When You Arrive You’ve Got To Arrive In Style ….
Well, the college football regular season has come to a close and needless to say there are those who’ve made their voices heard. While others,will bow out rather unceremoniously in silence. And now for the Florida Gators either history now awaits them or infamy. Urban Meyer, as coach of the Gators, knows that should he prevail in the SEC Championship Game, he then has the luxury of knowing that a berth awaits him the national championship game. As to who that opponent will be , it remains to be seen .
Yesterday, the Florida Gators faced their old and some might say their staunchest rival in the Florida State Seminoles. And for the ‘noles this has been a season of discontent and self evaluation. The turmoil within the Seminoles’ organization is one, which on the face of it has become absolutely idiotic and that has reached such heights comedic extravagance that it is hard to understand what direction the program should now take.Seminoles’ coach,Bobby Bowden, whilst having led the program, of late he’s become something of a weighty anchor that is now bringing down the vessel that is the Florida State football program. The game has passed Bowden by and in such a way that the play of the Seminoles has become barely recognizable . They’re no longer competitive and in terms of recruiting ’blue chip’ athletes. Well, that hasn’t been the case for the program in a number of years. Mind you, they’re the apologists out there,who’ll say this is but a cyclical situation for the program. But consider this, for the last decade the program has continually regressed under Bowden’s tenure. But ‘the grand old czar’ of Florida college football now sits and surveys a program that is now in complete disarray . Much of that has been of Bowden’s own making and that of the lax attitude of his coaching staff and idiocy of the Athletics Department of the once esteemed university.
In contrast , the program of University of Florida now stands on the threshold of placing itself amongst the elite programs in college football history. The program’s coach, Urban Meyer seeks to win the school’s fourth national title and his third with the program in his four years with the university. Alongside, Meyer, he’s had the distinct pleasure of having coached the program’s most storied and perhaps its best player in the team’s quarterback, Tim Tebow. And for the senior , he’s now seeking history himself, by looking to win his third national championship and with the added possibility of winning a second Heisman trophy. A feat that has not been done since Archie Griffin won two consecutive Heisman trophies. And for the young Tebow, not only does college glory await him but the chance to take his game to the next level and that is take center stage on the football fields of the NFL. But before that scenario materializes , Tebow and his teammates have some unfinished business that requires their urgent attention.
Yesterday , the Gators and the Seminoles faced off against one another at ‘The Swamp’, in Gainesville, Florida. Games of this magnitude meant so much to both programs but today it’s merely another just another ‘stop off point’ for the Gators. For Seminoles’ fans, this game was ‘the make or break’ for their season. A loss and they’re no longer Bowl eligible, a win and one could surmise that there’ll be some respite as to the speculation concerning the future of Bobby Bowden. But that’d be very much predicated upon which team turns up to face the Gators ? Inconsistency in terms of their play has very much epitomized the fall from grace of Bowden’s team and the program in general . And that hasn’t been merely because of what we’ve witnessed this season but essentially what has taken place within the program over the past few years. A program that has been sinking in its own ineptitude and asinine belief in it own self grandeur . Well, there’s nothing grand about a program that is now becoming the butt of jokes right across the college football panacea.
What we saw yesterday from both teams embodies what we’re now seeing as to the direction that programs are now taking. While one is moving forwards the other seems to be moving backwards and into an abyss mediocrity.
Bowden’s team has been anything but a complete anathema from one week to the next. They’ve at times, either been playing with a great deal of resolve but seemingly performing like a blind man in the midst of a minefield , the next. If it’s not been blowing itself up with its mediocre play, it has seen fit to let their opponents walk over them like a doormat. And for that to be happening at this juncture to a Bobby Bowden coached is very much akin to seeing Superman without his cape , enveloped in a vat of kryptonite. Now comes the hard part, what is Bowden now to do in terms of an encore ? Or will be in fact be around for an encore ? Such has been the speculation concerning Bowden’s immediate future and that of the program.
Well, the game itself proved to be an eventful one for Urban Meyer’s team as they completely outplayed Florida State in every facet of the game . The end result was a thoroughly deserving 37-10 defeat of the Seminoles at the hands of Florida, at ‘The Swamp’ , in what would be the senior , Tim Tebow’s last game as a Gator, in Gainesville. And Tebow’s play was exemplary and what we’ve now come to expect of the player. He’s not only a leader but he , himself , leads by example ,even when things are said to be going well , or not going well for the team.
And there are those out there who’d question whether or not he’s an NFL ready quarterback ? My question to them, are the likes of JaMarcus Russell,Brady Quinn, Matthew Stafford or Josh Freeman NFL ready quarterbacks ? Because the last time I checked none of these players have won anything of note, or actually led their teams with anything near distinction. But yet there are idiots out there who’d question the ability of this player. And with the asinine statements of former Miami Hurricanes and Dallas Cowboys’ coach, Jimmy Johnson make the asinine statement of stating that Tebow doesn’t have what it takes to make it in the NFL. When last I checked , Johnson had Dan Marino and the Miami Dolphins on the wrong end of a 65-7 ass whupping at the hands of the Jacksonville Jaguars that’d bring about the end to his coaching career in the NFL. Never mind the fact that as a coach, Johnson was nothing more than a facilitator, as a coach in the NFL. He merely delegated and deferred to others , who would do his bidding. And even if he’s the coach of two Supebowl winning teams. Johnson upon his retirement, has done little to suggest that anything that he states really has any credence when it comes to the NFL. He’s merely a glorified and sartorially dressed glove puppet alongside the other idiots who provide analysis on Fox’s eponymous pre and post-game NFL show. In watching Johnson and his colleagues on the show, is akin to watching several drunks talk about their days of binge drinking and the fact that they actually could remember events from when they were at times in a drunken stupor.
As to what now awaits Florida , well that is now predicated upon how they will deal with the fate that they aspire to carve out for themselves . And as we all know, you create your own luck and not have it placed within your lap by others. It’s not only about how you arrive but the fact that you’ve arrived in style .
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