Wow! Florida – LSU recap

All I can say is what a game! Well, that’s not all I can say — On Friday, I correctly predicted the score to be 28-24, however I had no idea that in order to get to 28 we’d have to go for it on 4th down 4 times on the same drive, that Colt David would miss 2 FG’s (one difficult, the other….not so much), that Brandon Lafell would drop 3 passes (one leading to an interception), or that the hero of the game would be Jacob Hester.

While I wish that we would have blown Florida out, I’ll admit was probably the most exciting game I’ve ever watched. However, the story of this game has less to do with the “genius” or “large ballsack” of Les Miles, but more to do with how much our team misses Early Doucet, Jacob Hester’s character, and the cool-headed decision making of Matt Flynn. There were a lot of situations where Matt had to throw away the ball, where it would have been easy to try to force a pass and possibly turn the ball over (something we saw happen from time to time over the past few years with Randall, Mauck, and even in Jamarcus’ early days).

 

What the media has misdiagnosed for a large ballsack is actually Les adjusting to the game, and knowing the character of this team. Put yourself in Les’ situation:

 

– Florida’s offense was the best we’ve seen all year.
– Tebow was doing a great job against us (despite his completion %age, he did score 3 TD’s).
– Colt David had his first name changed to Cold and missed 2 FG’s. It should be noted that David did throw a sick block on a fake FG in the game.
– Our receivers couldn’t catch a cold in the 1st half.
– We had a lot of success early on running the ball.

 

Now ask yourself the question – given these facts, is it a safer bet to go for it on 4th down and try to gain 1-3 yards, or is it better to punt and risk another score? Kudos to Les for recognizing the situation and reacting accordingly, but it was much less of a risk to go for it than conventional wisdom would allow.

 

Player of the game: Jacob Hester, duh.
Running laps this week: Every WR on our team, except for Lafell and Mitchell, who should spend their time learning how to catch. I take back all of the nice things I said about Lafell after the Virginia Tech game, due to this week’s performance.

 

Now, as for those who might ask, “should the best team in the country have to go for it on 4th down so many times?”, the answer is this: LSU has played the toughest schedule thus far, beating 3 teams ranked in the top 10 at the time that the game is played. What more do you need to know?

It’s kind of funny, earlier in the year after Florida beat Tennessee, Herban Meyer brought in all the recruits that were on campus visiting him, and said, “If there’s a better team to play for in the country, then go”. Speak too soon much Herban? After this game, Herban said “We’ll be back….smokin'”. What the fuck is that? You may want to get through South Carolina and Kentucky first before claiming your comeback.

Today Herban Meyer worried openly about the safety of his players after Tebow received a large amount of voicemails from those who would wish him ill, but he really shouldn’t — they are protected by both a police escort during away games, and a forcefield that making them immune to the legal system.

 

Meanwhile, who’s worrying about the safety of Tony Joiner’s victim who received more than 200 death threats last week urging him to drop the charges?

 

It should be noted, that I have a newfound respect for Tim Tebow, who had a good sense of humor about the whole thing, at least publicly. While I hate all the hype surrounding Tebow, because of the way he handled this situation, and because he was able to eat crow about the cell-phone-dialing touchdown dance, I’ll refrain from posting the seven pictures of him crying after the game.

 

People that are probably losing their sense of humor this week:

 

– Pete Carroll, who forgot to recruit adequate backup offensive linemen, and insisted on relying on ultra-mediocre QB John David Booty. To be fair, Booty did break his finger against Stanford, but he’s looked subpar this year without Dwayne Jarrett. Looks like the NCAA is finally investigating the Reggie Bush situation as well.

 

– Karl Dorrell, who gave Notre Dame their first win this week. Seriously dude, I know that you don’t personally commit the turnovers, but still, fire yourself.

 

– Mack Brown, who lost superstud Limas Sweed, in addition to another game this week.

 

– Saban’s assistants, who got thrown under the bus this week. Seems like Saban’s assistants always change, but somehow his teams always never seem to put away inferior opponents properly (while finding a way to throttle the bejesus out of equally-ranked opponents ala Oklahoma in 2003).