I have witnessed our last 16 games in Tally, so possibly can offer perspective.  If you did not attend, get the soundtrack of any mid-1930's western motion picture and you will hear the same stereotypical music and Hollywood chants. How those are not offensive to current student snowflakes escapes me, but I digress.

FSU fans were mild tonight. It was clear from  the outset they weren't confident. The student chorus went from "FU Florida" when they reached 17 points to eery silence after we scored on the muffed punt. I never understood why they do not say "FU Gators" since they are also from Florida, but so be it. Still, they were fairly reserved even after the game.

I have no clue why we opted to blow all momentum on the opening drive by trying to get four yards on fourth down when we had only gained three in three attempts. Failing to score at all killed our advantage and gave the FSU defense confidence it had lost until then. Huge blunder. Turning point of the game to me. It was palpable in the stadium.

Appleby's advantage over Del Rio may include a stronger arm, but is mostly mobility. Why we sat him in the pocket to be savaged by a rush we could not stop time and again was befuddling. One question was answered, though. Reasons why we don't throw many upfield routes are not just sacks and poor passes, but also because our coaches suspect our receivers can't really catch. They did not tonight.

If we did not have Johnny Townsend punting, we would have been crushed far sooner. Also on kicking, why do we tell our kickoff man, who can place a kickoff through the goalposts, to place them the corner where he can't? Similarly, why do we try return opponent's corner kicks (and fumble) instead of letting them touchback or bounce out of bounds? UF return teams have been abysmal in strategies and player decisions all season. 

We had no solution to Dalvin Cook for the third straight year. Tally police that arrested him must not have been Gators, because our guys can't touch him. They showed his mug closeup on the big screen at Doak countless times tonight and I could see why he hit that girl. She didn't want to touch him either.

If you made it this far in my venting, know this. I think we are close to being good. Laugh, but we beat Vandy. UGA and UT didn't. We beat LSU in Baton Rouge for the first time since Tim Tebow. We won the SEC East again. We did all that playing four marginal quarterbacks, two of them transfers, two as backups, and none recruited from high school by our coaches. 

I bought ten tickets to the SECCG, and will attend thinking the Gators can win. No team is invincible. No team can be overlooked. Not in the SEC. I remember 1992.