Gators vs. Florida State

11-1 just ain’t what it used to be, I guess. The Gators are sitting pretty with a lone blemish on their record, yet they stand on the outside, looking into the BCS Championship party. The punditry says the nation’s warped perception of the Gators is irrelevant. Pat Dooley of the Gainesville Sun:

Does it matter that they continue to let teams hang around in games that look like they were heading for easy victories? Does it matter that they are still committing crucial penalties and missing field goals and inexplicably dropping handoffs and making you want to scream?

Not really.

Not now.

All that really matters is the Gators are 11-1 heading to Atlanta next week. …

You should never have to apologize for winning 11 games in a season that still has two to go. …

Are they perfect? Not even close. Are they frustrating at times? No question. But do they have a knack for winning football games? Absolutely.

Some way, somehow, they are one controversial call away from possibly being perfect. If that’s not enough to impress voters or computer geeks, so be it. It’s the flawed system that we live with every fall that makes Florida have to beg for acceptance and answer questions about style points.

After Saturday’s game in Atlanta, Florida will have played 10 teams who are bowl eligible. Meyer is now 20-4 in two years as the Gator coach. Florida is 11-1.

Get it straight — that’s what matters.

Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel:

Florida fans, coaches and players simply should enjoy the third consecutive victory against Florida State on Saturday without getting all worked up and worried over the national championship ramifications. No, the 21-14 victory against the down-and-out Seminoles wasn’t a masterpiece, but Florida victories are never a work of art. The Gators are more Sherwin Williams than Van Gogh. They don’t outclass teams; they simply outlast them.

But so what? Why do we allow three idiotic letters — BCS — to pollute what has been an unbelievably dramatic and ecstatic season for Gators everywhere. All the posturing and politicking for the national championship has clouded the real issue here, and the real issue is this: The Gators should be unwaveringly and undeniably proud of themselves. …

We’ve been so wrapped up in what the Gators aren’t doing to impress the BCS computers, we’ve neglected to commemorate what they are doing in the real world. They’re winning games — lots and lots of games.

Example: After the victory against Florida State on Saturday, I phoned the office to talk to one of our editors. And the first words out of his mouth were, “The Gators didn’t look very good, did they?” …

Instead of castigating the Gators, shouldn’t we be celebrating them? They’ve won 11 games for the first time since their national championship season of 1996. And Meyer has swept UF’s three biggest rivals, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida State, for the second consecutive season — the only time in history that has happened.

Greg Cote of the Miami Herald has harsh words for Urban Meyer:

It is convenient of you to have receded from your support of the bowls-and-BCS system and lately started advocating college football playoffs just when the status quo seems determined to exclude you from its Jan. 8 title game. It’s a little like a longtime Republican announcing himself as a sudden Democrat based on a shift in political climate or exit polling.

Here’s suggesting Meyer and his Gators play with the cards as dealt rather than bemoaning the rules of the game with everybody’s chips out there and just a couple of hands left.

Saturday’s 21-14 victory here over a thoroughly mediocre Florida State Seminoles team will convince neither man nor machine to elevate the Gators from their current No. 4 ranking up into the No. 2 slot and a title match with Ohio State. Nor should it.

Neither the humans nor the computers that produce the BCS poll were given much reason here to be convinced that these Gators deserve to unseat current No. 2 Michigan. Third-ranked Southern Cal also deserved to stay ahead of the Gators by beating Notre Dame later Saturday night. (Even the Fighting Irish would have had a pretty fair case for leapfrogging Florida by beating USC.)

That’s because UF has not made its case on the field about being the second-best team in the nation, and Saturday didn’t help as the Gators frittered away a 14-0 lead and rallied to beat a Seminoles group that — like Miami’s Hurricanes — endured the indignity of a 6-6 record. Of being average.

If Saturday was to be a “statement” game for Florida, its fans should worry the statement was, “Nobody outside of Gainesville believes we are better than Michigan right now.”

Peter Kerasotis of Florida Today:

Are the Gators the second-best team in the country?

Not if you judge them by Saturday afternoon’s 21-14, stop-and-go victory against rival Florida State. Or, for that matter, their one-point victory against South Carolina. Or their six-point victory against Vanderbilt. Or their seven-point victory against Georgia. Or their … well, you get the idea.

You see, you can’t judge a song by a note, a passage or a stanza. You have to put it all together and listen to the whole composition.

Thus, this is Urban’s opus.

It is an 11-1 season — the first time Florida has racked up 11 wins since 1996, and we all know what happened that year.

It is a 6-0 record these past two seasons against rivals Tennessee, Georgia and Florida State, something that had never happened at UF in back-to-back years. Ever.

It is a chance to win a championship in the Southeastern Conference, which many believe is the toughest league in all of college football, and something the Gators have done only six times in 73 years.

It is an opportunity to win 13 games, something else Gator Nation has never before experienced.

It is all of those things.

And, yet, it might not be enough.

That’s why Urban Meyer states his case whenever he’s asked about the Bowl Championship Series and whether this one-loss Gator team should be considered the second-best team in the country.

He’ll campaign. After all, he wants his team to have a chance to play for a national championship. Do you blame him?

The detractors, and they are legion, will point to Saturday’s win and yawn. They’ll direct your attention to FSU’s season and ask: “What’s so impressive about beating a 6-6 team by a touchdown?”

And you know what? They’ll be right.

As we check out for a long Thanksgiving weekend, Gainesville Sun columnist emeritus Hubert Mizell goes to the old “what I’m thankful for” column:

Urban Meyer, depending on him to keep tinkering with an offense still shy of being acceptable against the muscled lightning of Southeastern Conference defenses and — unless my ears fail me — a system yet to earn anything close to majority acceptance from football-fanatical Gator Nation. …

Chris Leak, who in four seasons as No. 1 UF quarterback - dealing with two head coaches and a flurry of challenges - had some exceptional Saturdays, if never at Heisman Trophy levels; a gentleman from North Carolina who endured a battery of human challenges with a quiet dignity that merits a loud ovation.

Enjoy the game. Back on Monday.

The Gators have practiced this week with the ever-so-annoying Florida State war chant blasted from a sound system.

> Urban Meyer: “Just crowd noise. We do that every time we go on the road. It’s a noon game, so I’m not quite sure how loud it’s going to be. I’ve got a feeling. It’s Florida-Florida State, so you’ve got to be ready for the crowd.”

Even though Florida State stinks this year, don’t think this Saturday’s game has lost any of its allure.

> Urban Meyer: “I think this is the final evaluation. I think we’ve been OK (on the road). We had that one stumble (the 27-17 loss at Auburn) in a tough environment, but we didn’t play very well, certainly in the second half. This will be the measuring stick. If we are successful here, I would say we had a good, not great, road season.”
> LB Brandon Siler: “It’s a love-hate rivalry. We grew up knowing each other. Everybody grew up together. My grandmomma just pulled out a picture earlier this week of me and (current FSU quarterback) Xavier Lee sitting on stage next to each other graduating from preschool. So, that’s the kind of thing it is. You love guys, you grew up with them and you know half of them. So that’s the kind of game it is. The hate is they are Florida State. We’re Florida, they are Florida State, so that’s the hate. There’s nothing more that you dislike when you’re a Gator than the Seminoles.”
> Siler: “I’m from Florida, and I grew up thinking this is the biggest game ever, and I still do. So this is what it means to me. I’m going to have to walk around here and listen to all their fans for another year. I haven’t lost to them yet, so I’ve still got all the bragging rights from when I’m in college, and I’m trying to keep that.”
> DL Clint McMillan: “We’re going to be up for it and they’re going to be up for it. A lot of people say it might not be as big of a game because they haven’t been doing as good. But it’s going to be a rivalry game, regardless of whether the roles were reversed. Whether we’re 0-10 and they’re 0-10, it’s still going to be one of the biggest games in the country.”

LB Brandon Siler, LB Earl Everett, WR Dallas Baker and DE Jarvis Moss should all play Saturday.

> Urban Meyer: “Brandon Siler is good to go for practice (Tuesday). Earl Everett should practice (Tuesday). Dallas Baker is better than they (the training staff) thought. They thought we would have him Thursday. Now it looks like we might have him Wednesday. … (Moss) is reinstated and he’s on schedule to play, if he does everything right.”

Bobby Bowden chastised reporters for the failure of his son, and former OC, Jeff. And he singled out an odd entity.

> Bowden: “You listen to eBay and e-mail and all that junk, and you all kept writing about it and that fans it and makes it grow and grow, and it becomes a cancer. That’s why.”

That’s right. EBay.

WR Dallas Baker sprained his MCL Saturday, but is probable for Saturday’s game against Florida State, Urban Meyer said.

> Meyer: “That’s how good our training staff is. He’s MRI’d, done, cleaned (up after the game), and I talked to him already.”

The Florida State game will be televised at noon on ABC.

NOON?!?

TALLAHASSEE — I’m up here visiting family for the holidays. Generally, as a rule, it’s not a good idea to argue politics, religion or college football with people who disagree with you. I ignored my own advice, however, and spent tonight with four Florida State grads. I was told:

• Florida State will win a national championship in the next three years. (I even made a $100 bet arguing otherwise.)
• The ACC is far and away stronger than the SEC. (For example, Wake Forest and Duke would run circles around Mississippi State and Kentucky.)
• Urban Meyer will be run out of town in the next five years.
• Chris Leak is selfish, and a speedy, run-first QB.
• The Gators don’t discipline their players, but Bobby Bowden does.
• The Florida-Georgia game is a home game for the Gators. (None of the four has ever been to Jacksonville for the Cocktail Party.)
• LSU and Alabama would have losing records in the ACC.
• Florida State crapped the bed against the Gators because the game was meaningless to the ACC Atlantic champs.
• The Gators’ previous coach got a bum rap, and will compete for the national championship at Illinois.
• Swamp Gas is an evil dictatorship, at which dissent is forbidden. The FSU counterpart, however, is home to thought-out and rational discourse.
• UF is a mecca for fat chicks. (None of the four has ever been to Gainesville.)
• Tim Tebow will be an unmitigated disaster at QB.
• Meyer is a liar, and the Gators’ recruits are too naïve to realize it.
• Florida State is a program on the rise.

Enlightening stuff. I had no idea things were that bad for the Gators. And this crew was a convincing bunch: whenever I disagreed, all four laughed and shouted me down. Hardly intelligent discussion from these graduates of an inferior school. I’ll let ‘em think what they want… ignorance is certainly bliss in Tallahassee.

In Tallahassee, Bobby Bowden continues to play the fiddle as his empire burns.

> Bowden arrogantly dismisses his critics: “They better be glad I’d like to keep this job.”

Actually, coach, as a Gator, I’m glad you’d like to keep your job. Four more years!

> Former QB Chris Rix’s father: “My son was made a scapegoat for the offensive ineptitude. Funny, but the many problems Chris was blamed for are still there now that he’s gone. My son was never developed like he should have been. He was stuck in second gear his whole time there. Chris was recruited by Mark Richt to play quarterback at Florida State, but when Coach Richt left, we weren’t playing for Florida State anymore. We were playing for the Bobby Bowden Friends and Family Network.”

DE Derrick Harvey will sit out the first half of the Gators’ bowl game, for retaliating after a Florida State player took a swing at him Saturday.

> Urban Meyer: “Absolutely, he (retaliated). Does that make it right? No. He’s as bad as the guy that threw the first one. Officials are absolutely right. That’s going to hurt us. We were counting on Derrick Harvey and getting him ready. He was going to play more in that (bowl) game.”

OT Randy Hand and S Jarvis Herring received conference honors this week, with Hand being named offensive lineman of the week, Herring the defensive player of the week.

After the game Saturday, Florida State freshman WR Fred Rouse walked over to Urban Meyer, smiled, and put his arm around the victorious coach.

> Rouse: “I can’t believe that man recruited me as hard as he did, and I dissed him. I regret it now.”

Florida State’s Ernie Sims and Lorenzo Booker are pieces of garbage.

> LB Brandon Siler: “They were on their high horse and talking a lot of trash. Ernie guaranteed a win. Booker said he’s wasting his time coming to the Swamp. Well, we said come on down to the Swamp and we’ll show you how to control yourself. They came to the Swamp, and we whipped them. We felt unstoppable the whole game. Booker got us alive and kicking, and I thank him for that.”

After two bad games, the secondary came up big Saturday.

> Urban Meyer: “To have Dee Webb stand up and say that the reason he played so hard tonight was simply for Vernell Brown, that was a special moment in the locker room. For a guy like Dee Webb to come in and dedicate a great game to a guy like that, that’s what it’s all about… having each other’s back in one big family.”
> DE Jarvis Moss: “Our secondary has to get our back if we can’t get to the quarterback, but it’s a team thing. We back them up and they back us up.”
> CB Avery Atkins: “The whole time when the ball was in the air, all I could think of was Vernell Brown. I look up to him as a big brother, and I know he wanted to go out with a big bang.”

With the 12th game added to the schedule next year, the Florida State game will be played Thanksgiving weekend indefinitely.