Florida Gators thread

[Ditka Licker]

Lets Go Gators

Beat the Suckeyes

[flea]

Edwards commited to Florida

[azuquita8]

Originally Posted by flea

Edwards commited to Florida

Good pickup for the Gators at OLB, especially with Earl Everett being a senior.

I watched the Army All-American Bowl as well; there were other Gator recruits playing in that game but one who stood out for me was QB John Brantley, who'll backup Tim Tebow. Nice to see this kid can punt too; our current P Eric Wilbur is also a senior.

Florida right now is in position to bring in another top-10 class, and if we remain strong we could either finish #1 or #2 on National Signing Day. Luckily Urban Meyer has filled in some of the gaps Zook left, and we're in a position where we can reload instead of rebuild.

[azuquita8]

A Father and a Father Figure Teach Meyer the Rewards of Tough Love
By PETE THAMELPublished: January 7, 2007

PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz., Jan. 6 — Dean Hood remembered making plans to hang out with Urban Meyer after a baseball game during their senior year of high school. Meyer had three hits and made a diving stop before making the last out in a loss. Hood recalled vividly that Meyer was the best player on the field that day, but not good enough for his father, Bud.
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“I can’t leave with you,” he recalled Meyer saying to him. “My dad’s making me run home.”

“I couldn’t tell you how far it was, but it was a long way, man,” said Hood, who is now the defensive coordinator at Wake Forest.

Fast-forward from the spring of 1982 to the fall of 1990, when Meyer was the receivers coach under Earle Bruce at Ohio State. He walked onto the practice field after the birth of his first child, Nicole, and was greeted with a conga line of hugs, backslaps and congratulations.

Bruce did not take long to find the perfect opportunity to make sure that Meyer stayed focused on beating Texas-El Paso that weekend. It came when he saw Billy Gonzales, now Meyer’s receivers coach at Florida, blow the blocking assignment on a screen pass.

“He just undressed me,” Meyer said, still remembering the name of the play, 94-I Twin Right, and the defensive scheme they faced, a Cover 2. “He just got after me. I remember it like it was yesterday.”

That scolding, much like Bud Meyer’s mandate for a long run home after a baseball loss, offers a window into the two men most responsible for molding Urban Meyer. Together, they helped forge the values and work ethic that allowed Meyer to lead Florida into Monday night’s national title game against Ohio State.

“They’re very similar,” Meyer said of his father and Bruce. “I think they both are about doing the right thing. There’s a lot of things that are important, but doing it the right way is probably the most important.

“They’re family guys and hard workers who don’t take shortcuts.”

Bud Meyer and Earle Bruce are 75-year-old children of the Depression who have a penchant for colorful language and fist-pounding to accentuate a point.

Bud Meyer, though, was not a football coach; he was a chemical engineer who would take his children’s college textbooks and solve the problems for fun.

Earle Bruce won 154 games in his Hall of Fame career, with his most notable stint coming at Ohio State from 1979 to 1987, when he won or shared four Big Ten titles. Bruce played for and coached under Woody Hayes, another disciplinarian who helped shape an attitude so salty in Bruce that he would paint the opponents’ locker room pink to psych them out.

Gigi Escoe, Meyer’s sister, got to know Bruce over the years.

“Earle strikes me as no-nonsense, straightforward and a disciplinarian who expects a lot out of people,” she said during a recent interview in a restaurant near the University of Cincinnati, where she is a senior associate dean. She then looked at her father seated across the table and said, laughing, “That seems familiar.”

Bud and Gisela Meyer reared their three children — Gigi, Urban and Erika — primarily in the northeast Ohio town of Ashtabula, which lies on Lake Erie and, as he put it, “has gone the way of rust.”

Though Ashtabula is a primarily blue-collar town, Escoe chuckled at portrayals of her brother as a blue-collar kid. She recalled Sundays spent at a nearby yacht club and a comfortable childhood.

Bud Meyer made sure they were not too cozy. He demanded the most from his children; Gigi and Erika skipped grades. Urban, though he thrived academically, was not allowed to skip a grade because it would put him at a disadvantage in sports. Bud Meyer said his and his wife’s simple parenting philosophy derived from his father’s.

“I was expected to produce,” he said sternly.

He made sure his children produced, too. Bud Meyer often doled out punishment in laps or push-ups: breaking curfew usually resulted in some type of productive sweat. Urban was rewarded with a dollar for hitting a home run and 50 cents for knocking in a run, though he lost a quarter for every strikeout.

Those lessons made an impact. Meyer’s wife, Shelley, said he recently punished their 8-year-old son, Nate, by making him run six laps around the house.

Meyer starred as a tailback and a shortstop for St. John’s High School in Ashtabula. He had more potential in baseball, and the Atlanta Braves chose him in the 13th round in the 1982 draft. Right after graduation, he headed to Sarasota, Fla., to play rookie league ball.

“When everyone else was going to the prom, he was getting on Eastern Airlines,” Bud Meyer said with a hint of pride in his voice. “We brought him to the airport, and that was it for the summer.”

Meyer struggled with curveballs and endless bus rides. He tried to quit a few times, even calling home from a telephone booth in tears to tell his father he was leaving. Bud told him that he was not welcome back in the house but to make sure he called his mother.

Meyer was finally done in by tendinitis in his throwing arm and ended his baseball career in Class A two years later with one home run. He signed the home run ball, which now sits on Escoe’s mantle.

“It didn’t hurt him,” Bud Meyer said of his son’s two years in the minors. “It gave him a lot of maturity.”

Meyer ended up attending the University of Cincinnati, as did his father, his paternal grandfather and his sisters, and lettered as a walk-on defensive back. He was also introduced to the two loves of his life: Shelley and coaching football.

Meyer got an internship coaching at St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati, a local powerhouse. He then went to Ohio State, where he was a graduate assistant under Bruce.

“I was in awe of him,” Meyer said.

A tour of the basement of Bruce’s home in Dublin, Ohio, outside Columbus showed that Meyer was not Bruce’s only successful protégé. There are photos of a shaggy-haired Pete Carroll, now the coach at Southern California, and a baby-faced Jim Tressel, now the coach of the Buckeyes, as Ohio State assistants under Bruce. Bruce then pointed to a picture of Meyer wearing a yellow polo shirt and green pants, with a thick mustache from his days at Colorado State.

Bruce also learned from his father, who had 13 boys and was a safety inspector in a steel mill in Pittsburgh.

“He always told me, ‘If you ever come home drunk, your clothes are going to be outside on the sidewalk; you’re gone,’ ” said Bruce, who now works in radio. “I never took the chance. I didn’t want to test him.”

In Bruce, Meyer saw a mentor, a man who worked his players hard on the field and loved them off it. A man who taught Meyer the two credos that guide his Florida program: Life is a lot better if you are good off the field, and discipline is 90 percent anticipation.

Meyer took to the coaching life as a graduate assistant under Bruce and began carving a career path with days that began at 6 a.m. and ended at midnight.

“He was so intense and into the game even then,” Shelley Meyer said. “That’s when I really saw what this whole college coaching thing was going to be about.”

Meyer, 42, has not forgotten his roots. Bruce is a regular visitor at spring practice and has attended some Gators games. Meyer asked Escoe to get their father an empty ring box for his 75th birthday last month; he included a note saying he would fill it with either a Southeastern Conference title ring or a national title ring.

Bruce’s grandson Zach Smith works as a student assistant to Meyer. Smith helps the Florida coaches break down opponents’ tendencies on film, a job like the one Meyer had 20 seasons ago.

“They’re very similar,” Smith said of Meyer and Bruce. “You can see it in their intensity and love for the game. They have such a passion for their players.”

While Bud Meyer and Earle Bruce have much in common, they differ on which team they will be cheering for Monday night. But Bud said that deep down Bruce would be cheering for the Gators.

“I don’t care what Earle says,” he said. “I think he wants Florida to win this game.”

Bruce probably won’t pound his fist too hard if Florida pulls an upset.

“I’m a Buckeye, and I want the Buckeyes to win,” Bruce said. “But I’ll tell you something, I would not feel bad if they lost. I can’t feel bad.”

[azuquita8]

SPORTS COMMENTARY Mike Bianchi
Gators will follow formula Buckeyes used to top UM
Published January 7, 2007

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Before we delve into the real reason for this column -- to predict the winner of the BCS National Championship Game -- let's first make some other fearless forecasts for 2007:

Nick Saban will tell star quarterback recruit, "I guarantee you I'll never, ever leave Alabama, you will start for the next four years and we're winning the war in Iraq."

Tennessee Coach Phil Fulmer, who lost the Outback Bowl against Penn State even though Joe Paterno wasn't even on the sideline, will be outcoached next season by a cardboard cutout of Steve Spurrier, a Sylvester Croom bobblehead and an empty booth.

The other columnist on this page, David "Master of the Obvious" Whitley, daringly will go out on a limb and pick the undefeated, heavily favored Ohio State Buckeyes to win the national title. Whitley also is predicting Texas will beat UCF next season, Jerry Greene will gain 7 to 10 pounds in 2007, Republicans and Democrats will disagree on abortion, Grant Hill will miss some games and the weather in Orlando next June will consist primarily of hot days with late-afternoon thundershowers.

Of course, the obvious pick is Ohio State, but I've learned not always to pick the team with the best credentials. Sometimes, you have to pick the team with the most incentive. In fact, it was Ohio State that taught me this very lesson.

It was four years ago out in this very desert when heavily favored Miami was playing Ohio State for the national championship. I wrote a column then, much like Whitley wrote today, picking the heavy favorite.

Here's how that column four years ago began:

"The desert will be overrun with Ohio State fans. It will look like a Buckeyes home game. Miami fans will be outnumbered at least 5 to 1. And you know what? It won't matter. By the time the Fiesta Bowl is over, the scarlet on the shirts of the tens of thousands of Ohio State fans will match the color on their faces. The famous "Script Ohio'' will look more like a "Scrapped Ohio.'' The traditional dotting of the "i'' will be replaced by the burning of the game tape. Mark my words: The Buckeyes' players will get hit in the mouth so hard and so often, they'll think Woody Hayes still is coach."

Blah, blah, blah.

We all know what happened in that game, right? Even though Miami had more talent, more first-round NFL draft picks and a 34-game winning streak, the Buckeyes came to the desert on a mission. They hit Miami in the mouth, wrecked Willis McGahee's knee and won the game in double overtime.

They won because (A) they were more physical; (B) they were more composed; and (C) an Ohio State booster paid off official Terry Porter to call a phantom pass-interference penalty in the first overtime.

Just kidding about the official being paid off, but the Buckeyes did, in fact, get a lucky break. And to win a national championship, it does take a little luck -- and a lot of pluck. The Gators have had both.

That Ohio State team of four years ago is much like the Florida team of today. Back then, everybody said the Buckeyes were fortunate to be playing for the national title. They only beat Cincinnati and Purdue by four, Wisconsin and Michigan by five and Penn State by six. The Buckeyes were resilient; they found ways to win.

"We don't care how we win as long as we win," Ohio State Coach Jim Tressel said then.

"We're not going to apologize for how we've won games," Florida Coach Urban Meyer says now.

No apology necessary.

Florida 28, Ohio State 21.

Winning the national championship means never having to say you're sorry.

Mike Bianchi can be reached at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com.

[Chicagobear1223]

I'm ready bring on the f**keyes


GOOOOOOOOOOO GATORS

CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP

[azuquita8]

Leak carries a title ring for size

By ROBBIE ANDREU
Sun sports writer

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Chris Leak is carrying around a national championship ring this week to remind him what is attainable Monday night in the national title game.

It is a 1996 national championship ring and it belongs to graduate assistant coach Nick Schiralli, a former UF player and the lone connection on this year's team to the Gators' national title team.

"For him to ask me was kind of an honor for me," said Schiralli, a receiver who played mostly special teams in 1996. "I said, 'Definitely, go ahead. If it helps you out, give you something more to play for, then go ahead."'

Leak also borrowed one of Schiralli's SEC championship rings and kept it with him the week of the conference title game against Arkansas.

Leak is keeping the national championship ring in his hotel.

"I've got it stashed in a safe place," Leak said. "The last thing you want to do is lose it.

"That's what you're playing for. It makes you that much more hungry."

Baker has a crush

At the Outback Bowl a year ago, UF wide receiver Dallas Baker said if he ever met Beyonce' he would ask her to marry him. He said he has no plans to propose if the singer somehow shows up at the national title game.

"I don't think she'd like that too much," Baker said. "She still has a big place in my heart, though.

"I don't even know if she watches football, really. I know she watches basketball. I've been thinking about asking coach (Billy) Donovan if I can try and play point guard or something like that so she can see me."

Siler putting off decision

Junior linebacker Brandon Siler said he will not make a decision about whether to leave early for the NFL until after Monday night's game.

"That's a life-changing decision," he said. "You sit down and talk to all the people who are important to you, your coaches, your mom, your family. I'm not thinking about that right now."

Junior wide receiver Andre Caldwell said earlier this week he's made his decision about the NFL but will not announce it until after the national championship game.

It appears cornerback Ryan Smith likely will be returning for his senior season. He said Friday the NFL has told him he could go as high as the fifth round. Meyer has said Smith is not physically ready to play in the NFL yet.

Two other juniors — All-America safety Reggie Nelson and defensive end Jarvis Moss — also will be considering their NFL options after the game.

Curfew not an issue

The Gators have had a curfew every night, but Siler said there's really no need for one because the players are pretty much staying around the hotel after dinner.

"We know this is a business trip," Siler said. "You give us a curfew and we're still in early. That's not what it's about. We can party back in Gainesville after the win.

"Nobody has the need to go out and be partying and doing all those things. The majority of the players were at the hotel playing cards last night. Nobody even stretches curfew."

With the national title on the line, Siler said there is a much different atmosphere than the Gators have experienced in past bowl games. For one thing, they are not being escorted around town for a bunch of bowl functions.

"We might go to one thing and that's it for the day," he said. "They let your relax and get off your feet and chill out, where in other games they kind of run you ragged doing different kinds of things. I'm really surprised at all the time we get off. We like it a little better."

Injury update

Starting safety Tony Joiner is still recovering from a high ankle sprained he sustained in the SEC Championship Game.

"He is 90 percent," Meyer said. "We've got two days to get him up to 100 percent.

"Dorian Munroe did very well when he substituted for him in the Arkansas game. We will play both those players."

Tight end Tate Casey (ankle) has been very limited in practice and will be a game-day decision, Meyer said.

No. 1 tailback DeShawn Wynn has been practicing with a sore foot, but should be ready for Monday's game.

"He's fine," Meyer said. "He's gimping a little bit, but he is good to go."

Year two success

Meyer's second-year success has reached a new level at Florida, with the Gators earning a place in the title game. Meyer said there has been no secret.

"We have fantastic players," he said. "If you didn't have Chris Leak and Tim Tebow and Dallas Baker, I wouldn't be sitting here right now. It is certainly not the coaches. I have a terrific staff, but this is all about the players. I have been very fortunate."

Meyer recruited Smith, Ginn

When he was the head coach at Bowling Green, Meyer recruited Troy Smith and Ted Ginn Jr.

"They were a little better than Bowling Green," Meyer said. "They were both in our camp and Troy Smith was a guy that was under the radar for a long time. I know Troy very well and watched him grow up as a player."

Dinner with friends

Meyer and his family had dinner with the OSU coaches Thursday night, including secondary coach Tim Beckman, who was on Meyer's staff at Bowling Green.

"Our wives got together. I think our kids are getting together today," Meyer said. "I love Tim. Tim is a very close friend.

"I looked around (at dinner) and knew every one of the coaches. I knew their football operations guy."


Contact Robbie Andreu at 374-5022 or andreur@gvillesun.com.

[azuquita8]

With a win, Gators — shudder — will rule us all

By Mark Bradley | Saturday, January 6, 2007, 08:42 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Glendale, Ariz. — Florida, the reigning basketball national champion, can win the football national championship Monday night. No school has ever held concurrent ownership of the two biggest collegiate titles. Woe unto everybody else — Georgia fans and us neutrals alike — if it happens now. Florida has always acted as if it owns the world. If the Gators are champs in the two sports that matter most, won’t it mean they do own the world?

“Pretty much,” said Max Starks, the Pittsburgh Steelers lineman who stopped by his former school’s practice Saturday. “It would mean the Gators definitely have the edge on everyone athletically.”

Granted, there are Florida fans who aren’t insufferable. They, alas, number in single digits. And it would be different if Southern Cal or Wisconsin or some other distant school did the double because fans of those programs tend to keep their distance. Florida borders on our fair state and sends a massive number of its infernal grads across the border. And Florida, as we know, has come to own Georgia in the two major sports.

Florida is already too close for comfort. Now imagine if Florida topples Ohio State.

Jeff Dantzler has. He’s part of the Georgia basketball broadcast team and a columnist for the magazine Bulldawg Illustrated. He spoke Saturday from, of all places, Gainesville, Fla., where the hated Gators were about to beat Georgia in basketball for the sixth time in succession.

Dantzler confessed to being torn, if only slightly, about the BCS title game. “There’s a part of me that knows it would be nice for our conference,” he said. And how big a part is that? One measly corpuscle? “It’s about 5-1 [against Florida].”

Some schools can win without leaving an aftertaste. Florida is not such a school. No, it hasn’t been caught cheating in recruiting lately, but the Gators have such inherent advantages — academics, facilities, fan base, state population, even the bloomin’ weather — that they don’t need to bend rules to ruffle feathers. Said Dantzler: “They’ve definitely got a swagger. Some would call it arrogance.”

Well, yes. Steve Spurrier played and coached there. Rex Grossman smirked there. Dwayne Schintzius grew hair there. Of all the qualities that can be ascribed to Gator Nation, humility would be at the bottom of the list.

To wit: When a correspondent offered congratulations immediately after Florida’s basketball championship, here was athletics director Jeremy Foley’s magnanimous response: “Now take back all that [stuff] you’ve been writing.” (And this to the only columnist in the world who defended Foley after he hired Ron Zook.)

Part of the dislike for the Gators, Dantzler suggested, has been “the deep-down fear of how good they could become.” Sure enough, here they are, holders of a powerfully won basketball title and no worse than a touchdown underdog against unbeaten Ohio State. Going beyond Monday night, Dantzler looks to Oct. 27, 2007: “It would be gut-wrenching walking into Jacksonville with them having won 15 of the last 17 [Georgia-Florida games] and having them do the Gator Chomp and wave two national championship rings in our face.”

But the indignity of continual Gator coronations could hit home even before that. There’s a good chance Florida could become the first school in 15 years to stack basketball titles back to back, and if the football team wins in the desert the hoop Gators could, come April, be going not for a mere double but for a triple in, of all places, the Georgia Dome.

Said Starks: “That would be a great day if we could run the trifecta.”

Great for him, yes. Great for all Gators, sure. Gut-wrenching for everybody else.

[azuquita8]

Meyer's A Master Rebuilder
He's taken three programs and lifted them to new heights.

By KYLE NAGEL
Cox News Service


In Urban Meyer's first game as a head football coach, running back Joe Alls scored a 2-yard touchdown with 3:40 left as Bowling Green upset host Missouri 20-13 on Sept. 1, 2001.

To understand the significance of the victory, one had to know the recent football history at this dormant Mid-American Conference program. The Falcons hadn't had a winning season since 1994 and were 21-45 in the previous six seasons. In 2000, they lost their three nonconference games by a combined score of 107-37 and finished the season 2-9.

It was a major victory for the program and Meyer, the 36-year-old former Ohio State, Illinois State, Colorado State and Notre Dame assistant who was a gamble hire as the second-youngest coach in NCAA Division I-A.

In the six seasons since, Meyer has won 83 percent of his games and has gained a reputation as perhaps the brightest young coach in football.

His specialty has been turning sub-par teams into winners, which he has accomplished with remarkable consistency. Bowling Green, Utah and Florida were a combined 95-80 in the five seasons before Meyer's arrival. In six seasons with Meyer, they have won 60 of 72 games.

Now as the coach at Florida, Meyer prepares his first team for a national championship game. An analysis of the programs he has inherited - two of which weren't known much for football - shows that Meyer, whether it is because he is a gifted teacher or shrewd delegater, has displayed the magical ability to take a struggling program and make it one of the country's hottest.

"I think every football coach has that goal of being a head football coach and taking your team to the national championship," said Tim Beckman, the Ohio State cornerbacks coach who was a member of Meyer's Bowling Green staff and is a longtime friend. "He's just taken the fast track."

Quick turnarounds

In his second season at Bowling Green, Meyer opened with a 41-7 win against Tennessee Tech before consecutive victories against Missouri (51-28) and Kansas (39-16), two of the five Bowl Championship Series conference teams he defeated in two seasons in northwestern Ohio.

The Falcons officially were resurrected. With that job finished, Meyer moved on to Utah, considered a curious job choice because of its relative obscurity in the college football consciousness. The Utes were 33-24 in their previous five seasons, but few national fans could name one of their players.

Utah had been a Division I-A program only since 1978 and was 161-157 in football's top tier before Meyer's arrival. It was perhaps best known for giving Jim Fassel, the future NFL coach, his first head position in 1985.

Two seasons later, Meyer's Utah teams had won 22 of 24 games. He fielded one of the best non-BCS conference teams in history when the Utes went 12-0 in 2002 and destroyed Pittsburgh 35-7 in the Fiesta Bowl.

As a hot hire, most expected Meyer to take the vacant head coaching position at Notre Dame, where he had been wide receivers coach from 1996-2000. But he spurned South Bend for Gainesville, taking over a Florida program that had finished an unacceptable 7-5 in 2004, which led to the firing of Ron Zook.

Two seasons later, Florida is 21-4 under Meyer, including 12-1 this season with a Southeastern Conference championship and a spot in the national title game against Ohio State.

At each stop, Meyer has almost immediately changed the mentality of his players with hard-core conditioning and a demanding attitude.

"The main thing is to be accountable to your teammates and be the best leader you can," Florida quarterback Chris Leak said of Meyer's message. "You have to be able to reach out to guys and communicate to guys, help them be their best."

Intensity, energy

Beckman has known Meyer since both were college players. From the University of Kentucky and then Tiffin, Beckman viewed Meyer, the University of Cincinnati defensive back, as an intense competitor. His suspicions were confirmed when Meyer retained him on the Bowling Green staff upon his arrival in 2001.

"He's always on the move, a lot like coach (OSU coach Jim) Tressel is," Beckman said. "He does a great job of managing his football team, which is the same tribute you can give to coach Tressel. They're always trying to find new ways their teams can be successful."

With Florida, that means one of the country's best defenses, even though Meyer's traditionally powerful offense hasn't met that reputation with this season's Gators.

If Florida beats the Buckeyes, who are 7 1/2-point favorites, Meyer will become the seventh coach to win a national championship in his first or second season at a school. Two of those - Paul Brown in 1942 and Tressel in 2002 - have come from Ohio State. The rest of that group includes Bennie Oosterbaan (Michigan), Barry Switzer (Oklahoma), Bob Stoops (Oklahoma) and Larry Coker (Miami).

It's impressive company for Meyer, the sixth-year head coach who has yet to win fewer than eight games in a season.

"He's had good experiences and he has paid attention while he was in those experiences, and then he has taken what he has learned and what he thought he liked or didn't like and has made a program that would embrace the past but would build the creative future," Tressel said. "It's been impressive to me."

[azuquita8]

Updated: Jan. 7, 2007, 11:44 AM ET
Unconventional attack focuses on creating mismatches
By Pat Forde
ESPN.com


PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz. -- In college football, conventional wisdom rules. It isn't quite undefeated -- see Boise State's gadgetmania gambit to win the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl -- but it has built up a healthy winning percentage since the leather helmet days.

Coaches go against conventional wisdom at their own risk, and usually with great reluctance. But the unconventional wisdom of Urban Meyer has helped the Florida Gators to the cusp of a national championship.

Conventional wisdom said -- OK, screamed, over and over -- that you cannot win big in the fast, physical Southeastern Conference with a finesse offense like the spread option. Unconventional Urban and his much-mocked offense went 12-1, and the Gators own the league's hardware for 2006.

Conventional wisdom said if you say you have two quarterbacks, you really have none. Unconventional Urban played both Chris Leak and Tim Tebow with great effectiveness and no internal strife all season.

Urban Meyer's unconventional approach has the Gators one win from celebrating a national title.Conventional wisdom said if you can't count on a bell-cow running back to make hay between the tackles, you're dead. Unconventional Urban has cobbled together a 2,000-yard rushing attack that features six non-running backs among the team's top nine rushers, and nobody has run for more than 630 yards in 13 games.

There is by the book, and then there is defy the book. Meyer is boldly embracing the latter.

"He's not afraid to go against the grain," receiver Andre "Bubba" Caldwell said. "He's a risk-taker, and he's making a living right now doing it. He's doing things other coaches are scared to do."

Fear of failure tends to be a powerful inhibitor of creativity in football, and perhaps no place is that more true than in the SEC. Coaching conservatism is as prevalent as kudzu. Meyer can devise a game plan that's heavy on smashmouth and light on risk at times, but he's clearly not scared to think outside the box.

And this is one barbed-wire box.

His spread offense was doubted and derided by SEC elitists from the moment Meyer left Utah for Florida in December 2004. When the Gators struggled to score points in high-profile SEC games last season, the Pat Dye cultists only grew more contemptuous.

Misdirection and quarterback runs from the shotgun formation were not going to work, they said. You can't win in this league without plenty of fullback and the use of multiple tight ends to muscle up the running game.

"We heard that a million times," Caldwell said. "Everyone I knew said, 'This offense ain't gonna work. This ain't Utah. There's too much speed.' "

Caldwell looked around the stands at University of Phoenix Stadium, site of Florida's Tostitos BCS National Championship matchup with Ohio State Monday night.

"Well," he said, "look where we are now."


"He's not afraid to go against the grain. He's a risk-taker, and he's making a living right now doing it. He's doing things other coaches are scared to do."
-- WR Andre Caldwell on Urban MeyerHere's where they are now statistically: the Gators are second in the league and 19th nationally in total offense, spitting out 398 yards and 29 points per game. While running the spread.
"I haven't heard [the criticism] much this year," Meyer said with a small smile Friday. "Quite a bit in the past."

Last year Meyer made some concessions to the hard truths of the SEC. He and his staff tweaked the offense after losing to LSU.

He moved former fullback Billy Latsko back to that position after exiling him to linebacker and added some more multiple-tight-end formations. He also demanded less of Leak running the ball, something he clearly was uncomfortable doing.

"They changed the offense a little bit to mold it around Chris, and it really helped," center Steve Rissler said.

This year, with the addition of RoboTebow as a glorified single wing fullback and Percy Harvin as a misdirection home-run threat, Florida has been able to run something closer to the original offense. It's still not the same spread Alex Smith ran so dazzlingly for Meyer at Utah in 2004, but the '06 Gators have performed a reasonable facsimile. At times.

"I think it's worked because the offense has changed a little bit," receiver Jemalle Cornelius said. "I think having the playmakers we have this year versus last year has let us use more of the spread that coach Meyer wanted to use originally. We've been able to get the matchups we like."

Matchups, the Gators say, is what the Meyer offense is all about. Isolate your playmakers against someone a step slower, then get 'em the ball.

"What we try to do is create mismatches," offensive coordinator Dan Mullen said. "Spread the field and see who they're singling up, and who they're not accounting for. The more weapons you can put out there on the field, who can make big plays with the ball in their hands, the harder you are to defend."

Urban Meyer sold Chris Leak, Tim Tebow and the team on a two-QB arrangement.Which is one reason why Tim Tebow was exactly what Florida needed. The turbo-stud true freshman made the quarterback position a much more immediate running threat, which is the biggest reason why Meyer and Mullen rewarded him with his own package of plays. Having a 235-pound battering ram at your disposal in the red zone and other short-yardage situations is a great luxury.

But even if Tebow's on-field presence made sense strategically, it didn't make much sense theoretically. You're seriously going to yank a four-year starter on several occasions and replace him with a 19-year-old, at the one position where continuity has historically been paramount? Do the words "quarterback controversy" mean anything to you guys?

"Without two unselfish people, that would have been a problem," Meyer said. "And it was a great situation to have all year."

Said Mullen: "I just think people look from the outside and think there must be tension. Well, there's not. Chris has never stormed into my office and said, 'On fourth-and-one I demand to run the iso up the middle.'"

That's where the two QBs are such effective complementary parts, in terms of personality and skill set. Leak hates to put his head down and pound for yardage; his strengths skew more to reading defenses and delivering pinpoint throws. Tebow, meanwhile, seems to have a physical need for a violent collision every few minutes.

But credit Meyer for selling both players -- and the entire locker room -- on this most unique quarterback arrangement.

While we're at it, credit Unconventional Urban with also finding a way to run the football without a hang-your-hat running back. DeShawn Wynn is the starter but hardly the only answer, rushing for fewer than 50 yards per game. Leak and Tebow have combined to run the ball 29 times more than Wynn.

Florida has compensated brilliantly for its running back issues by using wide receivers (Percy Harvin, Jarred Fayson, Caldwell and Cornelius) on reverses and even taking direct snaps. Those four have run the ball 72 times, helping keep defensive ends, outside linebackers and cornerbacks at home instead of collapsing on the de facto ball carrier.

Thus the Gators running game has become an unpredictable entity. Where will they hit a defense, and how? Wynn off tackle? Harvin on a reverse? Tebow rampaging up the middle?

"You say, 'We're not going to use a tailback?' " Mullen said. "Well, that's OK. We'll let Tebow run it, get Percy Harvin to make some plays, punt and let our defense do its thing, and we'll be OK."

OK is an understatement. Florida is 60 minutes from the national title, having gotten here the unconventional way.


Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.

[azuquita8]

GATORS WIN! GATORS WIN! 41- 14

By ANDREW BAGNATO
AP Sports Writer

GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) - The BCS championship game started almost too easily for Ohio State.

The No. 1 Buckeyes sprinted to a 7-0 lead after speedster Ted Ginn Jr. returned the opening kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown, a first in the BCS title game.

That created a false sense of superiority that quickly disappeared Monday night in a humiliating 41-14 loss to No. 2 Florida.

It was Ohio State's worst defeat since Penn State drubbed the Buckeyes 63-14 on Oct. 29, 1994.

This was a new experience for these Buckeyes, who rolled to a 12-0 regular-season record, outscoring opponents by an average of 26 points.

After Ginn Jr.'s touchdown, almost everything went wrong for Ohio State on college football's biggest stage.

Ginn Jr. got hurt and spent most of the game on the sideline, his left foot in a black boot.

The Buckeyes committed first-quarter personal fouls on a kickoff and a punt, giving the Gators possession in Ohio State territory. Florida converted those mistakes into 14 quick points.

Florida also turned two errors by Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith _ an interception and fumbling deep in his territory _ into touchdowns.

Even Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, known for playing it close to his sweater vest, stumbled. He went for it on fourth-and-1 at his own 29 late in the first half. Backup tailback Chris Wells was stopped short of the marker, and four plays later Florida's Chris Hetland hit a 40-yard field goal to make it 27-14.

The Buckeyes were never in the game again.

[azuquita8]

Destined to be great: Success signals start of new era

By JACK STRIPLING
Sun staff writer


GLENDALE, ARIZ. — The road to Glendale was paved with narrow victories and inspiring human stories that tugged at the heart, culminating in a BCS National Championship that marked a new era in Gator football Monday night.

Just getting to Glendale suggested the official end of the Steve Spurrier era in Gainesville. While coach Urban Meyer still has much to do before he'll be mentioned in the same breath as the Ol' Ball Coach, he has taken a step outside of Spurrier's long shadow and resuscitated a university and a community that have embraced him as the key to their collective futures. Ron Zook, though beloved by players, never shook the Spurrier ghost, and Gator fans have in some ways been in a holding pattern ever since the man in the visor left town. Gators have been looking for a leader, and they've finally found one in Urban Meyer.

To steal a political phrase, it's morning in Gator Nation. For fans here, the victory Monday night is only further sweetened with the knowledge that anything seems possible today. The Gators are back.

"We got a really good recruiting class this last year; we're going to get another really good one," said Justin Parsons, a 21-year-old UF senior. "I think it's a rebirth whatever way you look at it."

As I drove across the country last week, reporting on the influence of UF across the nation, the theme of rebirth was constant. Former Gator Quarterback Danny Wuerffel's ministry is working to rebuild hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. A team of young UF graduates I interviewed in Austin, Texas spoke of a new era for the Gators on the football field. And fans here in Glendale told me often that they believed the Gators were on the verge of reclaiming the glory days of the 1990s.

In addition to a second national championship, the Gators have left fans with compelling human stories that made this team what it was. The story of Chris Leak, who ended his Gator career Monday with those two elusive rings finally on his fingers, has been a lesson in dignity.

Gator fans' respect for Leak came in no small part due to how he dealt with the new kid in town. As fans developed a schoolgirl-style crush on Tim Tebow, Leak never showed any public misgivings about sharing the spotlight. Instead, he retained his quiet grace, literally embracing Tebow after his first touchdown this season.

Gary Martin, a 57-year-old Gainesville resident, grew misty eyed in the halls of the University of Phoenix Stadium on Monday as he spoke of Leak's season before the game.

"I think there should be some kind of award for the maturity of him accepting Tebow and all that," said Martin, his voice cracking. "I love coming to football games; I love to see us win, but it seems like to me he's really been an example for all of us. I really feel strongly about it."

Martin expressed equal admiration for Reggie Nelson, the tenacious free safety who just weeks ago buried his mother and placed his jersey inside her coffin. Thinking of Nelson, Martin paused, and then spoke of the affections he has for this team as a whole — a team nobody thought would make it this far.

"We've come through a dark period where we didn't have much hope," Martin said. "Now, the future is ours."

Football's future looks bright for Gator Nation.