Seven and Five

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?

Playing to Empty

Kickoff, BYU at Florida State



As “friendly” rivals of that school to the north and west, we might be expected to notice the vast expanses of empty seats in Doak Campbell Stadium. Alas, it seems others have taken notice, from the Orlando Sentinel’s Andrew Carter to uber-blogger Dr. Saturday.

It’s one thing to read that stadium attendance is around 80% - its quite another to put that in perspective.

Here are the percentage of attendance figures for the top 20 college stadiums, which all just happen to have 100% or better attendance so far this year –


1 Cincinnati 127.23
2 Louisville 127.09
3 Alabama 110.51
4 Texas Tech 109.7
5 Oregon 108.51
6 Boise St. 106.68
7 Nebraska 105.62
8 Oklahoma 103.56
9 Ohio St. 102.75
10 Florida 102.14
11 Arkansas 101.67
12 Mississippi St. 101.4
13 Texas 101.27
14 Michigan 101.06
15 Utah 100.65
16 Houston 100.26
17 Kansas St. 100.21
18 LSU 100.17
19 Michigan St. 100.04
20 Georgia 100
20 Notre Dame 100
20 Iowa 100
20 Virginia Tech 100

Sure, having over 100% attendance has an air of “These numbers go to eleven” about it (and, in the case of Cincinnati and Louisville the NCAA seems to have their stadium capacities as too small). But how dismal is 80%?

Dismal enough to rank FSU 68th nationally (their actual figure is 80.55%)

That puts them behind practically every Florida school, with UF at 102.14% and

FIU – 99.4%
USF – 97.1%
UCF – 85.4%

They also trail such notables as –

Wake Forest – 95.1%
Western Kentucky – 93.9%
Rutgers – 93.75%
Washington – 93.3%
Fresno State (the “other” FSU) – 90.8%
Ohio – 88.4%
Illinois – 81.5%

(In the category of irony, Illinois is coached by Ron Zook, who won at FSU the very night “Bobby Bowden Field” was so named. OK, that’s not really irony, but it sure is a fun factoid!)

Even the following SEC perennial cellar dwellers are outdrawing FSU this year–

Kentucky – 96.6%
Vanderbilt – 93.2%
Mississippi – 89.5%

In fact, every single SEC team has higher attendance than Florida State by at least 9%.

I have been reluctant to conclude, like so many of my fellow Gator fans, that the Seminole’s current problems are permanent. But even in Florida’s darkest days (late 80’s), we sold our stadium out. It would seem, to me at least, that fan support is a critical element in program recovery.

Lastly, FSU isn’t even the worst in Florida year-to-date in percentage of attendance. That dubious honor goes to Da “U”, rolling in a miserable 71.7% of capacity so far this year. “U” defenders might cite that they play in Dolphin/Sun Life Stadium, to which I’d counterpoint that capacity in Joe Robbie/Landshark/Highest Bidder Stadium is about 75,000 – about 15,000 short of Florida Field.

ACC - Historical Bed Crapping

In what might be an unprecedented episode of craptastic football display, every ranked ACC team lost today, and one of them to an FCS team.

A petition to relegate the ACC to the FCS division will be forthcoming.