Florida Vandy Preview and Prediction

The Florida Gators are set to host the Vanderbilt Commodores this Saturday November 7 at 7:15 PM on ESPN.  The Gators defense will take the field without defensive leader Brandon Spikes for the eye gouging incident in the Florida Georgia game and taking a full game suspension so the team can focus on the game rather than the media blowing the incident out of proportion.  He’s sorry, he knows it wasn’t right, now let’s get over it.

Vandy takes the field at a very impressive 2 – 7 while maintaining winless in the SEC at 0 – 5.  It’s kind of hard to win games when your starting QB has only thrown 4 TD’s all year while throwing 7 INT’s.  Larry Smith is under 50% for completion percentage this year and rocks a solid 88 QB rating.  I think it’s safe to say that Brandon Spikes sitting this one out will not affect us in the least bit.

Tim Tebow picked up a little bit last week against Georgia in the throwing game and I think you’ll see a quick gun slinging offense this week against a Vandy defense that allowed a Georgia Tech team to put up 56 against them.  Their low scoring games were against teams like Mississippi State and Army.  So don’t worry Gator Nation, we should see a good show of fireworks this Saturday as well as see Brantley get some action in the 2nd half.

Brantley has an amazing 73.3 completion percentage with 4 touchdowns on the year putting his QB rating at a whopping 182.3.  Obviously with more time in there and more throws it would be diluted a little bit and closer to Tim’s rating (153.7) and stats.

I don’t think you need a crystal ball to see that I’m picking the Gators to win like old in this game.  Gators 52 – Vandy – 16

Urban Meyer Wednesday Post Press Conference

(Video on Title Town FL) In Urban Meyer’s post practice conference all signs indicate John Brantley will be taking the stage in Baton Rouge on Saturday against the undefeated Tigers.  Urban feels comfortable with Brantley and how he’s been hitting the WR’s in practice.  Even if cleared to play Saturday morning, Tim Tebow is not likely to start and possibly not play at all.

More bad news for the Gators as Matt Patchen has an ACL injury that will put him out for the season.  Urban will be pushing for a medical redshirt to give him 3 more years of playing time.

LSU Fans Doing Phone Pranks Again

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The original and oh so clever LSU Tiger fans are at it again… calling and texting… but this time John Brantley and Riley Cooper.  If you don’t recall, LSU fans did the same to Tim Tebow back in 2007.  After Tim Tebow scored a touchdown against LSU he made the motion of dialing on his hand and using his hand as a phone to show it didn’t affect him.  Brantley isn’t alone though, wide receiver Riley Cooper has been getting calls too.

Brantley has said his phone hasn’t stopped ringing.

Asked how he responds to the calls, Brantley said: “I don’t. I just ignore, put it down.” The calls “haven’t been bad. It’s just a little annoying,” Brantley said.

“They (also) text,” he said.

“It’s pretty bad,” cornerback Joe Haden said. “They had my boy, Coop. They got him pretty good. . . . I don’t know about Brantley, I was chillin’ with Coop and they were getting him. He was just laughing about it.”

Frankly I’m surprised that the LSU fans could put down their corn dogs long enough to make a phone call.  I mean do you honestly think it’s going to work.  Especially if the players stop answering the calls and just ignoring the texts… the purpose of your call is meaningless then.  All I have to finish with is:

LSU BLEAUXS

What We Need to See from John Brantley

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In Saturday’s game the entire Gator Nation simultaneously held their breath when their beloved Tim Tebow went to the ground and did not get right back up as he has done so many times in the past.  At first it looked like his illness had gotten the best of him and he had the breath knocked out of him as many of his teammates thought.

It became apparent soon after that it wasn’t just a hit that knocked the wind out of him.  Tim Tebow took a hard knee to the back of the head on the way down and obtained a concussion.  John Brantley was called to finish the game which brings me to the point of this blog post.  We need to see some serious improvement from John Brantley.

Urban Meyer has said he will get a lot of snaps this season but we haven’t seen him play on the big stage and the game definitely changed pace when Brantley came in.  Florida was up 31 – 7 when John Brantley entered early into the 3rd quarter.    The game ended with a final score of 41 – 7.

There is definitely a difference in our offense without Tim Tebow.  We need to find an offense that doesn’t rely so heavy on Tim or otherwise we will be in a world of pain when we enter into next year’s season without him.  Tim is great and arguably one of the best QB’s in college football history but he will be gone next year, there’s no going around that.

We need Brantley to move into this spot seamlessly and at the rate we’re looking right now, we won’t have that transition that will be needed.  Urban Meyer has said that Brantley will get snaps this year but we haven’t seen him take snaps when the game mattered.  And for that matter, we haven’t seen Tebow take snaps under center as Meyer stated either.

I know it’s about winning the game and getting back to the SEC Championship and ultimately National Championship, but let’s not forget about where we will be next year.  Get our other QB ready to step in and win games for us.