Thoughts on the Cocktail party

Image: Josh Massey

My confidence in the team and program is pretty low. Sure, I'm looking forward to this weekend's tailgate and festivities, but the game...entirely different story.

The pluses:
1. Martinez has actually kept Meyer's squad in check the past 2 years allowing only 2 offensive TDs each year.
2. We can catch the ball from time to time, and the Gator pass defense is average at best.
3. Florida can be beaten. See AU and LSU.
4. Knowshon Moreno

The minuses:
1. This isn't the '05-'06 UF offense. Tebow and Harvin are sick.
2. We haven't caught the ball consistently for any extended period this year.
3. We don't have LSU or AU's defense. Not by a long shot.
4. UF's run defense is pretty damn good.

I'm generally a sunshine pumper or at worse a realist. I rarely go into my dark cave of pessimism. But let's look at facts. In 2007, we have struggled with teams that have equal or lesser talent. The Gators are most certainly more talented than the Bulldogs, and you'll have to make one helluva argument that they aren't better coached right now.

My expectation:
Everyone loses football games some times, and it's completely unfair to hold this team accountable for what happened during 15 of the past 17 games in the series. It wouldn't kill me to lose the game, and honestly a win wouldn't totally shock me. Not this season when the entire college football world is upside down. But I do have an expectation or two...

My expectation is that the team compete.
I expect 60 minutes of balls out effort.
I expect UF to know they played UGA at the end.
I expect us to not play dead when it gets tough.
I expect us to not cross the Florida line and wet our britches.

I'm still showing up. I'm still giving 100% as a fan. I'll scream my lungs out win or lose, and I'm not leaving early no matter what. But I'm not excited about the real possibility of driving all the way down there to get the hell kicked out of us and have us look like we don't belong on the same field as them.

We are in Year Seven of this coaching regime. There are talent gaps that are legitimate and they are real, and regardless of how they came to be (a topic for a different post) they aren't going to change over night.

But talent gaps don't explain away what happened in Knoxville. And despite the complete lack of a transitive property in football (Just because A beat B and B beats C doesn't necessarily mean that A beats C), talent gaps alone don't explain how a team we beat (Alabama) could dominate a team (UT) that made our guys look like a novice JV Squad.


The gameday cure for my lack of confidence

I'm discouraged and worried about this game, but I'm not flying the white flag of surrender or giving up hope. I hope our team plays in a way that we can all be proud of. That's all I expect and want at this point. I want progress. Because the last two seasons haven't been about progress. They've been about week to week survival and working to not blow ourselves up followed by inexplicable moments of giddiness and then more buffoonery.

Some consistent upwardly mobile progress would be really nice at this point. Win or lose.

Go Dawgs.

See Also:
-- Moreno's example provides inspiration - ABH
-- WLOCP: Tale of the Tape - Get the Picture
-- Dawgs Brace for Tebow - Macon Telegraph

PWD

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