It was a relatively quiet week for Florida cornerback Jalen Tabor.
There was no football game to play in, no pass to intercept, no receiver to hit in the backfield on a bubble screen. So the corner was silent.
Until you glanced at his Twitter.
Like most of UF’s players, he was petitioning for Saturday’s postponed football game to be played and retweeting others’ remarks on the Gators’ missed chance at a conference matchup. Some of his retweets included: “We supposed to be playin right now bro!” and “LSU VS UF needs to be reschedule I don’t care if we play in somebody back yard.”
On Tuesday, Tabor finally received the chance to break his week-long media silence. And even though he spoke in a voice barely louder than a whisper, as is the norm for the confident junior corner, his words carried a tone that was anything but hushed.
“They think we skipped out of LSU. They think we got blown out by Tennessee. They think we ain’t smashed Vanderbilt like we were supposed (to),” Tabor said. “UMass hung around. That’s probably the perception they think.”
“They” are the critics. The critics who condemned last week’s decision made by the Southeastern Conference regarding Florida’s home game against LSU.
In case you’ve been living under a sports rock for the last few days, the game was postponed due to Hurricane Matthew, and a reschedule date has not been announced and doesn’t seem likely. In fact, LSU athletic director Joe Alleva told reporters on Monday that it would “be very difficult to reschedule this game.”
So, let’s play this out.
Let’s say Florida’s game against LSU doesn’t get rescheduled.
Let’s say No. 18 Florida finishes its conference schedule undefeated, which isn’t much of a stretch considering UF’s remaining SEC games include a home matchup with 2-3 Missouri, a neutral site game with 4-2 Georgia, a road game against No. 22-ranked Arkansas (4-2) and a home game versus 2-4 South Carolina.
Let’s also say No. 9 Tennessee — the only other legitimate challenger to Florida’s claim at an SEC East crown, and the only team that handed UF a loss this season — finishes out its schedule with one more conference loss, presumably at home against No. 1 Alabama this weekend.
That means, come December, some unlucky dude sweating through his suit whilst sitting in an uncomfortable chair at the SEC headquarters will have a difficult decision to make. Either send Florida, a team with only one conference loss, to the SEC title game, or send Tennessee, the team with two SEC losses but which beat Florida earlier this season.
Ooh boy.
What the hell happens then?
Of course, the SEC may never have to deal with this mess.
Florida may lose all of its remaining SEC games. Tennessee may finally unseat Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide this Saturday and take over the college football throne as the best team in America. UT quarterback Josh Dobbs may win the Heisman. Backup UF running back Mark Thompson may reach his preseason goal of 1,000 yards by the bye week. Donald Trump may become president.
But all of those things, as interesting as they would make the next few months, will definitely not happen. Instead, the likeliest scenario is the one where the SEC has a messy controversy on its hands. One where either Tennessee or Florida gets extremely pissed off because, while both of their resumes scream SEC-Championship-Game eligibility, only one is allowed in.
Good luck sorting that mess out, SEC.
Ian Cohen is the sports editor. Contact him at icohen@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @icohenb.
Jalen Tabor (31) claps before walking out of the tunnel at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium during Florida's 33-0 win over North Texas on Sept. 17, 2016.
