ROME IS BURNING

Float Like a Leak pass; sting like a bee!"

if only that had knocked them out of the championship game.

I always enjoy seeing a Bowden lose.

You Gators just can’t resist hyperbole—that’s what has taken the luster of Florida’s winning this year against Tennessee, Georgia, and FSU. Comparing Ali and anything to do with the 2005 Gators is the same mentality that has doomed Urban Meyer

Jeff Bowden is your OC. Good luck.

The important thing you’re missing in Orson’s “hyperbole”, Fecil: you’re the guy on the ground.

Also, Fecil—-you’ve got to be enraged right now. Please vent.

Actually, I’m pleased because in beating a sub-par Tennessee team, a UGA team without Shockley, and a very average FSU team, Florida exits the season thinking it addressed some of the issues with God/Meyer’s offense so they will likely do nothing of any substance in the offseason. With Leak coming back, it just gives Meyer another year to try to fit a square peg into a round hole…

Diversion. FSU’s got some serious problems—what on earth is Bowden going to do with his son’s soiling of the O?

Hope he gets the HC gig at UVA in the near future?

I detest Urbie with white-hot intensity, and I’ve never much cared for Florida, but I think he did a pretty solid job this year with the Gators.

It was pretty clear, even before the season began, that Chris Leak isn’t the right guy for this offense. Even so, and even coming off the mediocrity of the Zook years, they came within four points of playing for the SEC title.

Leak will be back next year and he’ll still be the wrong guy for the offense, but they’ll be better. And once Meyer has a couple recruiting classes of his own, they’ll be back to being a top ten program.

It’s a hell of a lot harder to engineer a sudden turnaround in the SEC than it is in the MAC or MWC. And let’s not forget, for all the ballyhoo about the reclamation job he did at BG, he never led them to a bowl game. He’s a good coach, but his very presence isn’t going to make Florida a national championship contender. Anyone who tells you differently is either drunk, high, lying, or mentally challenged.

Ors,

I was logging in to congratulate the Gators on the swamping of the good ship lolli-bowden. So mucho congratulations!! (albeit with some reservation as I truly dislike Chris Leak and am suspicious of the Urb).

Honest to goodness question for you – if at the beginning of the year had you known you’d beat UT, UGA, and FSU would you have guessed that your reward would be Shreveport or New Orleans (Sugar Bowl pre-Katrina)? If you guys end up in Shreveport (and if you do I hope you kick the stuffing out of whatever little 12 pansie you play), that in and of itself ought to tell everyone what a funky/flaky year it’s been – an 8-3 SEC team ends up playing in the Independence bowl.

Oh, lord no. This has been a transition year devoid of trends in both the SEC and ACC.

As a conference fellow, thanks for the props. The upside of a weak year in conference means weak bowl matchups, which will give us an inflated record in Bowl Season. Punditwatch: gaze in awe as ESPN types tout this as evidence of our overall strength without reffing the fact that it was a banana republic for most of the year in the SEC.

Great picture to summarize the win. If only we had gotten the shutout. It’s always great to beat Bobby Bowden, even if he doesn’t really coach anymore and more often just sits there and looks confused.

“Chris Leak isn’t the right guy for this offense”??? Thank goodness the Urban/God never had to suffer coaching a stiff like Matt Leinart in his precious “offense.”

See, that’s my point—when did a first-year SEC coach become larger than the game, the rest of the conference, and his own players? I feel sorry for Meyer because I don’t think he would have chosen the anointing he got in the press and the blogs. I always knew Florida fans were somewhat delusional, but unless he gets some serious breaks next year, it’s going to end up costing Meyer his job.

Coaches have always been larger than their players. It’s why they get to tell them what to do.

And how is running a scheme you’re comfortable with and good at being “larger than the game”?

Look, I really can’t stand the man either. He gets hit by a bus tomorrow, I’m not really all that broken up about it. But I just don’t see how you can honestly say the program isn’t better today than it was nine months ago.

Also, comparing Leinart to Leak is like comparing Adrian Peterson or LenDale White to Antonio Pittman.

There was no comparison of Leinart to Leak—my point is that a good coach looks at the talent he has and puts in a system that gives them the best chance to succeed. This isn’t brain surgery—there’s more than one way to coach football.

There are probably only two or three coaches in the country who wouldn’t love to have Chris Leak—unfortunately, he plays for one of them.