Sat Nov 01, 2008 7:35 pm EDT
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Florida 49, Georgia 10. Talk about margins: as of early in the fourth quarter, Georgia had outgained Florida overall and on a per-snap basis, and trailed 35-3. The little things do make that kind of difference: Georgia settles for field goals at the ends of three solid drives (62, 55 and 51 yards) in the first half, and doinks two of them. Mark Richt goes for the genius onside kick, and winds up looking fatally impatient instead when Florida recovers and scores on the short field. Officials look the other way on iffy but plausible pass interference calls against the Gators on the two crucial plays of the third quarter, Joe Haden's pick and return to the UGA goal line and Louis Murphy's slant-and-go touchdown, that helped Florida pull away. Knowshon Moreno drops a pitch just because his hands suddenly stopped working, setting up the short, icing run by Tim Tebow.
Add up just those six possessions for Georgia, and you get 256 yards for three points, not including two other interceptions in UF territory. After an 80-yard drive in the first quarter, on the other hand, Gators' touchdown "drives" covered 32, 1, 56, 10 and 25 yards, respectively. Add up Florida's first six scoring possessions, and you get 204 yards for 42 points. After that, it's just total demoralization.
Just watching the game without dissecting the box score, Florida easily passes the eyeball test -- the Gators look like potential champions. The defense may be bend-don't-break at times, but an opportunistic, big play-oriented D is a spectacular improvement over last year's edition; it's a major improvement over the version that gave up one big play too many against Ole Miss in September. The offense, in the same generous position it found itself in over and over again against Tennessee and LSU, isn't racking up awesome yardage totals because it just doesn't have that far to go. Certainly you get the sense the last four weeks they'd get there from wherever you asked them to start -- UF is averaging 50 points in its wins over Arkansas, LSU, Kentucky and now Georgia since the loss to the Rebels, and outscored that quartet by 40 per game -- which makes the potential showdown with Alabama in the SEC Championship that much more tantalizing. Please, please make this happen.
Dr. Saturday is a college football blog edited by Matt Hinton. Email him tips and feedback.

Posted Feb 3 2010
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21 Comments
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If Florida beats Alabama and doesn't get to the title game, it would be a huge travesty.
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Zobaib: On what are you basing this wild assumption that Georgia would beat everyone else? The two real teams they've played to this point, Bama and Florida, have not only beaten them but completely obliterated them.
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Ahahahahaha, hahahha, haha. No.
I'm tempted to answer your argument rationally, but needless to say that while they could beat any of those teams on any given day, it's unlikely that they'd beat any of them other than Mizzou and maybe PSU more than 50% of the time.
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And also about the conference: No other conference can have 3 or 4 teams legitimately compete for the national championship. Alabama and Florida still have a shot this year.
Auburn was undefeated and should have been in it a few years ago. LSU has won a couple of titles the last few years. Florida won it a couple of years ago. That doesn't even include Georgia being the preseason number 1.
What other conference can say that they have multiple national champions last 5 or 6 years? What other conference can say that multiple (3 or 4) teams legitimately compete for the NC? Certainly not the Big 12.
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I thought last years NFL season would end the playoff debate after the league had to look at it's fanbase and proclaim a team with at least five losses (I don't know the Giants final record but it was something like that) champions over an 18-1 team that had beaten the five loss team in the regular season. NFL fans when tell you that the Giants won when it mattered. It always matters in college football precisely because there is no redemptive playoff.
I also like the arguements that spring from the vaugeries of the polls like when the fine and honest boys from Alabama were clearly robbed of the ring in 1966. Notre Dame can bite me.
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Oklahoma/Texas/Texas Tech? It's entirely possible that they will end the season with their only losses to each other, a feat that the Alabama/Georgia/Florida trio can't match. (For that matter, Oklahoma State might belong in that group too.)
And the SEC's past dominance doesn't mean that it's the best conference this year. It's not.
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