About Them Gators
2010-01-02
Posted by: badanov
One of the dumbest things I heard said by the color commenter at the 2010 Sugar Bowl was:
"If Florida is this good, imagine how good Alabama will be."
Please.
Florida's 2009 schedule was easy enough that all the Gators had to do was not lose. If you look, there were only two games at the time I considered to be tough: the road game to LSU and the road game to South Carolina.
In football you can have a bad game and win, and you can have a great game and lose. Florida had a whole string of bad games and manage to drag themselves across the finish line with a W.
Except for Alabama. Tebow and the Florida defense had a bad game. A really bad game. Good teams will have bad games, and lose against other good teams. For Florida, the SEC Championship game was a bad game against a good team that was having a good game.
The win was impressive for Alabama, but it was impressive in context. Consider 'Bama's previous game against Auburn, where they came within a few points of losing the game to a very good defense: The Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram had a terrible game: he was held to less than 40 yards rushing.
Auburn committed some defensive mistakes and therefore deserved to lose the game. 'Bama wound up deserving to win this game.
But the way in which Florida floated in and them limped out of the SEC Championship game, and now with Florida's pasting of Cincinnati, you'd think The One had come in the form of Nick Saban and Alabama.
Sorta like the loser of the chief executive the United States currently has.
Don't get me wrong. I love Alabama in its current and previous forms. They exemplify the smash-mouth football the SEC will always play. Southern style football, the same style Florida plays.
The same style Texas will play Jan. 7th.
The upshot is, Alabama is a great football team. They didn't lose any game so far. Their performance in Atlanta was one for the record books, but it doesn't give them a pass in the BCS Championship Game.
Even the oddsmakers agree with me. 'Bama has been favored by four points since November, and that isn't likely to change much before Jan. 7th.
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