to be had regarding UF sports - primarily in football recruiting. Urban Meyer's recent football camp in Gainesville has brought a couple more verbals into the Class of 2011, and we're building a foundation for what could be another impressive football recruiting campaign.
What inspired this latest TOTT offering was some random lurking around; usually before I begin a topic I have some handwritten notes taken down but after reading Pat Dooley's latest Gainesville Sun article today I was also moved to write this entry.
Now that all this banter about college football conference realignment has simmered down for the time being, we can all relax a bit. That, and as Mr. Dooley also noted, we aren't being forced to deal with all that insipid Meyer-to-Notre Dame nonsense anymore from the rumor-mongers (funny thing, I've noticed that the Birmingham Blowhard, a/k/a Paul Finebaum, has been unusually quiet lately - perhaps that huge piece of humble pie he was forced to eat after Brian Kelly was hired at the Golden Dome to replace Charlie Weis was a little too overwhelming?) and, aside from Frankie Hammond's recent act of stupidity things have been rather quiet around Gator football for once during this off-season. Aside from that one distraction, some more quiet time off can only do Coach Meyer good before the start of fall practice - that, and still finding quality time to spend with his family.
Speaking of Coach Meyer, I'm with the consensus that he raised the bar at Utah and helped pave the way for the Utes to hit the big-time in college football in making that giant step to a major conference (Pac-10). They've proved that they can win against some of the heavy-hitters, have two BCS bowl wins to their credit, and now with the move to a BCS conference their recruiting should vastly improve. Not to mention that Urban Meyer's coaching tree has a success story to-date with Kyle Whittingham having done a good job so far in taking over the Utes' program after Urban left to come to Gainesville.
So how am I spending the time during this "intermission"? Well, for one thing there's Wimbledon going on right now - and once again history was made with one of the longest matches on record having had to stretch to a second day to complete; congrats to John Isner of the USA for having finally won that one over Frenchman Nicolas Mahut. I still remember watching last year's men's final with Roger Federer and Andy Roddick that stretched out in the final set for a tie-breaker, with Federer having won and breaking a record for Grand Slam wins. Will be interesting to see how this year's tournament winds up, but since I got burned on guessing who would win the French Open I'm not making any predictions on this one. I'm not an aficionado of soccer, but I am following Team USA's progress in the World Cup; we were hosed out of what should have been a winning goal against Slovenia but came through against Algeria to stay alive in the tournament. Next up for the Americans is a match against Ghana.
Glad to see Tim Tebow is still progressing well with the Denver Broncos and is getting some positive reviews so far; seems that his new teammates think highly of him and are impressed with his eagerness to learn as well as his strong work ethic. I couldn't be happier for Timmy; the more he can prove naysayers like ESPN's Todd McShay and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wrong the better for him.
Anyway, enjoy this latest installment of "Talk of the Town". July arrives next week, but September 4's coming!
What inspired this latest TOTT offering was some random lurking around; usually before I begin a topic I have some handwritten notes taken down but after reading Pat Dooley's latest Gainesville Sun article today I was also moved to write this entry.
Now that all this banter about college football conference realignment has simmered down for the time being, we can all relax a bit. That, and as Mr. Dooley also noted, we aren't being forced to deal with all that insipid Meyer-to-Notre Dame nonsense anymore from the rumor-mongers (funny thing, I've noticed that the Birmingham Blowhard, a/k/a Paul Finebaum, has been unusually quiet lately - perhaps that huge piece of humble pie he was forced to eat after Brian Kelly was hired at the Golden Dome to replace Charlie Weis was a little too overwhelming?) and, aside from Frankie Hammond's recent act of stupidity things have been rather quiet around Gator football for once during this off-season. Aside from that one distraction, some more quiet time off can only do Coach Meyer good before the start of fall practice - that, and still finding quality time to spend with his family.
Speaking of Coach Meyer, I'm with the consensus that he raised the bar at Utah and helped pave the way for the Utes to hit the big-time in college football in making that giant step to a major conference (Pac-10). They've proved that they can win against some of the heavy-hitters, have two BCS bowl wins to their credit, and now with the move to a BCS conference their recruiting should vastly improve. Not to mention that Urban Meyer's coaching tree has a success story to-date with Kyle Whittingham having done a good job so far in taking over the Utes' program after Urban left to come to Gainesville.
So how am I spending the time during this "intermission"? Well, for one thing there's Wimbledon going on right now - and once again history was made with one of the longest matches on record having had to stretch to a second day to complete; congrats to John Isner of the USA for having finally won that one over Frenchman Nicolas Mahut. I still remember watching last year's men's final with Roger Federer and Andy Roddick that stretched out in the final set for a tie-breaker, with Federer having won and breaking a record for Grand Slam wins. Will be interesting to see how this year's tournament winds up, but since I got burned on guessing who would win the French Open I'm not making any predictions on this one. I'm not an aficionado of soccer, but I am following Team USA's progress in the World Cup; we were hosed out of what should have been a winning goal against Slovenia but came through against Algeria to stay alive in the tournament. Next up for the Americans is a match against Ghana.
Glad to see Tim Tebow is still progressing well with the Denver Broncos and is getting some positive reviews so far; seems that his new teammates think highly of him and are impressed with his eagerness to learn as well as his strong work ethic. I couldn't be happier for Timmy; the more he can prove naysayers like ESPN's Todd McShay and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wrong the better for him.
Anyway, enjoy this latest installment of "Talk of the Town". July arrives next week, but September 4's coming!
