Only two teams remaining on the Gators schedule that had a snowballs chance in hell of beating them.  Well one of those snowballs just melted.

FSU’s Christian Ponder separated his right shoulder in the loss to Clemson Saturday.  Highly acclaimed redshirt freshman E.J. Manuel will get his first start against Wake Forest.  Manuel is 1 for 4 for 4 yards this season.

Manuel has had time to get ready but he’s going into a difficult situation at best.  FSU at 4-5 last three games are at 4-6 Wake Forest, home against 2-7 Maryland and at 9-0 Florida.  The Seminoles have to win two of those games to get to 6-6 and become bowl eligible.

FSU’s defense is lacking this season.  They are 106th in total defense allowing 434.89 yards per game, the Gators are 2nd to Texas, allowing 232.44 yards per game 1.66 more than the Longhorns. The Noles are 99th in the country in scoring defense allowing 30.89 points pre game (the same as they average scoring) to Florida at #1 allowing only 10.11 points per mauling.

Ponder has carried FSU with a 147.71 passing efficiency, he’s 17th in the country.  For some perspective Tim Tebow is 8th with 156.59, Notre Dame’s Jimmy Clausen mark is 162.88 he’s 3rd in the country.

One interesting point is FSU tied at 29th in scoring with Alabama, they score 30.89 ponts per game.  The Gators are at 35.00 points per outing and tied for 11th with Auburn and Fresno State.

Not sure where to look but FSU’s defense is as bad as this man can ever remember.  Don’t see how they can possibly beat the Gators two weeks from this coming Saturday nor help Bobby’s overall win record next season, they have no spear and their old horse is about to be put out to retirement.

So what about South Carolina’s Snowball’s Chance?

This is a game Gators shouldn’t lose even though the Gamecocks have some players and a decent defense.

D - defense, O - offense

Left out passing stats, Tebow as mentioned above is 8th in passing efficiency while Stephen Garcia is 67th with a 126.81.  Garcia has 13 TDs and 6 INTs while Tebow has 11 and 4.  Tebow completes 10% more passes than Garcia who is at 55%, Tebow is 65%.

Florida just does everything better than South Carolina.  Shoot the Gators don’t punt the ball often enough to have stats in the NCAA ratings, that requires a minimum of 3.6 per game.

With that said this still could be an interesting game.  Florida hasn’t been taking many risks lately and South Carolina run defense isn’t bad, it just isn’t real good.  They are almost even in time of possession 31 minutes for the Gators 30 for the Cocks, turnovers lost 13 for the Gators 14 for the Chickens.

The Gators allow 2.44 sacks per game that’s 83rd in the nation and that’s not good.  South Carolina is worse they allow 2.70 sacks per game and are tied at 100th with Northwestern.  Neither team wants to be in a passing situation on third down although Tebow leads the Gators in rushing with 578 yards, Garcia has 103 yards a 1.3 yards per carry average.  Tebow gets 3.7 per carry.

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Florida just has a better football team as evidenced by their scoring offense 11th in the country with 35 points per game and their scoring defense #1 in the country allowing a stingy 10.11 points per.  South Carolina allows 20.4 and averages scoring 21.3 that means they average .9 points better than they give.

See mistakes playing a huge roll in this game and see the Gators making less of them.

Florida seems to be 24 points better than South Carolina, SC allows 10 points more scoring per game and the Gators average 14 more scoring per game.  Not sure it turns out that way but could see something like 33 - 9.   So that’s the score this man will go with Gators 33 South Carolina 9.

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This man is deeply impressed with Jeff Demps this year.  He’s shown durability, maneuverability, great instincts, to go along with his tremendous speed and acceleration.  He is a better back than I thought him to be, very high on Chris Rainey’s ability to find something or make something happen, didn’t think Demps was on that same level but do now, absolutely.  We are blessed to have Jeff Demps, Rainey and the Mooo.  Now if they can talk the Pouncey twins to return for one more season.

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After South Carolina this man hopes….

FIU and FSU are Florida’s last two games at home and they don’t stand a chance.  You’d have to ask yourself is there something the Gators could do for the end of their season, end being the SEC Championship and Bowl game?  Especially the SEC Championship.

This man thinks there is.

First major job is to shore up the pass blocking.  It hasn’t been good since Matt Patchan went down.  Back in the preseason Swampie suggested they move their best lineman Maurkice Pouncey out to left tackle.  Looking at Mount Cody wouldn’t you want big Carl Johnson inside to help prevent Bama from a big push up the middle.  It just seems a lot of pressure on Tim Tebow has come from the left side.

If Deonte Tompson or any other wide receiver is making late seasons strides I wouldn’t show it till Bama.

Offensive tackle is the position Big Carl Johnson wants to play at the next level but he just isn’t built for it, he has the body of an all-Pro guard.  If you put Pouncey out there at the end of the season and he looks good it might lure him back for another season to play there in the hopes of getting those big bucks in the NFL.

Just some thoughts here.