Through the first 97 minutes of Florida’s football season, Gators fans had little reason to be optimistic.
Florida was locked in a 7-7 battle with South Florida, a team that started playing college football 14 years ago, in the second game of the season after defeating Miami (Ohio), a team coming off a one-win year, by the embarrassing score of 34-12 at home.
The offensive line looked suspect at best — comically dreadful at worst. Deonte Thompson already dropped two balls, John Brantley showed little of his promised passing prowess and the kicking game made more than 90,000 people hold their collective breath.
In a sport where opinions are formed, cemented, changed and re-cemented with every snap, it was entirely possible that anyone tuned into Saturday’s game at 2 p.m. would’ve thought the Gators were the worst BCS team in the state of Florida.
Then Jeff Demps broke a 62-yard run to put UF ahead 14-7. The floodgates opened shortly thereafter and the Gators cruised to a 38-14 victory.
And if the best half of football Florida has played all season wasn’t enough to make fans feel better heading into Southeastern Conference play, intra-state rivals Miami and Florida State crapped the bed in road games against Ohio State and Oklahoma late in the afternoon. (To say the Seminoles crapped the bed is like saying John Mayer does OK with women, but I can’t think of the next level up.)
In a few short hours, the Gators were once again the undisputed kings of Florida — even if that only lasts until they take on Alabama in three weeks.
Saturday was a great example of how fast a knee-jerk reaction can be proven wrong, especially with UF still forming an identity after replacing so many players from a year ago.
Last season, the Gators were supposed to win the national championship. They had won the year before, returned every meaningful contributor from that team except for Percy Harvin, and were led by a former Heisman Trophy winner and one of the best players in college football history.
If the 2009 Gators had a bad half — or beat Arkansas and Mississippi State by a combined 13 points in back-to-back weeks — the media and fans were quick to panic and demand more.
It didn’t matter if the end result was a win because winning wasn’t good enough.
The team needed to look like future champions or the season simply wasn’t heading down the expected path.
But this year’s team isn’t last year’s team, and the 2010 version shouldn’t be held to the same standard.
These Gators needed time to jell before the conference season started. Thanks to the way Florida stomped Charleston Southern 62-3 and Hawaii 56-10 in the last two season openers, lost in those first 97 minutes of sloppy football was the fact that UF hands these overmatched teams a fat check to play in The Swamp for a reason: If the Gators were forced to work the kinks out against respectable foes, they just might lose.
From here on out, winning is enough for this team.
No matter how unsatisfied Gators fans might feel with the first two results, it could be worse — a lot worse.
Just ask Miami and Florida State fans.
