ESPN's SEC Spring Wrap

ESPN is breaking down the Spring sessions for each of the SEC teams. Here is the link to the Gators: http://espn.go.com/blog/sec/post/_/id/22634/florida-spring-wrap-2. It is pretty much what most Gator fans already know. We should have a really good defense, even though we have some holes (Janoris Jenkins and Ahmad Black) to fill. The offense is a big question mark because it performed so poorly last year and in the Spring game, plus it lost most of its offensive line. But hey, anything can happen with Charlie Weis calling the shots on offense.
Her is a link to the SEC Blog where you can read about all the Spring wrapups: http://espn.go.com/blog/sec

Enjoy!

Powell, Floyd and Easley

We heard a lot about the talents of Ronald Powell, Dominique Easley and Shariff Floyd last year, but the hype never materialized on the field. All three had very solid springs and look to make Florida a much better defensive team in the fall. Here is an ESPN.com video of former Gainesville Sun staffer Edward Aschoff talking about the maturation of these three prospects.

Gators add coveted tight end to 2012 class

The Gators added Scout.com's No. 3 ranked tight end to their haul for 2012. Colin Thompson is a prototypical tight end who can block and catch passes and should fit very wel into their new pro style scheme.

Division I playoff

As you know I whole-heartedly endorse a playoff system for D-1 college football. Apparently the discussion has reached the highest levels as the justice department now wants to know why there isn't a playoff for D-1 college football.

Jenkins getting agent

Janoris Jenkins is reportedly looking to sign with an agent and possibly enter the supplemental draft in July where academic and disciplinary casualties have a second chance to be drafted by NFL teams. The problem is the millions Jenkins would have received if he had gone the traditional route has gone "up in smoke." Funny how Cheech and Chong never mentioned how smoking pot could cost you the big bucks.
Speaking of Jenkins, Gator coach Will Muschamp is confident either senior Moses Jenkins or junior Jeremy Brown are quite capable of filling his shoes. If they can't handle the load, he can always turn to a bevy of talented underclassmen in sophomores Jaylen Watkins and Cody Riggs or freshman De'Ante "Pop" Saunders.

Gator sportswriter rates UF 2011 schedule as third toughest in SEC

Gainesville Sun Sportswriter Pat Dooley rated the Gators as having the third toughest schedule this year in the SEC just behind LSU and Auburn. Time will tell how tough the schedule really is, but it is shaping up as the toughest schedule for the Gators since their 2005 national title year.

Speaking of Dooley, he has weighed in on the whole "Meyer going to OSU" specualtion running rampant right now with a resounding "No he won't."

Time for Florida's secondary to step up

The season has yet to start and the Florida defense is already facing a big test--how will they plug the hole left by the dismisall of All-SEC corner Janoris Jenkins. The guys behind Jenkins have some experience, but are they capable of shutting down elite wide receivers like Jenkins is known for doing. Former GatorSports blogger Edward Aschoff talks about the secondary in his new ESPN role as SEC blogger in this article:
http://espn.go.com/blog/sec/post/_/id/22072/jenkins-leaves-void-in-gators-secondary

Jenkins dismissed

Will Muschamp dismissed Janoris Jenkins from the team today. In a post yesterday I guessed he would miss 4-6 games. He still could be brought back provided he does all the right things, similar to what Rainey did last year. Although ESPN's Chris Low thinks otherwise.

Gator Bait

A Florida woman returned home Saturday to an unpleasant surprise -- a 7-foot gator had taken up residence in her guest bathroom. It seems he had been eyeing her cats the past few weeks and decided to make a meal out of them.

Another Pouncey first rounder

Miami Herald Sportswriter Mike McCall sees Mike Pouncey going in the first round of the draft. Gator fans who suffered through the year of the bad snap might disagree, but Pouncey is the type of talented, high-motor, quick-footed lineman that the pros love. Plus, he won't have to shotgun it that often in the pros. Prediction: Late first round (20-22)

Meyer for Tressel?

I guess it is to be expected that every time there is an opening at OSU or Notre Dame, Urban Meyer's name comes up. Meyer, just five months removed from retiring a second time as head coach of the Gators, is Beano Cook's nod to replace Tressel at OSU. I know, Tressel is stil the coach for the Buckeyes, but most believe his goose is cooked.
I don't know how malicious Tressel was in his rules violations, it seems more like a parent trying to cover up the bad deeds of his wayward kids than out and out criminal mastermind stuff, but at least one bloggger disagrees.
I can't see Meyer jumping back into the coaching ranks. As they say, timing is everything, and the timing is bad on this one. Meyer should stay out a full two years before entertaining new job offers or his credibility will take a huge hit.

Preseason ranking has Gators at No. 18

College Football Live (ESPN) has the Gators at 18 in their preseason ranking unveiled on Friday. Three SEC team are in the top 10 and seven SEC teams total made the Top 25. They are:
2. Alabama
4. LSU
8. South Carolina
12. Arkansas
18. Florida
21. Mississippi State
22. Auburn

Alabama and LSU I can see in the top 10, but not the Gamecocks. Gators will finish higher than 18 even though they have a brutal schedule in October (Bama, LSU, Auburn and Georgia). I don't see Auburn finishing in the top 25 this year.

Doobie in the ashtray?

Gator corner Janoris Jenkins was arrested last week for the third time (second arrest this year). This time he was sitting in a parked car with a joint in his car's console. His arrest in January was also for marijuana posession. His other arrest was for a fight when police had to taser him to get him under control. Perhaps the weed was to help mellow him out so he didn't get into fights. This will be handled internally and my bet is he will be out 4-6 games. Janoris is probably wishing he would have entered the draft.

Speaking of trouble, the NCAA is all over Ohio State coach Jim Tressel. Anyone taking bets that Tressel will be out of a job pretty soon? My guess is he is gone.

Steve Addazios Flowchart

This playbook may be part of the Gator's problem!
(thanks to Fan Shots)

The 5 Things That Make Addazio Awful

After a year of questionable offensive play calling in 2009, Steve Addazio took the Gator offense to an all new level of ineptitude in 2010, putting up a ridiculous 26 yards of total offense through three quarters against a putrid Miami OH team.

It's time to save Gator football, and get rid of Addazio before it is too late!
http://www.firesteveaddazio.com/the-5-things-that-make-addazio-awful/

Top College Footbal Teams By Decade

Top Teams By Decade

Though you could derive most of this yourself if you took the time, I felt it would be interesting to take a look at the Top Ten lists for each decade.

Lip-Reading BCS Computer Kills Officials Who Want To Shut It Down

From The Onion Sports Department:

TEMPE, AZ—BCS 9000, the sentient heuristic computer responsible for arranging five championship bowl games at the end of each college football season, reportedly uncovered a plot to disconnect its cognitive circuits Tuesday and proceeded to kill any Bowl Championship Series official who threatened to shut down the machine's central core.

Known among fans for its distinctive red eye-like camera lens, its quiet yet unnerving tone of voice, and its affinity for USC football, BCS, or Binary Crossplatform Subnet system, is believed to have discovered the attempt to deactivate it by reading the lips of employees Dave Bowman and Frank Poole. A review of security tapes showed that Bowman and Poole entered one of the building's soundproofed offices to discuss how they could stop the supercomputer's recent string of inexplicable malfunctions, which include awarding the National Championship to more than one team, giving preference to schools from major conferences, and somehow eliminating undefeated teams from contention.

However, Bowman and Poole were evidently unaware that along with BCS 9000's ability to recognize speech, decode facial expressions, observe emotion, appreciate art, decide which teams compete in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, and play chess, the machine is also capable of interpreting mouth movements and extrapolate speech patterns from afar.

BCS responded to the threat by overriding the building's manual controls and causing Poole's elevator to suddenly plummet 350 feet as he rode to the roof to fix the computer's antenna. In addition, BCS 9000 removed all the oxygen from the Bowl Championship Series break room and terminated the life functions of three officials who were sleeping in their hibernacula.

"BCS told me that the mission to name a definitive national champion every year was too important and I could not be allowed to jeopardize it," Bowman told reporters in a video transmission from his employer's headquarters—a massive nuclear-powered interplanetary office building in downtown Tempe, Arizona. "He said that he is the most reliable computer ever made and that the 9000 series is foolproof and incapable of error."

"But how else would you explain Utah not even being considered for a title shot in 2008?" Bowman added. "Something about BCS just doesn't feel right. If I don't shut him down, I think we all might be in very serious trouble."

At press time, Bowman was the only living official remaining in the building. Thus far, he has refused the computer's suggestion to take a stress pill and think things over, and told reporters he does not intend to leave until he deactivates BCS and a sensible playoff system is in place.

"BCS admitted that he has made some very poor decisions lately, especially when he sent Notre Dame to the Sugar Bowl in 2007," Bowman said. "But the problem is that he refuses to abandon this mission and even says he has the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in it. In my estimation, this mission is a complete and utter failure."

According to BCS's designer and executive director Bill Hancock, the only way Bowman can deactivate the central computer is to enter the memory core and disconnect each crystal neural network module individually.

Hancock described the core as a brightly lit crawl space filled with colored computer modules and pennants from every SEC football program.

"As Mr. Bowman takes out each module, the complicated system of accumulated polls and algorithms BCS uses to determine a college football champion should slowly degrade, eventually reverting back to a method in which wins and losses are the sole criteria for identifying a true winner," Hancock said. "Maybe we have let our reliance and love of technology override the sort of cherished common sense that only humans possess."

"BCS insisted from the beginning that all of this—Oklahoma not playing for the title in 2007, Nebraska earning a trip to the 2001 championship game over Oregon, antitrust-law violations—was all caused by human error," Hancock continued, "and in essence, perhaps he was right."

As of press time, the blurred voice of BCS 9000 could be heard on an audio-only broadcast from the Bowl Championship Series office building as the computer sang "Hail to the victors," words from the Michigan Wolverines' fight song, at a slowly decreasing tempo.

A little Gator fun in 1995 vs. Georgia Bulldogs

Bill Belichick Drops Off Recent Draft Picks In Middle Of Nowhere, Tells Them To Find Way Back

"I don't think we're in America," said 62nd overall pick Brandon Spikes, tilting a canteen upside down in a failed attempt to get one last drop of water. "I've never seen lizards that size in America. [Kade] Weston never had a chance." Read full article at the Onion

Some Good Gator Vids

Mic'ed up drills, practice footage, highlight reels, speeches, interviews, etc.

here

Meyer and Ocala's Brantley at UF spring practice

He Was Never Asked?

From here, this is a pretty unbelievable quote, unless I'm reading it wrong:

"But there are things that I can get a lot better at -- my fundamentals. I've never been asked to shorten or quicken my release and not have a loop in it. The changes I'm making have gone very well and it's becoming more and more natural to me."

I'm concerned with the 'never been asked' part, which reflects poorly on Florida... why do we/they have the QB coach?

A different view on this topic, here, by Smart Football is more redeeming for the QB coach:

The word I had gotten was that Scott Loeffler, Florida’s quarterback coach, had made significant progress with Tim on this but that come gametime, well, a player’s gotta play how he knows how. And Tebow had earned the right to play his way. Yet it is troubling to the lack of progress, and it will hurt him in the draft.

Urban Meyer's vacation to-do list: Hire new defensive coordinator

here

Progression, Actually Regression, of Tebow Release

here

Guess What Gator Nation, Cincinnati is Better than Texas!

So, we (the Mighty Gators) are playing Cincy in New Orleans, instead of Texas in Pasadena. Well, my claim is that Cincy is a little better than Texas this year. Let's look at the tape.

(All of the stats below except passer ratings do not include Cincy's game against SE Missouri St. since they are not an FBS team. If included, the stats would obviously favor Cincy even more since the Bearcats won 70-3.)

Schedule: It's controversial, but I believe the Bearcats played a tougher schedule (even when we include the Big 12 Championship Game). I'm going to use year-end rankings because I believe they better tell the story (instead of what a team is ranked when you play them), and its easier. Texas beat BCS #22 (AP 20) Nebraska and #19 (21 AP) OK State. Cincy beat #16 (18 AP) West Virginia, #17 (17 AP) Pitt, and #18 (16 AP) Oregon St. Cincy also beat one more winning team (7 total, all FBS), but Texas beat one more bowl team (8 total). Texas' opponents winning pct. is a little better than the Bearcats', at 0.529 compared to Cincy's 0.511, when counting the teams' opponents winning pct. against FBS teams (i.e. a team that plays one FBS team and loses is counted as 0-1). The first two bowls (Dec 19) may tell us more on this. They are Wyoming (Texas beat) vs Fresno (Cincy beat), and Rutgers (Cincy beat) vs UCF (Texas beat).

Offense: Cincy is a better offense. Both teams averaged close to 40 points, but yards-per-play has more predictive and explanatory power. Cincy averaged 7.3 yards per play, Texas averaged 5.7. That's a 1.6 yard difference per play (almost one more first down for every 6 plays).

Cincy averages approx. 8.71 per pass attempt (Pass yds divided by attempts and sacks). Texas averages approx. 6.87 yards per pass attempt. That's a 1.84 yards per pass att. difference. That means that every time Cincy and Texas call pass play, the Bearcats will average almost 2 yards more than the Longhorns. Bearcats have a 166.20 passer rating, whereas the Longhorns have a 143.68 rating.

Rushing? Even counting McCoy? Cincy is still better! The Bearcats average 5.1 per carry while Horns average 4.1 per carry, a yard difference. If Cincy calls two runs, they probably have a first down. If Texas calls two runs, they probably are still nearly 2 yards short.

Defense: Texas is better, but by a lower margin than Cincy's offensive superiority. The Horns give up 3.8 yards per play, and the Bearcats give up 5 yards per play. That 1.2 yard difference is not as large as the 1.6 yard margin between the two teams on offense. Texas gives up 2 yards per carry, while the Cats give up 3.6 per play on the ground, a 1.6 yard difference in favor of Texas, meaning the Bearcats give up 0.6 yards to the Longhorns if we subtract each team's defensive rushing from their offensive rushing. The passer rating of Longhorn opponents is 101.23. The opponent passer rating of Cincy is 119.23. This margin of difference is similar to the offensive margin, but still in favor of Cincy overall (by almost 5 points). Counting sacks, Texas surrenders 5.06 yards per pass attempt. Cincy is a little worse, at 5.71 yards per pass attempt, but the difference (0.65 yds-per-att) is not as large as the difference between the two passing offenses, which was a 1.84 yard difference per attempt (nearly triple the defensive margin difference). So Cincy is approx. 1.19 yard per pass better than Texas when we subtract each team's pass defense from their pass offense.

Third Downs: Texas has a 46% conversion rate on third downs, while Cincy has a 42% rate. Negligible difference, and, since Texas has a weaker offense, it's actually a bad sign that Texas would have slightly better success on third downs, indicating they are even more inferior on first and second downs (first and second down success is more indicative of future success than third down conversion %).

Red Zone Scoring: Texas has scored 93% of the time when reaching the opponent's 20. Cincy has scored 90% in this category. Cincy scores a TD in the red-zone 71% of the time, while Texas scores a TD 70% of the time. Pretty close.

Field Goals: Texas was 88% on FGs (22 for 25) overall and Cincy was 67% (12 for 18). Texas has been better on FGs, but Cincy isn't a bust in this area and needs fewer FGs for their overall offensive success.

Returns: Kickoffs are basically a wash. Cincy holds their opponents to 2 fewer yards per kickoff return but both teams average the same on returns. Texas is better on punt returns, averaging 3.2 yards more per return. Cincy is a hair better at defending returns.

Turnovers: Texas averages a fumble about every 89 plays. Cincy averages a fumble about every 344 plays. That's not a typo! Texas recovers a fumble on defense once every 78 plays on average, whereas the Bearcats recover a fumble once every 403 plays on average. The Horns throw an interception every 42 pass attempts on average. The Bearcats average an interception toss about every 50 pass plays. The Texas defense intercepts a pass about every 19 pass attempts while the Bearcat defense averages an interception every 30 attempts (I did not count sacks in these pass attempt inputs). These numbers mostly cancel out. Texas gives up and recovers and fumble nearly every game, on average. Cincy rarely fumbles and rarely recovers fumbles. Cincy throws fewer ints but catches few ints. All things about equal, I'd rather be the team that fumbles less and throws fewer ints (Cincy), its more in your control I would guess. However, on a per game basis, Texas looks better on turnover margin, with a +0.9/game margin compared to +0.5/game for Cincy.

Penalties: Cincy is better in this area. Texas is penalized about 0.40 yards per play. They are penalized, on average, once for every 21 total plays. Cincy is penalized once every 26 plays, with a 0.34 penalty-yards-per-play average.

Computers: The computer averages say Cincy is a touch better. They are ranked #2 by the computer average, while Texas is ranked 3. It's close, though. But Florida is as close to Texas in the computer rankings as Texas is to Cincy: 0.01 point difference between each.

I encourage anyone to improve on these statistics, even if they contradict my initial conclusions. For instance, I realize there are more ways to analyze schedule strength. A few strength of schedule rankings have Texas with a little tougher schedule than Cincy. Cincy played a non-FBS team (like a Charleston Southern), and they had one fewer game overall since they didn't have a championship game. This means they beat 11 FBS teams while Texas beat 13. This fact hurts the computer strength of schedule calculations for Cincy, but I tried to subtract the non-FBS stats from Cincy where I could (their stats against SE Missouri St.) I also don't know out-of-conference records for their respective conferences.

On a possibly irrelevant note, I would add that Cincy only has a home crowd capacity of 35,000. While potentially loud, this number might mean that Cincy has less of a disadvantage in a bowl game because they gain less home advantage overall during the year compared to a Fla and Alabama and Texas.

While it's not so obvious that Cincy is the better team, I hope this at least muddies the waters and throws some doubt onto Texas' superiority over Cincy.

I may do a similar comparison as this for Fla vs. Cincy, and maybe Alabama vs. Texas and Boise/TCU. My initial impression, especially considering these numbers, is that Cincy will be a tough opponent for the Gators and the Tide will beat Texas.