gameday observations

1. I loved the orange jerseys. First time since 1989. Interesting choice, since we were 7-5 that year.

2. We aren't a very good team. Offensively we are horrific and defensively we are average to above average. We do not look like a very well-coached team.

3. At the beginning of the year the OL was supposed to be our biggest strength on the offense. Through 6 games it has become apparent that not only is it not a strength, but it can be argued that it is our biggest weakness. Pouncey cannot accurately snap the ball with any regularity, Halapio cannot block an SEC caliber DL, Nixon played poorly enough at LT to get move to RT and then got benched, Johnson gets no push, which leaves Marcus Gilbert, who is actually having a nice year. Of course one man does not make a line.

4. The only thing worse than the performance of our OL has been our play calling. I know the staff likes to state that everything is a group effort, but whomever has been actually sending the plays into the game should be relieved of that responsibility. The 2010 Gator offense has become boring and predictable. The LSU defenders lined up with 8 in the box for the majority of the game and dared us to throw the ball downfield. That includes passing obvious downs. A team that barely blitzed, blitzed a majority of the game because they knew our OL couldn't handle it. At one point LSU doubled the check-down receiver - and we threw the ball to him anyways. We had 23 first down plays on Saturday and gained 23 yards on those plays. We give away plays in every series (meaning we don't attack) and we stretch the field horizontally and rarely attack vertically. All of which isn't even the most frustrating part of our offense. The most frustrating part is that we have the players to attack the defense and we choose not to do so. After Carl Moore's 51 yard reception, Trey Burton came in and it and sucked the life out of the stadium, put us in second and long, and almost killed our momentum. The fans began to selectively boo plays in the fourth quarter, which is never good. The ultimate indictment - Saturday's game was the biggest recruiting weekend of the season and one of the biggest running back recruits in the state left the game at halftime because, in his words, the game was boring.

5. The Moody experiment has failed. When Emmanuel Moody transferred from USC, the prospect of having a big time running back in Meyer's offense had people buzzing. Those same people have been questioning why Moody couldn't see the field the past 2 seasons. 6 games into the 2010 season, we see why Moody rarely saw the field in the past. Say what you will about the fake field goal, but the turning point of the game on Saturday was Moody's fumble at the end of the first half. Moody isn't fast enough to run outside in the SEC, makes too many moves to be effective running the ball inside and is careless with the ball. At this point there is no reason for him to see meaningful minutes and it is time to take the redshirt off of Mack Brown.

6. I do not think we will have another significant player kicked off our team. Saturday morning I got an email that Brantley might not even play a down during the game. His rib injury was significantly worse than originally reported (now ESPN is stating that he has 4 hairline fractured ribs) and there was more - a thumb injury (which is also being reported as a hairline fracture). What does that have to do with players getting kicked off the team? Two years ago a player was asked to leave the program after he was arrested for an incident with a laptop. It was originally reported that the laptop was stolen and when the police came to the student's dorm room, the student threw the laptop out of the window which meant that the laptop was destroyed. As you can imagine the story changed a number of times but ultimately the authorities found that the student purchased a stolen laptop (unknowingly) and did indeed destroy the laptop by throwing it out the window. The student was asked to leave the University because of the incident. That student is now enrolled at Auburn, is the starting the QB for the undefeated #7 Tigers and is a leading Heisman Trophy candidate. The moral of the story is that the fanbase wanted Meyer to be tough on Newton and he was and now Meyer is paying the price. While it is possible that players will be kicked off the team in the future, I doubt we ever see another player at a significant position removed from the team.

7. The defense needs to scrap the 5-2 look unless we play a team runs the option a majority of the time (or in other words scrap it except for in practice). Seems to me that makes 2 weeks in a row where the 5-2 defense has given up big plays in the passing game.

8. Our defenders no longer hit people. Apparently the new strategy to bring down an opposing player is to hug and trip him.

9. For the second week in a row, the team didn't looked prepared to play; and we almost won the game. Imagine how could they could be if they were prepared!

10. On a bright note we do have the best punter in college football.