In a game that was "closer than the score" (UF's 4 turnovers to FSU's none was the difference), the Gators continued their trend of losing to all ranked teams they played in 2010. Our best win remains USF, and as Miami showed last night, losing to USF is the kind of loss that gets a coach fired.
The Gators end the regular season with the NCAA's 48th Scoring Offense with 29.25 points per game. This is a stat rescued by our scoring on special teams and defense, as we are 78th by Total Offense, or only 356.8 yards per game.
Moreover, that 29.25 points per game camouflages the reality of this season. Here were the points the Gators scored in the 5 losses -
Alabama - 6
LSU - 29
MSU - 7
South Carolina - 14
FSU - 7
Average score in loss = 12.6 ppg (and thankful to LSU for that).
Remember the frustrating days of the bubble screen? Well, we could only wish for an offense of the Zook era right now. In the year that got Ron Zook fired, Florida was ranked 19th nationally in Scoring Offense with 31.83 ppg, and 22nd in Total Offense, with 426.9 ypg. That's 70 more yards per game than what we just witnessed for 2010.
At least under Zook we seemed to have some offensive identity, no matter how inept it seemed. It's been said (ad nauseam) that if you have two quarterbacks you have none - well how does that bit of wisdom apply to a team that seems to think it has three?
Less than none seems to be the answer.
This is, by all accounts, a highly talented team. As such, we won the games one would expect to win on talent alone. With the sole exception of perhaps Georgia, we lost to teams of similar talent.
That leaves coaching. The Gators were embarrassingly, disastrously even, out coached in 2010. What we are doing clearly isn't working, and we all know what the definition of insanity is.
Don't we?
5 comments:
Insanity you say, take a look at the latest from the BCS, Wisconsin would annihilate Oregon or Auburn given the chance. None of this makes sense until you get a playoff system on neutral fields.
Both Oregon and Auburn would make Wisconsin look big and slow.
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The statistics merely highlight what our record already suggested--and was long since "proved" by the evidence of each Gator's own two eyes:
The Gator offense, in technical terms, "stunk up the joint".
You can go ahead and apply a similar approach to deducing the two main culprits on and off the field, but I can likewise give you the inevitable results in each case right now: Brantley and Addazio, respectively. As above, not a Gator will be surprised by these conclusions.
Scully,
You might be right but neither has played against a defense quite like what Wisconsin can bring. Oregon is still a question mark in my mind. The Buckeye defense throttled them down big time in the Rose Bowl last season. Iowa defense stopped the ACC champs in their bowl. True they play a slower game but was pointing out Big Ten defenses don't have to prove anything. Oregon is overrated, Auburn will add to the string of SEC mythical champs. Imagine a team that barely beat Clemson in overtime.
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