This is one of those games that left even Bama fans saying, "Dude, that's just wrong." Never in recent history has LSU suffered such a severe beat down as they got last night in G-ville. You'd have to go back 12 years to the miserable Gerry DiNardo era to find the Tigers getting slapped like that by the Gators. Here's an interesting fact: Most points allowed in regulation during the Les Miles era.
Beat down, yeah. I got out my thesaurus and found synonyms like mugged, assaulted, battered, throttled, thrashed, spanked, pummeled, caned, hammered, violated. Maybe beat down is best.
In fact, I wasn't even going to talk about this. It's kind of like talking about victims of a high speed car crash without seat belts! (sorry Ricky couldn't resist that). It's just one of those things you shouldn't talk about in polite company. But, neither I nor any of the people visiting this blog could be confused with polite company so let's talk about it!
Everyone has been asking where is the Gator offense? Well I guess we found it. And the amazing thing about it is the majority of Florida's offensive yards were rushing yards. This from a Gator offense that was lacking their feature RB, Emmanuel Moody. These are not Spurrier's Gators. And of course the rushing leader was the speedster track star, Jeffrey Demps, who hung 129 yards on the hapless Tiger defense. Are you ready for a really scary thought? He's a freshman!
And what about Clark Kent? What else can you say, but wow. This was Tebow's break out game. This will serve him well as the Gators move into the teeth of the SEC. And the thing that stood out about Tebow's performance is he led the team, he didn't carry them. He managed the game and didn't try to single-handedly win it. He ran the offense but didn't try to be the offense. I knew Superman was just fine; he is evolving into a true leader.
As you look at this game, it's hard to find any glaring weaknesses anywhere. Offense, defense, special teams, every aspect of the game was almost perfect. Which leads me to this thought: Are the Gators that good, or is LSU just that bad? As a Gator, I hope the former is true, but I have to at least entertain the possibility that this LSU is not the LSU that administered the SEC's annual Big-10 beat down last January.
I mean, who has LSU really beaten? 1-AA App State, Sunbelt powerhouse North Texas (a team that is 0-6 right now), Mississippi State (2-4) who just got their first SEC victory, and an Auburn team that has been so bad offensively that they couldn't even gain 200 yards of offense against Arkansas?
The battle up front said a lot. The Florida O-line spanked the LSU front 7 on almost every play, a Florida O-line, by the way, that until Saturday night got dominated by almost everyone. Remember what Ole Miss and Arkansas and Miami did to them? And what's up with LSU QB
Jarrett Lee? Is that the best LSU could dig up? Or what about Andrew Hatch, the kid who transferred from Harvard's JV squad. Are you kidding me? Maybe Les Miles should ask the Great Pumpkin for one of his stellar QB's. To be fair, Lee really tried. But he was obviously unnerved by the hostile environment in the Swamp and seemed to be confused most of the night (does he know that
Brandon Spikes isn't on his team?)
Bottom line: Gators, don't get too excited about this one. Let's see how the Tigers do in the SEC west. If they can win out against all but maybe Bama, they are a good team and it's a good win. But until then, don't coast on this one. My suspicions are that LSU is at best a mediocre SEC team. I hope I'm wrong, but that remains to be seen.
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