"It just seems so unfair that we can be turned off like a light switch. Like we never lived. Like we never mattered. I don't want to be turned off".
"Whoa. Let's work on our positive thinking."
--Bored To Death, Season Two, Episode four, "A Demented God."
For us this week that means a bye week, and the promise of watching a Saturday without our football team playing a game against another opponent who will beat us because they can score ten points. This means no prolonged weeping in front of the television; no biting of the expensive smartphone in half when you refresh a game thread and see naught but a sea of expletives where coherent thought should be; no more postgame visits to the local voudoun to again order the expensive and highly selective "Please let this coach find a job somewhere else, but never come again within 500 miles of the campus."
There will be no more snorting of vodka to dull the pain of loss. Okay, we'll do it, but for entirely different reasons. Aesthetic reasons. Meaningful, lofty reasons, ones that transcend mere drunkenness. We'll do it, and then at 3:30 p.m. EDT we'll turn the television on and watch Louisville at Connecticut. Why? Because we want to steal your offensive coordinator, that's why.
Mike Sanford was Urban Meyer's offensive coordinator at Utah from 2003-2005, ran the offense the year Utah went undefeated and averaged 45 points a game, and likely won't be looking for head coaching job opportunities since he already went that route and ended up staging a lunatic sit-in after a loss to Iowa State before his eventual firing. This shouldn't diminish his luster, since the UNLV gig kills every coach who attempts it, and because a certain degree of mentai instability in a coach is a desirable thing.
He's now at Louisville, coordinating the 19th ranked offensive unit in the nation despite working with little more than Krag-scraps in his first year. There would be no period of getting familiar, no awkward adjustment: they've done this before, and with excellent results, and in rapid fashion. Most discussion of possible replacements for Addazio will focus on the obvious shiny candidates: Dana Holgorsen at Oklahoma State or Mark Helfrich from Oregon, for example, will both command eyeballs from Gator fans desperate to flee the Addazio Disaster Area, also known as the stretch of beautiful unmussed grass from the ten yard line to the back of the endzone. *
*Suggestion for this year until the situation is remedied: turn the endzone into a habitat for the Florida Panther. They will not be disturbed, and can breed in peace under the watchful eye of University of Florida staff. Don't worry: it's the endzone. They'll be fine back there for the rest of the season as long as we move them out of the opponent's endzone each quarter.
Yet for sheer comfort and familiarity on a young coaching staff still gelling after massive turnover, no one will rival Mike Sanford's plug-and-play ease. He'll be worth twice whatever he's making at Louisville, or three times, or OH GOD PLEASE WE'RE GOING TO BURN OUT THE ALL-CAPS BUTTON ON OUR LAPTOP AND IT'S BRAND NEW AI MEAN--positive thinking. Let's have some, since it's a bye week and we can spend the week shopping for new toys to play with, some of which are ones that match our existing set quite nicely already.
And yes, as always: a lot of this is on Meyer, too. But he's not the one charged with play-calling who sends ponderous Emmanuel Moody ten yards wide on sweeps, or has John Brantley throwing three yard hitches all day.
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