After complaining loudly and openly that Ole Miss illegally blocked the Gators’ potential game-tying extra point last Saturday (and sending tapes to the SEC office), Urban Meyer now admits that a blocking breakdown led to the block… not a high-hurdling Rebel defender. 

“Fundamentally we had an error in the protection.  We just worked all day (Sunday) on it.  Not all day, but we had a very lenghty time to get that corrected.”

The Gators also had a team meeting on Sunday in which a few players got up and spoke their mind regarding the loss to the Rebels.

“You’ve got to get around them when you still have that bad taste in your mouth.  Myself and some others had some things on their chest.  If you have something to say, let’s say it.”



Despite gaining about 450 yards and scoring 30 points last week, Pat Dooley of The Gainesville Sun believes it’s time to unshackle Tim Tebow.  In his view, the effort to make Tebow more of a pocket passer and less of a scrambler takes away one of the most dangerous dimensions to Tebow’s game: his running ability.

Speaking of Tebow, Meyer defended his 4th-and-one up-the-middle play call at the end of Florida’s 31-30 loss.  “Tim’s our best short-yard runner right now.  Our next guy is 210 pounds.  Tim is our best opportunity to get that first down.”

Tebow, play-calling, etc.  This looks like a bigger worry to me: Florida continues to lose players to injuries, especially along the offensive line.  “We’re down.  I think we’ve got eight starters out. That’s a tough deal.”  Considering how many Gators went down in pre-season camp, it’s an almost insurmountable deal.

Jeremy Fowler of The Orlando Sentinel took note of the fact that Nick Saban mentioned Florida by name on ESPN following his team’s win over Georgia.  Saban said if a team isn’t prepared in the SEC, they’ll lose like Florida did to Ole Miss.  Sorry, but that doesn’t sound like too big of a shot to me.  Sounds like he was giving the latest example of a team that wasn’t prepared on a given week.  Knowing that Saban talks about this constantly, it’s hard for me to think this was a verbal dagger aimed at the heart of Meyer.

Enough about the past, let’s look ahead.  The Sun provides a thumbnail scouting report of the Gators’ next opponent, Arkansas, right here.

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