The Season Begins!

Well, actually, the preseason. The real football begins September 19th when the UT assholes come to town. That will be a good game. Meanwhile, Charleston Southern is the lamb of the moment. I hear a lot of crap about the quality of this opponent, but I also heard a rumor that the original victim was to be UCF, who bailed. When you have to find a date to the big dance at the last minute, you gotta take what you can get. Kinda like Orange and Blue, Part Deux. Except to get to hit other people besides your teammates.

There was also a piece on ESPN interviewing the coach of the Buccaneers, and it appeared that
they were extremely grateful to be able to play Florida. Half their team was from Florida and the opportunity to play in front of friends and family--not to menition 90,000+ screaming folks--was a tremendous windfall for them. The money didn't hurt either, but the coach made a good argument that the money didn't make the deal. I don't recall when I've ever seen any team rated as a 73 point underdog. Yikes! This was the first time since Ole Miss last year that the Gators didn't cover the spread. But why would they? If they had played their best brand of football, even with the second stringers, they could have hung 100 on that team. Seems that wouldn't have been the kindliest (or smartest) thing to do, so the Gators played the entire game with about 3 sets on offense and 3 on defense. No stunts, not much in the way of blitzes, if any. Meyer described it as "painfully vanilla." Maybe that will teach the oddsmakers a lesson.

Though the Gators looked a tad rusty at first, they had some super plays from all 3 squads (1st, 2nd, and 3rd strings--maybe even 4th). Call it a mercy killing.


Demps was outstanding, as usual, and it's fun to watch him burst out and blow by everybody.


Rainey--1 carry for 76 yards!--was phenomenal. Hard to believe that defensive back almost caught him.



And the Gatornaughts were supreme (again).








.... and Timmy, well, he was typically Timmy.







Keeping alive the streak of 29 consecutive games with a touchdown pass--the next closest quarterback has 18! And Tim only plays the first two quarters...can you imagine his stats if he played the entire game each week?
As he creeps up on the seemingly unreachable record by the great Herschel Walker of 49 rushing touchdowns, we might see more short yardage runs near the goal line by Tim Terrific.

One of his favorite targets? Aaron Hernandez, the best tight end in college football. Critical catches, TD running over people...what a football player.

The defense played well under the restrictions they had, and the third string (or 4th?) managed a goal line stand to preserve the touchdown shutout. It's hard to prevent field goals nowadays, but it's a matter of honor to keep the other team out of the end zone. It was tight in the closing minutes, but you know the rest of the defense appreciated it.


And so, having vanquished the less than mighty Charleston Southern Buccaneers, we have the first one in the books for 2009. GO GATORS!!!!!!!