Been reading some of the comments from Gator Country posters this morning and they sound eerily like post-Ole Miss stuff from last season.

Shame on us.

We all got caught up in the flap of Lane Kiffin’s gums and forgot about the blocking and tackling techniques of football. Technique wins football games and, contrary to the wonderful emotional roller rides of the college game, inspiration just goes so far.

It hurts for Gator fans to admit this, but Kiffin had his team well prepared.

There is also the aspect of talent — and depth of that talent. Deficiencies of talent at wide receiver, as Urban Meyer had warned us, are starting to show up. On the same week that promising freshman receiver Andre Debose undergoes surgery, starter Deonte Thompson comes up lame.

Youngsters Frankie Hammond, Omarious Hines, T. J. Lawrence and Justin Williams are just not ready for prime time.

So Florida struggled, deferring to its old workhorse for bailout. And Tim Tebow, with 24 carries, rode again.

Because they relied on Tebow so much in a close game, backup Johnny Brantley never made the field. And that’s too bad, because Meyer had hoped to get his redshirt sophomore some meaningful minutes. Playing against only the creampuffs is not going to get him ready for 2010.

This is still 2009, of course, and there is much at stake. So with the pressure impacting Meyer, his play-calling and his players, the Gators were not at their best in the first SEC game of the season.

Many member of The Gator Nation will grouse, vent, and then it’s on to Round 2 of the SEC journey at Kentucky. If they could win them all 23-13 they — along with Urban — would gladly take that.
It is one thing to expect victory, yet another to expect total dominance. This is why they call SEC competition “Big Boy Football.”