Walking In Knoxville

Okay, so I’ve been slacking. Forgive my insolent non-posting, yadda yadda. Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty and talk some Gator football.

The Gators are 2-0. Cue the loud cheers and the marching band. And they appear to have found a nice rhythm in the second half against USF. But now the real test begins — SEC football. And we kick off with a rival that is looking to beat us for the first time since Urban Meyer took over at Florida.

We don't have Brandon James anymore, but the sight of a white Gators jersey streaking through a sea of orange would be a welcome sight for Gator fans unfortunate enough to be watching this game in Rocky Top.

The Gators have some things going for them going into this game. We lead the nation in interceptions, we have a quarterback who can get the ball into receivers’ hands, and we finally figured out how to snap the ball. That’s always nice.

The Gators can beat Tennessee today, but there are going to be three key things the team will need to do in order to win.

1. Get out to an early lead
The Volunteers’ offense all predicates on their running backs. If the Gators can jump ahead early they will be able to take away Tennessee’s ability to run the ball, move the offense and play keep-away. It will also force them to throw into the Gators’ secondary, which we all know is one of the best in the nation. Not only that, but it will take away the noisy Tennessee crowd as well. The Gators will have a major mismatch to exploit if they can find a way to jump ahead early.

2. Run Defense
It kind of goes hand in hand with the concept of strategy No. 1, but the Gators have got to take away the run game. Even if they don’t get out to an early lead, they can make plays happen by shutting down the run and forcing Tennessee to throw. The Gators would do well to blitz early and often, penetrate into the backfield and get the QBs and RBs rattled. The name of the game really is to force Tennessee to pass.

3. Win the Turnover Battle
I expect this game to be a dogfight. If that’s the case, turnovers will make a world of difference in this game. The Gators will have to minimize their own mistakes and capitalize on the mistakes Tennessee makes. The Gators cannot afford to have a game where they turn the ball over more than twice. If that happens, I think they’re dead in the water.

A Quick Chris Rainey Note:
Okay, so I haven’t chimed in on the whole Chris Rainey situation yet. Bear with me as I do so. First of all, I just have to say, “How dumb can you be?” Really. I don’t really think his departure is going to hurt us THAT much (in fact, we seemed just fine without him in the second half of the USF game,) but what really hurts is that he’s just continuing to put this program in a negative light. The coaches can’t police the players. The players have to be responsible and smart enough to know that texting some girl “Time to die, bitch!” is probably going to get you in some hot water.

On that note, who thinks it would be awesome to have a Gators “Time To Die, Bitch” t-shirt made. That’d be a hot seller. I need to get on that.