So much for the afterglow — final notes and thoughts on UK's 41-7 loss to UF

In a way, the Taylor Wyndham hit on Tim Tebow was a blessing in disguise as it took the focus off the 31-7 shellacking UK was receiving and put it solely on “The Hit”. Most casual football fans would not even raise an eyebrow at the 41-7 score over UK, because UF crushing UK in football is, sadly, a given and a fact of being a Wildcat fan.

For the second straight season however, UK gave a great assist to Florida, gift wrapping this game for them before the first stanza was half way over. We could blame and point fingers all around on this Sunday, there certainly are more than enough targets. I certainly have targeted my reasons for the blowout loss and have thoroughly lambasted them in conversations with other Cat fans, and to be honest, putting my thoughts and criticisms out on the web and attacking certain personnel would be more counter productive and really would only serve as “piling on” at this point. I started this blog as a true blue UK fan blog and while I doubt that many of the actual Wildcats view this page, I am not going to throw any student athletes under the bus.

UK coach Rich Brooks has kind of publicly fallen on his sword for this loss and tried to take most of the blame. That said, redemption is just six days away for Rich Brooks and staff as another national power, Alabama, comes to town this weekend. The one positive thing to say about Brooks and to remember is that UK has in fact been very competitive against the traditional SEC powers not named Florida. And to be honest, even the traditional SEC powers have not been that good against Florida. I fully expect UK to put up a fight against Alabama next week. Here is how UK has fared against other “traditional” SEC powers the last few seasons:

• 11/4/2006 – W – Georgia 24-20
• 11/25/2006 – L- Tennessee 12-17
• 10/13/2007 – W – LSU 43-40
• 11/17/2007 – L – Georgia 13-24
• 11/24/2007 – L – Tennessee 50-52
• 10/4/2008 – L – Alabama 14-17
• 11/8/2008 – L – Georgia 38-42
• 11/29/2008 – L – Tennessee 10-28

While there are more losses here that I would like to see, you have to realize that the days of UK becoming an automatic win are far from over. The fact that UK is just a total of 17 points from being 6-2 against these teams is truly eye opening. Let’s put the Florida loss behind us and move on.

It’s official. Without any shadow of a doubt, Urban Meyer is a douche-bag. Up 31-7 in the first half and UK pinned deep in their own territory, Meyer called not one, but two timeouts with less than :25 seconds left in an attempt to get another block and quick score off a possible blocked punt or to get the ball back in good position for a quick score before the half. Then in the 4th quarter, with the score 34-7, Meyer went for a 4th and 2 from the UK 29 rather than attempt an easily makeable 46 yard FG.

And Gator fans, please don’t give me the old “UF needs to run up the score because we will be screwed by the BCS” argument. Gator fans need to get a grip. The BCS is set up to benefit Florida now. So chill out, Urban. You are not at Bowling Green or Utah where that argument may seem valid. Your team is solidly ranked number 1 despite beating lesser teams Charleston Southern, Troy, and then big underdog UT by just 10 points. Even if Florida loses to LSU, they will fall no further than 6th or 7th in the next poll and still have a great opportunity to repeat. Hell, LSU won a national title despite losing twice in 2007. In reality, the BCS is so flawed that maybe 8 teams are going to have a realistic shot at winning those national titles each year, and you are in the “in” group right now so relax, you can even beat Florida International 14-13 and not lose your number #1 rating.

I really don’t care but I wonder if some Gator fans are going to question your logic of even playing Tim Tebow in a 31-7 lead when from all pregame accounts, he was seriously ill and probably had to check himself out of ICU to make it to the stadium. George Diaz of the Orlando Sentinel said Tebow needed two IV’s before the game. But you’re not my problem. I don’t have to go into Death Valley in two weeks wishing I had gotten John Brantley more playing time earlier in the season rather than padding Tebow’s stats.

I know it’s a short “thoughts and notes” for this week, but rather dwell on the negative or try to cherry coat some stats to make it look like UK had a better week, let’s just try to put this week behind us.

Face it, no UK fan, no matter how loyal they are had picked this game as a win, so UK is right where we thought they would be at this point in the season: at 2-1. Let’s not perform unnecessary handwringing at the loss to the number 1 team in the country and instead put our thoughts and positive energies toward a better performance against Alabama.

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