Tennessee Hate Week, cont’d. We’re so nice against Tennessee that even the police love us, both for amusing them and for keeping them busy in the offseason.

It’s so catchy! Rocky Top has been blaring all week at Florida practices. That never, ever gets old. Around Thursday it probably has to take on a certain Orwellian flair, but make no mistake: we will not hesitate to defend Greater Gatoroceania against the threat of O’Fulmer.

We had a dream. The dream was that after three or four games of Mike Sherman trying to get the Aggies to do all the things unreformed pro coaches want them to do at the college level, he shook his blubbery hips, turned to his offensive coordinator, and said “Fuck this shit, let’s run the A-11.”

Oh, and it was a beautiful thing: screen passes going for thirty yards a pop, double pitches off wild option runs, and deep ball deep ball deep ball. It was one of those dreams remembered with a clarity that went beyond cinematic, as if we were watching it in sense-o-vision from a godlike perch above it all. (The smell of Texas A&M: barbecue-y, with a hint of baked clay in there.)

It bordered on the kind of ecstasy described in religious fantasies, and a fantasy it will remain: Stephen McGee’s shoulder remains wonky, Mike Sherman remains loyal to running counters unnecessarily, and the A-11 would die a fiery death after defenses just lined up and blitzed the daylights out of it.

Come on. It’s their Falklands. Let them have this one without questioning the comparisons between a game where Michigan could have won by sixty and what happened on Saturday. Just imagine it in the voice of Rabbit from Super Troopers when he’s making out with the naughty German wife on the hood of the stolen Porsche: “I need this!” They do–let ‘em have it quietly, since some spanking and cuffing is obviously in order.

Worlds inverted. To continue the 1984 theme: War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength; and Florida State is looking up at Wake Forest.