It gets old from week to week listening to the national media.  Now the biggest deal is who else is it besides Alabama and Florida since they have seemingly not performed like top teams lately.  Not going to discuss Iowa or TCU or any of the others but would rather take a quick look at the top two.

Florida’s last three games have been tight.  They beat LSU by 10, Arkansas by 3 and Mississippi State by 10.  Alabama has gotten by with an 18 point win to Ole Miss, 14 point over South Carolina and 2 point squeeker to Tennessee.

The stats below are Florida’s and Alabama’s last three games.  The Gators last three games are first LSU, Ark and Miss St then follows Alabama’s last three games Ole Miss, USC and Tenn.

Below you have game and team under when - then the opponent and score.  Under ‘tot’ is the total offense, if Florida had more total offense than their foe it’s subtracted and is + positive, same goes for ‘pass’ and ‘rush’ yardage.  Turnovers under FB fumbles and INT interceptions is either even or + or -.  Florida lost 4 fumbles to Arkansas so it’s -4.  Finally I took the QB ranking and subtracted the highest from the lowest.  Tebow’s 2 INTs returned for TDs hurt him more than Tyson Lee’s 3 INTs I guess.

Both the Gators and the Tide have out rushed the opponents above.  That’s where the above stats differ.  Alabama hasn’t faced a -4 in the turnover margin this season although they did lose ball 4 times to the Game Cocks 2.

The above stats don’t show the two INTs Tebow threw against Mississippi State that were returned for TDs although they do show up in the Quarterback ratings.  You figure that in the Gators managed to win these games when they made many mistakes.  In no game did the Gators get beat stat wise despite the gifts they continued to give the opposing team.

The same can not be said for Alabama.  They were beat by Tennessee in total yardage, badly in passing yardage and in quarterback rankings.  When you subtract one QB ranking from the other it tells you a lot about how one team performed against the other.  Florida’s -9.57 QB rating in the Ole Miss game was offset by a +157 yard rushing performance.

And the +157 is the sum total of Florida’s rushing game against the Bulldogs defense and visa versa.  You look at the Bama and South Carolina game and those stats indicate a tough game for the Tide and it was for 55 minutes.

Against Tennessee Alabama tied in turnovers and lost in every stat other than the 2 pt edge in the score.  A +60 rushing edge does not offset a -145 yards passing.  But they won and get a weeks rest prior to the LSU game.  An advantage for Alabama while Georgia gets the week off waiting for the Gators.

Neither football team is tearing it up through the airways but the Gators are far ahead of Alabama at this point in time.  With Florida’s injury situation on defense they could only be getting better on defense it would be nice to get a few of them back this week.

There are only two teams this year because the National Championship won’t be won by style points.  It will be won by rock’m sock’m football like in the old days.  Gators aint pretty, Alabama aint pretty hell neither is Georgia Tech and Iowa.  They aint pretty they are pretty darn good.