Couple of comments Identity - Somewhere I read an interview with Tebow where he said he was trying to downplay his jump up and down rah-rah attitude because as a Junior he needed to lead the younger players now that he was more mature, not be a cheerleader. I am paraphrasing, but that was the jest of the quote. Now, did Tebow come up with this decision or was it put upon him by Meyer and the coaches. Don't know, but, football is a game of emotions and it does appear that the pendulum has now swung to far the other way. Execution - Ding, Ding, Ding we have a winner. In the end, offense, defense, special teams, players and coaches did not execute well enough to win. Scheme and/or Play calling - Specifically, Meyer is by and large a product of Big Ten can't count football, Just like in 2006 and this year in the first 3 games, he goes conservative with the lead. Three yards and a cloud of dust, play great defense, special teams, and hold on to the ball. He has been telling anyone and everyone that would listen his football philosophy. He even wrote a book about it. The problem is no one wants to hear. In and of itself I have no problem with Meyer's football philosophy, although I recognize that this philosophy does not have a wide margin of error and therefore you can loose a game when your execution is not flawless. This of course was our undoing on Saturday. JAFO Randy Platt aka "The Armchair QuarterbacK" aka "PCGator" aka "The Other Randy" Later Gators! Afterwhile the Rest! _____
From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 10:05 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [gatortalk] My take I have read a lot over the weekend about why we lost and what we need to change, but this team and coaching staff is somewhat of an enigma. Looking at this loss, it isn't surprising given what we have seen in the first 3 weeks and I breakdown our issues into 3 categories: - Identity - Execution - Scheme and/or Playcalling Identity- While the first 3 games of the year were clearly against the best first 3 opponents in many years and we won them in a somewhat convincing fashion, did we emerge with any kind of identity? Florida's high scoring offense? The incredible Florida D? No, we played well enough in all areas to win, mistake free football, but ultimately we were a team playing without a ton of emotion and just trying to execute perfectly. What makes Tebow so great is his emotion, the arms pumping up the crowd and his team, we haven't seen a lot of that this year. Execution - I am not talking about what we should do to Dan Mullen here :) We have played pretty flawless ball the first 3 games, Saturday we saw what happens when we don't. 3 fumbles lost, broken coverage on D cost us this game. No amount of playcalling will overcome players not making plays. Give Ol'Miss some credit, the 86 yard TD was a wonderfully designed play and Snead executed to perfection. Meyer has said that over 1/2 of the ol'Miss yards were on 4 plays, I believe it, just too many lapses. The PAT was a mistake, they almost blocked the previous attempt and we did nothing to change our protection scheme. Meyer can complain all he wants about the player hurdling our line (he did and that is against the rules), but if he is waiting for a ref to make a call, he will lose a lot of games in this league. We could have adjusted and kicked the extra point. Scheme and/or Playcalling - I think when I look at the scheme, it works as we are able to make big plays and gain big chunks of yards in short periods. That brings us to playcalling and this is where we have the biggest debate. I won't criticize the 4th and 1 call, because we usually win that one, I would have liked to see something different, but it is hard to argue with a call that has worked 537 times in the past... Overall our playcalling is phenomenal when we start the game and when we are behind. As soon as we get a lead, we go conservative, run sideline to sideline, short little dink passes and include only two players in the game. We need to play at all times like we are down by 7. That's my take, this was a team loss and I could make a strong argument that playcalling, execution or emotion were the cause of this loss, but in reality it was a perfect storm brewing for a few weeks and we got caught by Ole Miss, thank God we weren't playing Bama this week or it would have been real ugly. Ken K. MNGator E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.0.383) Database version: 5.10800 http://www.pctools.com/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ <http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/> E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.0.383) Database version: 5.10800 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
