In my thirty-five or so springs and summers and early falls, I have shaded the truth.  Shaded it like an art student might with a lump of charcoal, a parchment and a less than flattering subject.  I've shaded it with the dreary, low hanging vocabulary of a dolt and with the best words I could find in the king's english.  I've shaded it with a blink and a yawn and I've shaded it with precision and insult.   "We will make you look pedestrian" I might say in some years.  Or simply "We will be very, very good" or, in years where I was feeling my oats, "We will own the conference."  I've resorted to euphemisms:  "We'll be in the mix" or "If I were a betting man...," or "This is not your father's football team."  

      But this year, all that shading is just so much shucking and jiving.  This year, I've watched and thought and read and watched again and my eyes have been opened.  Ananias has come to me in the form of tivo and youtube and cbssportsline and Buddy Martin and, yes, message boards, and he has placed his hands on my eyes and restored my vision.  And so I see the 2009 version of the Florida Gators and the vision is clear. There is no shading there.  If every player on the 2009 team was a live oak a hundred years old and if they all stood side by side on a hillside on a blinding summer day, Spikes next to Tebow next to Hernandez next to Haden next to Pouncey, and on and on, no shade would be cast.  Only light.

      And so this year, I cast aside charcoal and dancing.  I reject deftness of touch and the clearing of throats and the two-step and polite talk and the dusty chivalry of seasons past in favor of the plain and unvarnished language of Truth.  And the Truth is that the 2009 Gators are the best Gator team ever.  With the best college football coach ever.  And the best quarterback ever.  And the best defense ever.  And the best administration ever. And the best fan base ever.  This Gator football team will not lose a single game.  It will be perfect.  It will be ranked first in July and in September and in January.  And when the 2009 college football season is done, they will look back and say that the 2009 Gator football team was the best team to ever play the game.  Best is a big word and ever is a long time.  But they are true words.  And the Truth stands on its own.

      This year, when you talk about what you think lies in store for the 2009 Gators, tell the Truth.  It will set you free.