It's been pretty silent this week on the blog, but that's because Urban asked us to keep a lid on the trash talk. He didn't want any outlandish predictions or comparisons being posted on the Ode that the Noles could use as bulletin board material.
Well game time is in 7 hours, and and there are no more practices, so I think we are free to comment or predict.
I saw a piece where Bowden said he thought Ponder would be where Tebow is next year. Pardon my Scooby Doo impression, but "huh"!
Let's compare sophomore years:
Yards passing-Tebow, 3,286 to Ponder, 1,747
TD passes-Tebow, 32 to Ponder, 12
Interceptions-Tebow, 6 to Ponder, 11
Yards rushing-Tebow, 895 to Ponder, 390
TDs rushing-Tebow,23 to Ponder, 7
Apparently the figurehead they call coach at FSU needs to brush up on his statistics, because I see nothing in Ponder's numbers that suggest he will be anything like Tebow in the future.
Sure, I am a little apprehensive heading into this game.
--We have been on an unbelievable roll, and sooner or later all good things come to an end.
--This IS FSU! And you can throw out records with all rivalry games.
--FSU had their best game of the year last week, so they are on a mini roll.
--Despite Ponder not being quite Tebow-like, he can give defenses problems with his running ability.
But here is Mike's Top 10 reasons why I think Florida will beat FSU by at least 3 TDs:
Reason No. 10--Come on! It's the SEC vs. ACC.
Reason No. 9--A coach named Jimbo. Sounds like the name of your fourth cousin from Arkansas who's in jail for gigging frogs in the town fountain. Jimbo is a named better suited for a guy who wants to start his own online encyclopedia.
Reason No. 8--Brandon Spikes. Spikes gets up for these big games and when Spikes is up, the defense is up. FSU will have trouble sustaining any momentum today against Spikes and the No. 3 ranked scoring defense in the country.
Reason No. 7--FSU's defense is overrated. Sure they have a top 25 scoring defense, but they did give up 39 to Miami. How much did we give up?
Reason No. 6--Their second leading rusher is Jermaine Thomas. Who? Exactly!
Reason No. 5--FSU's fans don't believe they can win.
Reason No. 4--They scored 3 (yes 3) points against Wake Forest, a team that gave up 24 to Navy and 30 to Duke.
Reason No. 3--Urban Meyer coaches the Gators.
Reason No. 2--We've got Percy Harvin and Tim Tebow.
Reason No. 1--Bobby "Dad Gummit" Bowden coaches the Noles.
Florida, 45, FSU 17
2 comments:
"Bowden said he thought Ponder would be where Tebow is next year." Maybe he was making a comment about Tebow staying in college, as in, "I think Ponder will be where Tebow is next year, both will be playing college football." The "anything can happen in rivalries" thing doesn't apply so well to this rivalry. There have not been big upsets in the rivalry. There is a home-field advantage, but that isn't enough when one team is demonstrably better-like this year and 2006--and it isn't even enough when the teams are a little more even, like in 2003 and 2004. And even when Florida State has beat us in Gainesville, it's usually been in years they won a National Championship (1993 and 1999), or we were overmatched (1987 and 1989), or the referees were terrible (2003). It's been a fairly predictable rivalry, actually--that's good news for us, today.
Here's how we can imagine Bowden's statement about Ponder making sense (besides by way of my joke below): Since this is Ponder's first year of playing time, he can be thinking that next year is like Tebow's 2007. That was a Heisman year, so Ponder won't match that, but he could match Tebow's record (4 losses), and even do a little better. He also could win the conference (which they could still do this year), which Tebow didn't do in 2007. If we conflate this year and last for Tebow, we could imagine Bowden thinking of this year for Tebow, statistically, as a mark Ponder could hit, especially as a passer. But it would be hard to imagine them having this kind of team success. So, he has to conflate 2007 success with 2008 passing stats to have his statement mean anything.
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