Great points Randy and Steve.
I would offer one other thought. It seems to me that throughout his tenure, Coach Meyer has his team peak at the end of the season. We have every season finished strong. This may be either by design or as a result of his training paradigm. I will argue that out season is going to really start with Georgia. I will also note that our defense is on a record pace this season. In the preseason, we had a "contest" on picking the total points scored against us during the regular season. To remind folks of the picks, they are as follows: Total points scored through six games: 52 points. Jerry Belloit 100 Keith Baldwin 120 Stacey Hartley-McBride 138 Badrish 140 Leon Polhill 142 Mary Weigly 145 Steve McKibben 152 Oliver 167 Games remaining: Mississippi State Georgia Vanderbilt South Carolina FIU Florida State Enjoy! From: gatortalk@googlegroups.com [mailto:gatort...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Steve McKibben Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 8:33 AM To: gatortalk@googlegroups.com Subject: [gatortalk] Re: "Just win" Randy Platt wrote: I will go out on a limb and say that from what I have seen so far the biggest problem with our offense is Tim Tebow. Granted he is also the best thing about our offense, but I really don't think he has played as well in the first half of the season as he did last year. He has two fumbles because he is holding the ball down by his hip, his decision making, particularly on passing plays is shaky at best, he seems to look for Cooper or Hernandez and then run, he still holds on to the ball way to long. I just think TT is putting too much on himself to carry the team and not relying on the talent around him to help him out. I just think Meyer needs to have a little talk with TT and explain that he doesn't have to carry the offense on his back. JAFO Randy Platt aka "PCGator" aka "The Armchair Quarterback" aka "The Other Randy" Later Gators! Afterwhile the Rest! =========================================================== Interesting observations Randy. Games one and two were against cupcakes, but he looked pretty good against them, as expected. Against Tennessee, Kiffin Sr. schemed to take away the long ball, Hernandez was ill, Thompson was out with the hammy, and the decision was supposedly made to grind it out and shorten the game, since we had some success running on them and they couldn't beat us passing. Against Kentucky, I've never seen Tebow play better than he did the first quarter. Again - our defense and special teams provided the offense with short fields and a score on the blocked punt. Tim was gashing them with the read option and that opened up other aspects of the offense. Was Tim and the offense's success due to having a comfortable lead, good field position and therefore the green light from the coaches to open things up, was the UK defense that bad, or what? We all know what happened at the end of the third quarter. Against LSU we threw what, twelve passes? One beauty to Cooper for the TD, and one stinker that Tim misread that should (shoulda, woulda, coulda again!) have been a TD but ended up being an INT. We were told, and it makes sense, that much of the offensive gameplan was designed to limit Tim's exposure to hard hits, although he did receive and dish out some. So basically, we have one game where Tim and his supporting cast were healthy, where we had an opponent that could test our defense, on which to judge TT's effectiveness. Playing the w/c/s game again, we were a dropped bomb by Cooper from a 300 yd plus passing game - not too shabby, IMO. The turnovers had our defense on the field a lot, and often after a very short rest - even our best play of the game resulted in them returning after a one play drive by our offense. Given Arky's offensive prowess, and the absence of Spikes, Marsh, and Howard, I wasn't surprised at all that they eventually gave up some yards and points. I agree that Tim hasn't looked, other than in the UK game, as sharp as we've seen him before. I would imagine that some of that may be due to the lack of practice time with a lot of his weapons, since they've taken turns being out of action. You could make a case for ( I suppose that I am! ) it being , up to now, a perfect storm consisting of reduced practice reps, illness/injury, intentional conservative game planning, and untimely lapses in scheme and/or execution by his supporting cast/the coaching staff that has made Superman look very Clark Kent-ish. I also wonder if the new QB coach has tried to change something in his mechanics that has him thinking longer and reacting later. Some of the sacks he took on Saturday were the rsult of him hoping against hope to make a play at the very last second. It's easy to say that he should have thrown the ball away on those plays, but how many times have we seen him, against all odds, turn those into positive plays? One last point (for those of you still with me) - as I noted before, we haven't seen the read option since the UK game. That had been a staple of our offense this season. You would think that the only reason to abandon it would be out of concern for Tim's continued health. Yet, by design or by improvisation, Tim has been far and away the player on our team with the most carries, and his injury came not on a run, but while he was in the pocket looking to pass. I can't help but wonder if Meyer is still concerned about the risk of a second concussion to the point that he's purposely cutting out a crucial element of our attack and relying on our defense and special teams to keep us close enough in games that our "reduced" offense can win them. This season certainly has turned out much more intersing than the cakewalk/coronation that much of the Gator Nation expected! Steve</table --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
