CURIOUS INDEX, 10/30/09

And that happened. Butch Davis punted last week with three and change left in the game against Florida State, hoping for a courteous NFL-style three and out before getting a game-winning kick opportunity, because that is how things happen in a very conservative football coach's onboard football simulator. Florida State went off-program, picked up a first down, and UNC never saw the ball again.

With five minutes and change left and trailing 17-14, Davis changed the code against Virginia Tech and went for it on 4th and 7 from the VT 36. Yates, 19 yard completion to Greg Little, and the game-tying field goal. Butch Davis is a machine that learns, and after a forced fumble on Hokie RB Ryan Williams UNC took their leisurely time in running down the clock (SHOOP!) and kicking the winning field goal to beat VT by the default ACC score of 20-17. Williams looked in need of specific electronic diversion on the sidelines after the fumble.

Nothing has changed everything is great business is good life is fine puppies are cute. Florida offensive coordinator Steve Addazio on the offense that has not changed not one bit nope.

"We're calling the same plays," Addazio said. "There are no different plays being called. It's the same pass routes, the same combinations. Where the ball goes is based on what the coverage is. I'd like to tell you there's something different, but it's not.

Smart Football all but agrees while highlighting the protection meltdowns happening to Florida in the red zone, something opponents have exploited with not one but multiple looks. Willie Martinez plans to take advantage of this weakness by hanging back in a loose zone, and staring intently as his safeties chase the opening flyover jets to the horizon and fail to return for three quarters. (They're like spaniels! Adorable, and easily distracted.) The numbers for both Florida and Georgia ain't pretty in any respect, and there's all the proof you could possibly need.

One dollar, please.Georgia and Florida pay one American dollar in stadium rental fees. In addition to that significantly discounted rent (down from $100K at one point,) the City of Jacksonville will pay to have three 50 seat private airplanes fly Georgia directly from Athens to St. Augustine for the game to counter the built-in travel advantage Florida has in the rivalry. Benefits for the Gators include not moving the game from its spot located a convenient bus ride from campus, and an option to use a twelfth man without penalty in every third quarter of every Georgia/Florida game through 2018. Slipped that one in at the last minute, Subsection 18 Clause D, right under the provision of a litter chair to carry Vince Dooley around on gameday like a bronzed idol. Clearly, at one point in the negotiations, someone cracked a tank of ether in the room and things got a bit sideways, because everything from subsection 12 down is quite dodgy even by our standards, frankly.

Out: Nigh-uncoverable USC TE Anthony McCoy, out for the game against Oregon in Autzen. He will have to cheer on the Trojans from the sidelines in vain, and we say in vain because at 127.2 decibels people standing within a feet of him will not be able to hear him. Stadium architects: do whatever they did at Autzen, make it seat 90-100K, and then start adding important elements like huge plumes of flame wherever possible.

I can talk like this all day. Sure, Dan Hawkins is dead, but the question is about whether he is walking dead, zombiefied, or terminally ill in the vocational sense. The Daily Camera has the full video of this week's press conference, and if you recognize the face from your last, desperately optimistic days at a hopelessly doomed job or from the worst self-justifications from a carcass of a relationship, and you would be about right. Watching the full video is excruciating because Hawkins clearly cares, is clearly still working his ass off, and is mired in a heaping pile of FAIL he cannot extricate himself from in time to save himself and his staff. He may be saved still by coaches' last resort, aka "The Inability of the University to Buy Out the Coach Due To Brokeness."