[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvXXzKCEl5k[/youtube]

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.”

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Guarding the Kingdom

Had a rude awakening a week ago when this man watched the Miami - Florida game over again. OK we shut them down but much of this game was too tight with a six point lead 9-3 for the chosen ones. Florida put the game away with a last toe in your face field goal winning the game 26-3.

Miami’s defensive front won the battle vs our veteran solid group. This game cranked out memories of last season. The defeat by Ole Miss getting stopped dead on forth and one. It wasn’t until the second half of Arkansas that this Gator team became unstoppable.

Will adjustments be made so that we hit the ground running on the offensive front next year? Still think the best idea is to have Sam Robey play center and move Maurkice Pouncey out to tackle. Pouncey is a definite draft pick and played the position in high school.   

Florida needs two new offensive tackles with Pouncey at one they could say they’ve ‘nailed it’! Then work on the other. We don’t want any slow starts this season, do we?

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Orlando Magic

OK I would have bet a winning power ball ticket on the Magic losing game five. It was over.

So easily that game could have been 1-3 heading out to LA for game five. A missed layup in game two and two missed free throws by Howard in game four cost the Magic the championship. It was there for the taking.

I got so tired of Kobe this and LeBron that. Hope the Magic and do it next season and get them to SHUTUP!

UF has to have the worse luck of any school. Every time they are favorites, something happens. To lose the championship by 2 lousy points is painful. The killer was Jeremy Hall being disqualified in the semi-finals of the 100 for a false start. He would have probably finished somewhere between 3rd and 5th. He also placed a disappointing 9th in the 200, when his time in the semis would have been good for 3rd or 4th. Then you have late season injuries to William Wynne and Christian Taylor, thus Wynne did not qualify for the 400IH, where he would have been among the favorites, and Taylor did not qualify for the long jump, in which he placed 3rd at the national indoors. Plus, he had one of the top times in the nation in the 400, but he was unable to run on the relay, which was the deciding event. And that does not even take into account the loss of Demps, who healthy would have been the favorite to win the 100 (although Trindon Holliday is great). If healthy, UF wins this meet by 20 points.

They lose only 1 athlete who scored this year (high hurdler Pitt, who placed 7th, thus he contributed only 2 points to the team). Plus, they return Adam Montague, a javelin thrower who is redshirting; the prior 2 seasons he placed 2nd and 3rd at the NCAA meets, so he will be expected to compete for the title next season; and decathlete Mike Morrison is redshirting, and he probably will place in the top 8. And that does not even take into consideration incoming athletes they could add. No question, UF is going to be huge, huge favorites next season.

But, they should have won handily this year. And who knows what will happen next year. It just seems that something always happens to the Gators in track.

I guess 2nd is nothing to sneeze at, but they should have won the damn thing.

You can be sure if they can’t find a depth chart then some rival of the Gators will be happy to provide them with one along with player bios and star rankings.

No one looks at a recruit to come right in and start. It happens, but not that often.

To really look at needs for 2010 it seems you’d want take out the seniors and juniors, the chart on the bottom of this page will be whats left after the 2010 class has bean at Florida a season.

(Matt Elam to the left is a very hard hitting safety from South Florida, he was Florida’s third commitment.)

……..De’Joshua Johnson above in 7on7.

(Above: r - is Rivals top 100 list, we have four commitments from it.  The 5.8 is a Rivals rating, a 6.1 is the highest, a few reach that rating.  McFarland and Orr are each rated 3-stars by Scout.  Recruits are in order of when they committed to Florida.)

We have balance so far with the first 10 to verbally commit, five on defense and five on offense.

It’s been an excellent start for Florida, Demar Dorsey is the freak of this class hope we can hold onto him. Ian Silberman is the beast of the class, he will be a Gator. Trey Burton is the recruiter, he’s gone above and beyond. Now if he has a good arm he’ll get in line to be one of the next signal callers. He might do some running plays for John Brantley like Tim Tebow did for Chris Leak.

You wish the coaches could talk most of the recruits into looking at what is going to be there after one year at Florida.  It makes sense but waiting is not something very many young men are good at, a year at that age just seems forever.  (Above is Christian Green, 6-2, 196, 4.46 forty, an excellent dual threat QB who might end up there or at WR or safety in college.)

The chart below shows grade level for fall of 2009, it’s what will be left after 2010.  In 2011 all freshmen and sophomores will be juniors and seniors.  It seems a while from now but I’ve been told in the past this is what the coaches looked at and what they recruited for.

To me it’s interesting looking at the DL, it is jammed up if you look at it now but down the road just a bit.  Same with safety on defense.  There will be some LBs but it’s wide open, Bostic and Jenkins will be tough guys to beat out but you never know.

The OL has a large group but someone like Silberman won’t be worried about who is on campus.  TE is pretty wide open, depending on how long Addazio is here you can look for the TEs role to expand in the future of Florida football.

QB, in 2011 Brantley will be a senior, you hope his replacement has been on campus a year or two.  At RB if Gillislee can get it done we should be OK if he struggles we will have two scatback types so getting a midsized RB like Mack Brown is pretty important.

You can see some very nice talent at WR, this is the group Brantley will go to war with his senior season.  I’d like to see him do well.  For that to happen some of these guys will help be a major part of that.

First row are the projected starters, second row second team or co-starter and third row projected depth. Years are by number, no year given in final column for recruits…

Removed one tackle spot.  Recruit Kyle Koehne has the height at 6-6 and the weight at 300 but read where the coaching staff plans on him working as a center.  Of all the signees I’d think Nick Alajajian would be the other signee besides Xavier Nixon who could play offensive tackle. 

Going to add more slots down here for players left over like redshirts, injured and possibly transfers, whoever is left over from above…

What’s left are some harder to fill positions on defense like DT and a bit easier at DE.  Linebacker you’d think would be rather easy with three senior starters in Spikes, Stamper and Doe to replace.  But the Gators are pretty well stocked at linebacker so they need to find some guys who really want to become Gators or guys who don’t care who’s on campus.  Or both… 

One more defensive back is necessary think they have a strong shot at that.  Have to say Matt Elam is a HUGE safety, he’s one bone crushing dude.  We have a really nice defensive back class shaping up big Matt better not grow too much more or he’ll find himself playing in front of the safeties.

The Gators want a couple of more OL the top guy in the state is Brent Benedict.  He is a piece of work to watch on video.  He simply dominates, he has it all, good balance, tremendous power, explosion, great hands and feet.  And to top all of that off he’s a great kid. 

Haven’t seen film yet on Leon Orr but have on Ian Silberman, he’s very impressive.  He’s huge yet still has a rangy look at 275, he is very athletic, moves extremely well, he’s run a 5.06, if he can gain 25 pounds and get the forty to under 5.0 he’d be in a club of few for offensive linemen.

To be honest don’t know what’s going on with the WR position???  They’ll work it out.  Many think Kardon Boone will be one of the next commitments to Florida but he hasn’t pulled that trigger yet.

They have Michael McFarland at TE and they really want Gerald Christian too.  No one expects Aaron Hernandez to return for his senior season. 

Quarterback is set with Trey Burton the guy they really want at RB is Mack Brown.  He’s a fast sharp cutting slasher with power.  He seems to have strong thighs like Emmitt Smith, Brown has decent size 5-10 to 5-11 and around 180.  He’s very quick with a sub 4.4 at one of the combines.  He would fit really well in Urban Meyer’s scheme.

Position break downs

What’s below, a position by position breakdown (year by number, 4-senior season and so on, - is a new signee, r is a redshirt freshman, denoting they’ve had a year with the program).  Each position DE then the number is the estimate as to how many would be nice for this class and comment. Bold in the recruiit column is a commitment

DE - 3 - (no one expects Dunlap to return after next fall)

DT - 2 - (two would be nice if they can get them, clogged with juniors)

LB - 3 - (three would help keep the depth and competition up)

CB - 2 (really need at least two here, might need three if Haden leaves early)

Safety - 2 - (two really nice early commits, does Meyer get them to take all their other visits early?)

Offense

OL - 3 - (be great to get at least three to cushion loss of all these juniors after 2010)

TE - 2 - (bet here is Hernandez goes pro, if he does the question is can Florida find two TEs? They sure do run nice plays for TEs so you’d think it wouldn’t be an issue getting the. You’d think…)

HB - (not a position Florida recruits every year)

RB - 1 - (can Meyer find that big one, what they have now is pretty dang good.  Who they want is Mack Brown…)

WR - 3 - (Florida loses all it’s size, need to recruit some tall WRs, they haven’t had much success there lately missing out on the top BIG WRs in the SEC recently)

QB - 2 - (Not sure Florida stops looking with Burton committed for 2010. Brantley has to prove his durability and Meyer’s offense is more quarterback dependant that most, we saw the difference in production between Tebow and Leak)

defensive highlights

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5leKVsj88Y

offensive highlights

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZzAhjvuSbA

http://www.gatorcountry.com/swampgas/showthread.php?t=93639

http://www.gatorcountry.com/swampgas/showthread.php?t=93339

Jaylen Watkins DB/WR - 6-0, 170 - 4.4 - Cape Coral High School…

CLASS 5A ALL STATE TEAMS

2ND TEAM
Defense
DB Jaylen Watkins, Cape Coral, 6-1/175, Jr.

2008 Outdoor Season

Link to Jaylen Watkins thread…

Justin Wells posted this to Gator Country Insider Recruiting Forum on Friday, Jan 30th, 2009.

Link to that thread…

He has no offers yet, but trust me…that will change very shortly. Watkins made it up for two games last year (Miami and LSU). Florida is the leader right now, but Jaylen has FSU and UGA high on his list as well.

He will be in Gainesville this weekend along with a talented list of junior prospects from around the country.

By the way…this young man high jumped 6-0 as a sophomore. Considering he stands 6-0 right now, that is an incredibly awesome feat. Watkins will also be heavily involved in the sprints (primarily the 100 and 4×100) for the Cape Coral track team this spring.

I will have an update on Watkins along with stories on Jarvis Jones and Mack Brown coming tonight (hopefully)…

Angie and Rob’s fourteen years together feature nine-plus years of marriage, three degrees from UF (and one from FSU!), experiences of several Gainesville Restaurants current and past, and several different jobs at the University of Florida.  When not roaming about Alachua county, they can often be found relaxing at their home on the fringe of Gainesville’s Historic Duck Pond District.

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