I've gotten to know a few of them over the last couple of years. I'll just say here that they know the team (which includes them, obviously) is going to hear a lot of criticism after losing like this. I tried to give some encouragement and let them know that I thought the Gator fans will be there doing our best to help the program during all the SEC play. I hope all of you who call yourselves Gators agree! This coach said their goal is to "make all of Gator Nation proud" based on the improvements they will work hard to make. What more can we ask?

The rest of this is just my own commentary and has nothing to do with anything a coach said to me.

If I were to get into a debate about this program, I'd make a lot of comments that are contrary to what all the naysayers shout. You can only blame coaching for so much -- the mistakes are on the players. I am certain the play makers are taught to put two arms/hands on the ball when being tackled. We still had our most reliable veterans dropping the ball on the ground. I know people talk about how bad the offense appears to be, but the stats say otherwise (sans turnovers). We did throw the ball 33 times for almost 300 yards, and Driskel got sacked/fumbled when taking a deep drop to throw it down the field. The issue is our WRs recruited by Meyer are just not good enough for this team to be successfulas a deep passing team, even if we had Joe Namath at QB.

Look, I know it was pretty stupid to go for 2 points on the first score. The clock management in the last 3 minutes was terrible (and why can't the kicker dive for the onside kick when he KNOWS it's going right in front of him? What a wuss!). The suspensions and illness last week meant the coaches put too much trust in guys who were not football ready at kick-off. Clearly, there were some bad coaching decisions. I'm not trying to make excuses for that. Every single one of us, if we were objective, knows the coaching was good enough today if the players did screw up so much pee-wee type stuff. Let's not panic; we just don't have the skilled players on offense to go "next man" when one guy can't handle the pressure like we did in the past. That has more to do with the state of the program Coach Boom inherited, in my view, and unlike the Zooker years, this team is truly getting more physical, more professional, and ultimately will be more successful.

If UF loses to TN and Vandy, rub this in my face. I just believe we still have a very good chance to win a lot of games this year. I thought today about the time we beat Miami by 4 TDs or whatever in one of scUM's MNC seasons. Maybe we can get on a run and return the favor? It's a dream, but it has happened before.

Keep the faith!