Passes and Picks

How to keep fans away from the games

The University Athletic Association, UAA (warning:music), at UF apparently decided in recent months that they no longer wanted student fans at football and basketball games, starting with the Georgia game.

Instead of allowing students with season tickets to call into the G.A.T.O.R.S. phone system to request tickets to the Georgia game, this year they allowed all students to simply register online at my.ufl.edu (which I pronounce "my yoo-flee-do") for a drawing for the tickets. This system would allow all students an equal chance at getting a ticket to the game, which would be much fairer, the UAA said.

That simply is not the case. Many students entered their names in the drawing that otherwise would not have tried to get tickets. Many of those who won tickets did not actually want to attend the game and then sold the tickets at inflated prices.

As if this were not bad enough, the UAA announced that they would use this same system for student season tickets next year, barring any problems with the Georgia game. I'm almost glad I won't be a student next football season so I won't have to buy tickets off of scalping students who have no interest in football.

The UAA is also using their "my yoo-flee-do" system for Gator basketball games. In a complicated process outlined by the UAA, students will have to register in advance, eliminating the chance to decide to go to a basketball game on the fly. Students will also not be allowed to camp out for seats in the Rowdy Reptiles section in a tent city known as Billyberg, after head coach Billy Donovan.

Camping out in Billyberg is a tradition many students have known for the past four or five years. I know I have made many friends while sleeping on a lawn chair under a tarp outside of the O-Dome the last three seasons in a camp rivaled only by Duke's Cameron Crazies.

In a letter to the editor of the Independent Florida Alligator, Donovan said students will no longer have to "worry about standing in line for hours in hopes of getting a seat."

I've been in that line for hours and even days on many occasions, and never heard any complaining.

There aren't enough student tickets to go around for football or basketball games, this I understand. What the UAA doesn't seem to understand is that they should reward those willing to camp out, or stay on a phone for hours calling with tickets. Randomly giving tickets will only create a large scalper's market, and randomly allowing students into the O-Dome will only put the rowdiest of reptiles back in the cheap seats.

The student ticket system had its flaws, but it worked: if a student wanted tickets badly enough, he could get them before. It doesn't look like that will be the case any more, unless that student has more than $100 for a Georgia ticket. 

Waiting for the Dawgs

Two weeks ago, the Gators were looking at a tough three-game road stint against LSU, Arkansas and Georgia. The three ranked SEC teams looked so ominous on the schedule, glaring down from their spots in the top 15.

So Florida marched into Death Valley and tamed the Tigers.

One week later they flew all the way to Northern Arkansas to wrestle down some Hogs.

And now they get to make the short drive to Jacksonville to take on the Dawgs. Next week, that is.

Yup, the Gators have a bye this week and get to hang out in Gainesville for the weekend.

I love Gainesville this time of year. The temperature has dropped to a comfortable level for the first time in months. There's a slight lull in classes that comes right after midterms. Billy D is getting the basketball team ready for the second sport's season in Gainesville. Its a great time to be here.

But this is not where Chris Leak, Keiwan Ratliff and Ben Troupe need to be right now. They need to be rolling off these wins and headed into the next game.

Bye weeks are great for injured teams, and teams needing to turn their seasons around, but that isn't where the Gators are right now.

Sure, this week will give Ran Carthon and DeShawn Winn a chance to get back to 100 percent, but Ciatrick Fason showed us that we can do fin on the ground without them. And a week off will give Chris Leak more time to watch game film of the Georgia defense, but that isn't where he's lacking.

The Gators have momentum after stringing together back-to-back wins for the first time since last November. They need to take that momentum into Alltel Stadium against the 5th ranked Bulldogs.

Unfortunately we have to wait. Players, coaches and fans alike will sit idle this weekend just waiting for the Cocktail Party.

Hopefully the Gators can get fired up next week and remember the two wins that got them back into the polls. Hopefully they regain that momentum and go into Jacksonville ready to win.

Rest is not what the Gators need right now, but it is what they'll get. Let's hope they can repeat what they did after last year's week off and upset the Dawgs, this year with a shot at the SEC East title. 

What a familiar feeling

While the Gator's win over the Razorbacks on Saturday may have come as a surprise for many, the victory feels very familiar in so many ways.

The win over a highly-ranked SEC West team on the road in a must-win situation sounds difficult, but the Gators have done it two weeks in a row now, after defeating then No. 6 LSU just a week ago.

The strong performance of the defense (at least for 56 minutes) mimicked the performances against LSU and the first three quarters of the Miami game.

A close game on the road in which the Gators just barely eked out a victory? We did that once already against Kentucky.

And we already have a check next to "massive late-game collapse" from week two in the Orange Bowl.

The gators are once again ranked in the top 25 in both polls, something to which all Gator fans are accustomed, after Florida spent every week of Spurrier's tenure ranked.

Zook has managed to coach the team to a mediocre 5-3 record including impressive wins over ranked opponents and disappointing losses at home. I could have written that at this point last year and it would have been true then too.

So what have we learned from all these familiar situations? The answer is a whole lot.

• The Gators are going to a bowl game. There is no way they are losing to both Vandy and South Carolina so the record will be 6-6 at worst, but probably 7-5 or better.
  
  
• Florida still needs to work on its fourth quarter defense. After an impressive complete-game performance against LSU, the Gators once again collapsed late and nearly blew a 26-point lead.
  
  
• Ron Zook is around for at least one more year. AD Jeremy Foley has repeatedly said he needs at least three years to judge Zook's ability and Zook has turned the season around at least to the point that Foley can justify giving him another season. Sorry, FireRonZook.com, he's got at least one more go 'round.
  
  
• I should never fall asleep with six minutes left in a football game, even if your team has a huge lead. (you'd think I'd have learned that from the Bucs two weeks ago).
  

There were a bunch or good points to come out of Saturday's win, and a whole mess of bad ones too.

Leak is looking better, but is still making freshman mistakes. The defense is showing moments of brilliance, but still hasn't quite figured out how to hold on to a lead. Ciatrick Fason looked amazing, but the receiving corps is still unimpressive (with the exception of TE Ben Troupe).

The Gators still can pull out a 10-win season, can win the SEC and can play in a bowl game later than 11 a.m. on New Year's Day. They could also lose to Georgia for the first time since 1997, lose at home to Florida State and end the season with a worse record than their 8-5 mark last year.

The Arkansas and LSU wins were great, but hold judgment on the Gators at least until after the cocktail party. 

Dazed and confused

The Gators are really confusing me this year. Just when I started to count them out for the season, the team that just lost to Ole Miss at home, destroyed then No. 6 LSU in Baton Rouge on Saturday. Let's look at some of the insane things that happened this week:

• The Gator defense held LSU to zero points on offense and only allowed LSU past the 50 yard line once. They forced eight punts, two interceptions, a fumble and stopped a fourth down conversion on the Tigers' 12 possessions. LSU came into the game leading the SEC in offense, by the way.
  
• Chris Leak was sacked six times yet still managed to pass for 229 yards and two touchdowns
  
• Ciatrick Fason, the third-string tailback, rushed seven times for 92 yards after DeShawn Wynn and Ran Carthon were injured early on.
  

Where was this team against Ole Miss? Where was this defense in the second halves of the Tennessee and Miami games? How are the Gators only one game back in the SEC East standings?

This stuff makes my head hurt.

Pat Dooley scores this win to linebacker Channing Crowder's amazing return from knee surgery 11 days earlier.

Baton Rouge Advocate writer Carl Dubois claims it was Nick Saban's focus on the wrong things that did in the Tigers.

Nick Saban blamed himself for the loss and Ron Zook credited the play of his young players.

So how did the Gators upset the Tigers? Play calling.

Zaunbrecher didn't follow up a run up the middle with a run up the middle and then a run up the middle, like he did several ties against Ole Miss. He didn't ask Chris Leak to throw the same pass three times in a row like he did at the end of the Miami game, the third of which resulted in an easy interception.

Vernell Brown didn't have any passing attempts, Gavin Dickey didn't come into the game late and the quarterback wasn't switched out every time the offense got into a rhythym.

The players have been here all season, it's the coaching that was the missing link. Everyone acknowleges that Zook recruited a great class of freshman this year, and several seniors from the 10-2 campaign of 2001 remain.

The question now is whether the Gators can roll off this win and take the same "A" game into Arkansas next week. Can Zook and Zaunbrecher resist changing the formula that actually worked Saturday.

I certainly hope they will, but to be honest, I'm not holding my breath. 

Desperately seeking a Zook supporter

Did you know I started this blog to write all about the Florida Gator Football team? I thought I'd give you links to stories praising the team, and maybe some links to criticisms. I thought I'd write about the long bombs, the first downs, the close games, the blowouts, the rivalries and the ritualistic annual beating of some teams (Vandy, Kentucky, Georgia). I really didn't intend to just funnel traffic to fireronzook.com. I didn't think every post would be another rant. Well, I didn't think the team would be this bad either.

But I've been trying to change. I've been searching this week for someone who disagrees with me. I started with the Internet. Surely there a columnist online who is still rooting for Zook. I'm probably just over reacting because of my love for the Gators and its probably just growing pains. So I looked. And looked. Searched and searched. Google, Yahoo!, Lycos. Nothing. St Pete Times, Gainesville Sun, Tallahassee Democrat. Nothing. ESPN, CBS Sports, Jefferson Pilot. Nothing. No one has anything positive to say.

So I started asking around. Are there any students on the UF campus who are still Zook fans? Out of the five guys spelling out ZOOK! on their chests in his debut Gator game, a whopping zero are still fans of his. Everyone I have talked to in class, at the Reitz Student Union, on the bus and at the bars has the same message. Get Zook out of here. Even my mom doesn't like him, and she likes everyone.

While I might have not found any Zook fans, here is what I did find:

• How do you spell Downfall? Z-O-O-K - A column by St. Petersburg Times sports columnist Gary Shelton calling for Zook's firing. I couldn't have said it better myself.
  
• Pressure on Zook heats up as losing continues - A CBS Sportsline story on the sad state of Gator football. My favorite excerpt: "The Gators still have games at No. 6 LSU, at No. 7 Arkansas, against No. 8 Georgia in Jacksonville and at home against No. 5 Florida State. Barring wins in any of those games, the highlight of the 2003 calendar year will remain Feb. 5, national signing day."
  
• Gator nation left to wonder - Pat Dooley's sobering look at the Zook situation. This one almost made me cry. "It's not going to get better. Zook can talk all he wants about how young this team is, but he is also the one who said this team was better than last year's. It's not. And it doesn't look like it will be better next season."
  

The point is, I'm not the only one. Everyone's got the same point of view. Zook has got to go. And he will soon. Foley can only give him so much space, and he is about out. If there isn't a miraculous turn around in the next few weeks, Zook will not be around to try again next season.
 

The long road ahead

Lets just say the road ahead doesn't look pretty. And that's putting it nicely. And nicely is such an understatement it could almost be considered a lie.

The truth is the next two games look as ugly as Tammy Faye Baker without any makeup. Its gruesome really.

Next up is LSU. LSU is 5-0, 2-0 in the SEC with one of those wins coming against then No. 7 Georgia. And they are ranked sixth in both polls. It's looking really ugly. Plus we have to play them on the road, but apparently that is no worse than at home since we are at .500 for both.

After LSU comes No. 8 Arkansas. Arkansas has already knocked off Alabama and then No. 5 Texas in Austin on the way to a 4-0 record. That game is on the road too.

Then we get a break. A team that isn't undefeated. Georgia is still ranked No. 4 since their loss came in a tight game to the aforementioned LSU Tigers. Luckily we've got this game in Jacksonville at a neutral site, and we've got history on our side. The Bulldogs haven't beaten the Gators in more than a decade. I think they just might do it this year.

After Georgia we've got Vandy at home and South Carolina at home. Neither team is ranked and both are very winnable games. But they are both very losable too with this year's team (and coaching).

Finally the Gators finish up with FSU at home. FSU is ranked fourth right now and are looking good. In recent history the home team has won this game which bodes well for the Gators since we're playing in the swamp. But recent history would also have dictated that we beat Ole Miss at home, and that didn't happen.

And that's where it ends, because they don't let teams with losing records in bowl games. And that's what I am predicting for the Gators. I think we'll win two more games, and end up with a 5-7 record. They can't keep Zook around after that, can they? 

A letter to Foley

Dear Jeremy Foley,

Please fire Ron Zook and Ed Zaunbrecher immediately. They have disgraced Florida Football for long enough. The Z boys have managed to limp to a 3-3 record this year (2-3 if you only count Div I-A teams) and 1-2 in the SEC after losing to Ole Miss 20-17 in The Swamp. Florida has now lost two years in a row to Ole Miss, a team that is exactly 8-8 against non-Gator teams in the last two years. We've now lost two games in a row at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium for the first time since the 1988-89 seasons. I'm a senior at UF and I was seven when this last happened. We only managed to pass for 234 yards against a team that going into the game had the worst past defense in the nation. Texas Tech managed to pass for 661 yards against them last week, and all Zook could say about it was, "Just because their stats aren't very good against the pass doesn't mean they're not going to practice and get better." It's almost as if Zook didn't think it was so bad that we lost to a bad Ole Miss team at home.

Fortunately the players do. Defensive end Bobby McCray said Saturday, "This is embarrassing." Running back Ran Carthon echoed his feelings of embarrassment and called a players-only meeting for Monday. Jeremy, this is not good news. It sounds like the players are fed up with Zook and may be looking to mutiny.

And the road doesn't look too much brighter for the Gators. They've still got to go play LSU, Arkansas and Georiga on the road and FSU at home. These teams are a combined 18-1, and the only loss was Georgia losing to LSU. The easy games are Vandy at home and South Carolina away, but even the easy games aren't easy this year, as we saw with Kentucky (and Ole Miss). The way this season is shaping up we might not even get to a bowl game.

Jeremy, you have done an excellent job at Florida. You hired Billy Donavon, and then re-signed him to a long term deal. You've improved most of the sports programs during your tenure and simply need to correct this one mistake. As you once said, "what should be done eventually, must be done immediately." Please do this immediately, because God knows it is going to happen eventually.

Sincerely,
Matt Moody

PS- You can read more letters to you on this topic if you would like at FireRonZook.com

Update: Oct 7, 2003: Links to Foley and Donavon sites added. Sites were not working properly at time of first post.