An Unrelated Subject

For the record books, this is a conversation I had with Mike over a year ago that I just found on my old website (freewebs.com/newforum).

More football talk (1/3/06)

Because I hate to waste anything I spent over five minutes writing, I decided to post the UF/UM discussion I had with a guy from a Marlins site I frequent (fishstripes.com.) Without any further ado:

What up Mike,

I'll take this paragraph by paragraph.

" I deleted all of the college football comments on FishStripes (the ones I wrote, that you wrote, and that Wiggins wrote). We've gotten into plenty of college football discussions in the past, but I think we'd all really prefer to keep the talk to baseball and Marlins related stuff on FishStripes. "

I like that. Always better to be a uniter than a divider, eh?

 "Other than that, I think you missed my point about the Miami - Florida stuff. Gators are good at talking plenty of smack. I know I've heard plenty of it. The recruiting titles are the new talk with Meyer leading things in the Swamp. This is just like it was when Zook first took over. There were mythical national recruiting titles coming in left and right. I'm waiting to see the Gators do it on the field though. The Gators haven't beaten the Canes in football since 1985. You might count football titles since 1996. That seems to be how all Gators do it, but that's not reality (I was impressed though that you didn't start rattling off SEC titles, as most Gators seem to do; at least you realize that national titles are the only ones worth talking about). "

Zook's class was never as good as this (this is supposedly our best class ever), and I NEVER liked Zook. I thought he was a mistake from the get-go. And like I said, I know UM has 4 titles from '80 to '91 or whatever it is, but I was like 5 years old for the last of them. To me, that stuff is ancient history...we might as well talk about Yale and Harvard's title days.

 "Yes, the Gators beat the Canes in basketball a few weeks back. The Canes won in Gator country last year (and why is it that UF is saying they'll only continue the basketball series with Miami if the games can be played at a neutral site?). "

I remember that game last year. Thats why I was so fired up about this years game, because UM came into our house and took us. And I brought it up because you said, "when is the last time the Gators beat UM in something," when the answer occurred one week previous. As for the neutral site, I have no clue; thats just weird.

 "What about baseball though? Do you not want to talk college baseball? You mentioned the Gators College World Series appearance this season. How many CWS titles have the Gators won? I believe it's zero. The Canes have won four."

I only mentioned baseball to add to the litany of the Gators recent accomplishments. I dont follow college baseball, so I dont really follow our team that much, only been to one game. I will say that our man LaPorta is sick though.

" I'm sorry to get into this. I really didn't want to or intend to when I started joking around with Wiggins. I have little patience for Gator-smack. I heard quite a bit of it last year in Atlanta prior to the Peach Bowl. Then after the game no Gator wanted to talk about anything -- even in a calm, rational discussion. That's always the case. In 2000, after the Sugar Bowl, Gator fans wanted to talk about the pre-game brawl (on Bourbon street). In 2002, there were no Gator fans to talk to after the game, because they'd all left the Swamp in the middle of the third quarter. In 2003, I heard the funniest talk of all from Gator fans: they talked about how Miami shouldn't feel good about the win because their barely beat the Gators. "

Before the Peach Bowl last year, I discussed the game with my friend Eric, a UM student. I said I just couldnt see UM scoring on our D. He told me (accurately) that the Canes D and special teams would win the game. That was that for me. Our season was in ruins at that point anyway. In 2003, I definately was making that same argument you mentioned, regardless of how relevant it was. Because I was at the game, and it was painful to think about how bad we blew it. I could not give the Canes any credit, because of how infuriated I was with Zook. All I could think was that they were lucky our coach was so terrible. 2000 cost me about twenty bucks and much pride with my friends, but I cant even rememeber 2002.

 "Time will tell which school's future football prospects were better. Florida was 9-3 this year, just like Miami. The Gators have had great recruiting classes before and great hope because of new coaches. The Canes have had dissension and turnover in the coaching staff and among players pretty regularly. In time we'll see how things shake out for everyone. I'm sure that it's a more comfortable position for Gator fans right now, as the Canes aren't on the schedule for the next few years. Regardless, I'm glad that I'm a Cane. "

My current assessment of UM is this: The Canes should fire Larry Coker...right now. I think he was lucky to have about thirty first rounders that Butch Davis stocked the cupboard with. All hes done since then is pick up recruits who come just because its 'the U'. Not for him. Not for any brilliant schemes that he draws up. I honestly feel that me and a group of my friends could coach as well as he has. The Canes have had too much talent to lose as much as they have. If I were a Cane fan, my dream scenario would be Davis coming back and giving Coker the boot. The man is a nonentity.

As for my team...only time will tell. I think Leak is atrocious. In fact, I wrote this: http://www.alligator.org/pt2/050920column.php telling my entire school just that. And like I said in that column, we havent really seen what Urban can do yet...but I'm willing to bet he'll net us a title at some point. And with the players he just picked up (see Tebow, Tim) he has a real fighting chance.

That's just my two cents. :-)

Take care and have a great day!

 - Andrew

In case anyone forgot, Florida Gators--2006 BCS Champions. Oh, and the basketball titles were nice too, but since this is my senior year at UF, what I'm really looking forward to is the crowning glory - back-to-back football national championships. How bout them Gators?

And in case anyone cares, my new website is
www.theandrewmeyer.com

Mahalo Hombres