LA ESQUINA

Welcome back to La Esquina. Let’s just do the damn thing.

I try not to gloat much but I can’t help myself in this instance. Below is an excerpt from last week’s article regarding the Arkansas game and I want you all to read it and thoroughly internalize it:

“This has all the makings of a trap game by all accounts…coming off a big win against LSU one would expect us to overlook a 3-2 team that has been somewhat inconsistent. But we won’t. And you know why? Because we have the built-in insurance policy that is Tim Tebow. The human safety net -- this is what separates us from the USC’s of the world who are good for one or two fluky losses a year even though their talent level is head and shoulders above that of their opponents. The whole team can be groggy, down, unmotivated, having a bad day…but you know there’s no way Timmy lets us lose a game like this. This is what he brings to the table above all else, the ability to wake up the team and utterly WILL us to victory when other similarly talented teams might flounder.”

That’s wassup with the wassup! This is why in my opinion Timmy is the frontrunner for the Heisman and should win it this year barring a nosedive by himself and/or the team. The guy is just special and without him, we would not be elite. Period. That last drive to win the game was quintessential Timmy.

Here are a few things about the Arkansas game that really bothered me:

· TURNOVERS: Four fumbles? Really? We had 9 all of last year and have nearly half as many in one game? Wake up guys…I can’t remember the last time a team was minus 4 in turnover differential and actually won the game? HOLD ON TO THE BALL! Crazy glue that sh*t to your hands…pretend it’s a big booby…do something, just squeeze that fu*ker tight and hold on.

· RED ZONE EFFICIENCY: We are awful, god awful this year in the red zone. Why are we having Cooper throw the ball off of a reverse down in the 10 yard line? Do the Florida Gators really need to be that gimmicky? It seems to me like those type of trick plays are much harder to execute when there is less field to work with because all the defenders are bunched up (i.e. don’t do that in the red zone). Also, TIM TEBOW TIM TEBOW TIM TEBOW. He is our quarterback, one of the best short yardage runners of all time and has the SEC overall TD record and is about to break Herschel Walker’s running TD record (and remember folks, he’s a quarterback, not a running back). Why don’t we just roll him out giving him an option to run or pass where he can look for Hernandez…a big Papi like that should be golden in the end zone with his size and skill. Sometimes I really think I am best suited to call the plays on offense…it just seems so obvious doesn’t it?

· REFEREES: I remember watching the game and registering a very unusual thought in the inner dwellings of my gator brain. I thought to myself, “damn, I don’t know about that one, I think we’re getting some calls here.” Then I looked around to make sure nobody heard me…as if it was an episode of Herman’s Head or something. Of course people can’t hear what I am thinking, but I am just so used to bitc*ing about calls that acknowledging we were getting some calls in our favor felt completely wrong. Like when you took money from your mom’s purse as a kid…just didn’t want to get busted. Anyways, those calls wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the game so to all the gator haters out there don’t get your panties in a bunch. The pass interference call was on first down when we had the ball at their 20 yard line, hardly a 9.0 on the fan freak-out Richter scale.

· O-LINE: Before last week’s game I would have said our line is the best in college football. With the way we were throwing people around and running the ball you would be hard pressed to find a more physical and productive line. Although in this game we couldn’t run the ball. The old dive play looked like poop and we were held to over 100 yards below our average on the ground. They also got a tremendous amount of pressure on Timmy (6 sacks). We have found out after the fact that Arkansas just out-schemed us by loading the box and utilizing slant pass rush concepts which we weren’t ready for. The gist of it is this; instead of bull rushing our lineman or speed rushing around them all of the guys on the D line rush in a slanted fashion to try to get in between the gaps of our guys. It seemed to work and I hope Addazio cleans this up. We are too big and too strong up front to let that happen. It also didn’t help that Timmy hung on to the ball too long without getting rid of it…but then again, much like Big Ben from the Steelers, that’s his game. He extends plays when there’s nothing there hoping to make something happen. I’ll take that trade off with Timmy all day. Like Big Carl Johnson was quoted as saying this week “Ya’ll just need to let Tim Tebow do Tim Tebow.”

· LACK OF BIG PLAYS ON D AND SPECIAL TEAMS: I think the D did fairly well in this game, and I’ll get more into that in a second, but what they didn’t do was create any turnovers. With all the playmakers we have that’s just inexcusable. Not 1 interception, not 1 recovered forced fumble. However, I will temper this by saying that the ball just wasn’t bouncing our way that game and that stuff happens some times. See the Carlos Dunlap play at the beginning of the game when he was deep in the backfield and caused a fumble that bounced off his helmet, which Arkansas miraculously recovered. Conversely, we had all kinds of mishandled snaps and the like and never recovered any of our fumbles. Also, memo to Brandon James…let’s get going on the returns. We need you BJ…and we don’t need you running the ball in the backfield, we need you taking kicks to the house. Cowboy up!

Here are a few things about the Arkansas game that I really liked, which people aren’t talking about much:

· PASSING GAME: We finally opened that motherfuc*er up and started chucking it. That deep bomb to Deonte was huge, we really needed that. We took a lot of shots down field and really should have had more success (one notable Riley Cooper drop on a surefire 64yd TD pass comes to mind). Anyways, Tebow threw for over 250 yards and attempted 27 passes, completing about 66%. That’s much better than we’d been doing in previous games. Not to mention that we got multiple pass interference calls out of it and that it helps to keep the defense honest. Very encouraging. Hopefully we can keep this up for the rest of the season.

· HEART: To win that kind of game after turning the ball over and generally playing like crap the whole game is huge. As much as I am distraught about the fact that we were that close to losing to Arkansas at home during homecoming, I am equally encouraged by the big brass balls these guys showed in coming back to pull this win out. Especially Timmy who never faltered. Don’t you get the feeling that if he really wants to he can tuck the ball and run for 8/9 yards every play? He was doing a lot of that on the last drive and it reminded me of the 4^th quarter of the Oklahoma game last year. He is just CASH MONEY in those situations. I wouldn’t take anybody else in that spot, not Drew Breese, not Payton Manning…nobody…except for little baby Jesus Timmy Tebow.

· DEFENSE: Yes they gave up exactly 20 points (which oddly enough I predicted) but considering all of the turnovers and the bad field position the offense kept putting them in, coupled with Arkansas’s high powered passing attack and the injury to B-Spikes…that was a solid performance. I know that Janoris had a tough game but you know what…I don’t mind him making those mistakes (biting on the double moves) so much because he is being aggressive and trying to jump routes…unlike WPL in 2007 who gave a 10 yard cushion and never broke up a pass. Besides, on the long touchdown play Janoris gave up it has since come out that he was actually doing exactly what he was supposed to do, taking away the underneath route. Ahmad Black was supposed to be playing a deep Cover 2 and his responsibility was taking away the long ball. He should have been helping Janoris over the top and got caught playing too shallow for some reason…a mistake that he typically never makes. La Esquina will give him a pass this one time but the boys need to tighten that up a bit. On the flip side…is there a better corner in America than Joe Haden? Wow – homey is playing lights out. As good as he is in pass coverage I don’t think I have ever seen him miss a tackle…one of the best I have seen tackling in the open field.

· STURGIS: How about the new kid winning SEC special teams player of the week? He drilled that 51 yarder, had plenty of leg left and made that game winner with no problems whatsoever. Keep making kicks Caleb…or else La Esquina and the rest of the gator nation will pounce on your little kicker a$$ and choke you out.

***UNIFORM TANGENT*** So I was massively wrong last week when I predicted that the gators would have new unis for homecoming. However, I have some new inside information from the Dirtness who has a friend who works for Nike in their headquarters in Portland. The Dirtness assures me that new Nike proto-type unis will be unveiled for the FSU game (Timmy and Brandon and the rest of the senior’s last game in the swamp). It should be a very emotional game for all. I don’t know what they are going to look like but apparently they are completely different…a little futuristic looking maybe? Let’s hope I’m right about the unis this time.

This week we travel to go see Dan Mullen and Mississippi State (where we haven’t won since the mid 80s by the way in what has to be one of the weirdest statistics of all time). Fear not -- we have the better players, we have the better coaches and thus we are heavily favored. I do want to offer a cautionary tale though, look at what happened to Pete Carroll and USC when they went to Washington to play against their old offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian…they lost. There may be something to playing against somebody who knows your entire playbook and is also intimately familiar with your personnel. It certainly can’t hurt Mississippi State’s chances any. That’s why I think the 23 points we are favored by is way too high. Having said all of that, no way we lose. The real question is do we slog through another game half comatose like last week or do we finally open up the can of whoop ass this game? I am breaking tradition here and staying away from a score prediction. I am just all over the place here…could be a blow out could be a 4^th quarter nail biter. Here are some things to look for:

· Does Dunlap finally bust out and have a 3 sack game?

· How does our interior D hold up with the following players out (Marsch, Howard, Trattou, Antwine and B-Spikes)? And yes I know they said Spikes was 50-50 but in Urban Meyer code that means there’s no way in hell he gets on the field. Remember when Deonte was “probable” for the Kentucky and LSU games?

· How does Janoris and the rest of the secondary respond after their worst outing of the year?

· Does the Mullen spread give our D any major headaches?

· Does Mullen bust out any trick plays? I wouldn’t put it past him…I am sure he wants this one bad.

· Does Moody finally have a huge break-out game? I think he explodes here…think virgin on prom night.

· Do we keep chucking the ball or go back to the power running game?

· Can Timmy put up some stats and build some Heisman momentum?

I will leave you all with one more thought…we are 6-0, #1 in the BCS, we are undefeated, we would still be favored against anybody we played RIGHT NOW and we still have little baby Jesus Timmy Tebow at the helm. Step back off the ledge folks and enjoy the game!