Gators Set Academic Record

The Gator football team has not just experienced a renaissance on the football field over the past four years. The team GPA has either increased or remained steady every season under Urban Meyer’s watch as well.

This year’s team not only won a national championship, but it also set a record for number of players on the winter SEC Honor Roll. The Gators had 37 players on it, tying Vanderbilt for best in the conference. That is also the most in UF history, breaking the previous record of 26.

Hit the link for the full list, which includes plenty of walk-ons and red shirts, and also for the full legalese-ish requirements for being honored. Essentially, you have to either have a 3.0 GPA for the previous academic year or for your whole academic career, and you have to be on the team for the entire season.

Here are the players who played a notable role this season, in alphabetical order:

John Brantley, backup quarterback

Tate Casey, tight end/H-back

Chas Henry, punter

Aaron Hernandez, starting tight end/H-back

Janoris Jenkins, starting cornerback and freshman All-American (TSN, Rivals, etc.)

Duke Lemmens, key part of defensive end rotation

Kestahn Moore, running back

Jonathan Phillips, kicker (grad school)

James Smith, long snapper

Caleb Sturgis, kickoff specialist

Tim Tebow, starting quarterback and general folk hero

Justin Trattou, starting defensive end

Phil Trautwein, starting left offensive tackle (grad school)

Jason Watkins, starting right offensive tackle

Major Wright, starting safety

Mandel is not Quite Right in His Playoff Critique

I am not one of those people who spend their time plotting the end of mainstream media. I generally don’t comment on the work of people from the big print, TV, and internet outlets because there are already too many people who do and I try not to get to meta in my writing.

That said, I feel like commenting on Stewart Mandel’s column on how the Arizona Cardinals make an easy case against playoffs for college football. Mandel is a long-time playoff skeptic, whereas I cannot remember wanting to preserve the bowl season instead of having a playoff. I don’t have a problem with that; reasonable minds can find room to disagree without animosity.

On the surface, he is correct, but I don’t think he gets it quite right. The Arizona Cardinals do illustrate one of the pitfalls of setting up a tournament: the time before it only matters inasmuch as it gets you into it. Once you clinch your playoff bid, the rest of the regular season has no meaning.

The Cardinals perhaps have one of the highest ceilings in the league, but they were not one of the best teams week in and week out. Their appearance in the Super Bowl, along with last year’s Giants defeat of the 18-0 Patriots, show perfectly that the best team doesn’t win the NFL championship, merely the hottest team at the end of the season does.

Size Matters

However, Mandel forgets to account for the size of the NFL versus the size of the top division of college football. He, and many playoff opponents, are worried about the prospect of a three- or four-loss team winning the national championship just as now a seven-loss team could win the NFL championship.

Well, the NFL admits 12 of its 32 teams into its postseason. That amounts to 37.5 percent of the league. If college football let the same proportion of teams into a tournament, you’d have 44 or 45 teams. Going off of the compilation of nearly all available rankings, that would allow several five-loss teams and even a few six-loss teams to be involved.

The main problem with the NFL’s system is not that it has a tournament, but that its tournament is too big. On top of that, it pulls its teams using the vestigial AFC/NFC partition and the outdated concept of regional champions. That is how 9-7 Arizona and 8-8 San Diego get to go to the playoffs while 11-5 New England sits at home.

The Matter of Automatic Bids

On the second page of his piece, Mandel assures us that any college football playoff scheme would necessarily include automatic bids for the power conferences. After all, every sport with a tournament rewards division champions in this manner. That would mean that among the Floridas and Oklahomas you get four-loss, ACC Champion Virginia Tech with a shot to come out as champion if the Hokies got hot.

That’s not an outrageous claim by any stretch, but I am not convinced that playoff bids for major conference champions is a done deal.

For one thing, I don’t believe any eight- or 16-team playoff is going to happen without first going through a plus one (four team playoff) phase. Obviously, you can’t promise auto bids to the Big Six conference champions when there are only four openings. Therefore, the first playoff phase will absolutely not have auto bids for any conference champs.

If the playoff were to expand beyond a plus one, the topic of automatic bids will surely come up. I’m not convinced its as inevitable as Mandel thinks it is that we’ll ever get beyond four teams though.

You can shoehorn in a plus one into the current system. It’s a stretch, but it can be done. All the BCS would need to do is invite another bowl, probably the Cotton, into the first week of BCS games to ensure that ten teams still get the prestige and cash that comes with going to the BCS. Then, the plus one game gets played when the current title game is.

The conferences still get their BCS auto bids and the major bowls keep their historical tie-ins in that scenario. If you go beyond that though, then the last bits of the old traditional system will have to be completely scrapped. If you think that will come easy at any point in the future, you’re underestimating the money (much less the emotions) invested in those ties.

But let’s assume for argument’s sake that eventually the decision is made to grow beyond four teams. That decision will not come quickly after the move to four teams. If there’s one thing that’s for sure, it’s that the power brokers of college football are slower to make things happen than a split Congress.

In order to move to eight teams, people will have to give up the idea of the sanctity of winning a major conference. After all, they would have to be junking the auto bids to the major bowls. In addition, the plus one will have set the precedent that college football’s tournament only pulls the best teams and doesn’t necessarily just blindly pull division winners.

Combine those facts with how intensely everyone (coaches, players, media, and fans alike) focuses on the top of the polls at the end of the season, and you have an environment where it is not a certainty that conference champions get auto bids to the tournament.

General Relativity

Finally, Mandel argues that an eight- or 16-team playoff necessarily devalues the regular season just like the NFL’s and college basketball’s tournaments have devalued their regular seasons.

I already explained why that is faulty logic for the NFL thanks to the discrepancy in league size. Sixteen teams out of 119 means 13.4 percent of teams are playing for it all. Proportionately, that comes out to an NFL playoff with just four teams. Narrow it to eight college teams, and you go back to the 1930s through early 1960s when only two NFL teams played for it all (if necessary).

College basketball is a whole different animal. Basketball can be played more often than football can, so the sport has more regular season games. The Law of Diminishing Returns takes over from there, as every extra game adds less and less value.

The college basketball tournament is also proportionately larger than any proposed college football tournament. The 65-team tourney is the equivalent of a 22-team college football playoff, which is bigger than anyone wants.

The most popular setup for college football is an eight-team playoff, and that is the equivalent of a 23-team college basketball tournament. Do you think the regular season wouldn’t be seen as more valuable if only 23 teams played in March? I sure do, though I wouldn’t want to be on that selection committee.

Keep it in Perspective

If you’re going to prophesy doom for the college football regular season based on the dynamics of other sports’ regular and post seasons, then you have to make sure you’re comparing apples and apples.

An eight or 16-team playoff for college football really is not that big. The smallest postseason tournament in major American sports is Major League Baseball’s, where eight of 30 teams get to go. Even it has problems with seemingly unworthy teams winning championships, but that has more to do with the selection process than the size. Proportionately, the baseball post season is equivalent to about a 32-team college football playoff.

In general, I am for an eight-team playoff where the best eight teams are selected. Go back through every final BCS poll (start with this year and work your way back) and look at the scores rather than the rankings and records. You’ll find that there is a significant gap between either the No. 7 and No. 8 team or the No. 8 and No. 9 team in nine of the BCS’s 11 seasons.

Not only is the complaint of the No. 9 team who got left out weaker than that of the No. 3 team who got left out, but you can see that generally there is a drop off after about No. 7 or No. 8. I interpret that as even more evidence as to why eight is the right number.

Conclusion

Yes, Stewart Mandel is correct in asserting that the Arizona Cardinals’ presence in the Super Bowl is evidence of a problem with playoff systems.

What he got wrong is that the problem lies not in the concept of a tournament in general, but in the NFL playoffs’ size and selection process. He then continues to draw more analogies with other sports without addressing properly those issues of size and selection process.

I generally enjoy Mandel’s work, especially in the way that he tends not to overreact and try to write instant history as so many do. This time though, his analysis wasn’t quite right.

Converting Between the College, NFL Passer Ratings

As long as quarterbacks have played the central role of offensive football, people have tried to quantify who is the best. Various methods have been concocted to do just that, and many more are being devised even today.

The two most widely-cited measures are passer rating and passing efficiency. The former is used by the NFL, while the latter is used by the NCAA.

They both are complex formulas, and if you want the details, hit up the passer rating Wikipedia page. Despite their differences, they use the same four components: completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdowns per attempt, and interceptions per attempt. What differs is how the parts are weighted.

The NFL’s passer rating imposes a ceiling and floor on the four parts, so it has a lower boundary at zero and an upper boundary of 158.3. The idea is not to let outliers, good or bad, have undue influence on the rating. If you’re curious, the answer is yes, the pro game has seen its share of both perfect games and zero games.

The NCAA’s passing efficiency has no such boundaries against outliers. The maximum score occurs when someone completes every pass for a 99-yard touchdown and the minimum score occurs when someone completes every pass for a 99-yard loss. You are correct in assuming we’ve never seen anyone log a maximum or minimum score.

Despite there being pros and cons to each system, they are generally kept apart. The passer ratings of college quarterbacks and the passing efficiency of NFL quarterbacks are not widely reported.

Here are some tables that show some insight into how the systems differ and how we might compare the relative performances of collegiate and professional quarterbacks.

For the sake of brevity, I have included only the top ten of each category in the tables.

I Said Relative Performance

Before we get into numbers, I want to stress that any comparisons done between college and pro quarterbacks are meant to viewed in relative terms.

The NFL obviously has tougher defenses than college does, but the NFL also has better offensive lines and, well, quarterbacks too. I don’t think anyone would argue that the Peyton Manning of today is not better than the version of himself that lost to Florida four times at Tennessee.

Take the inter-division comparisons with a grain of salt, and know that this (like football) is in the end just for fun.

NFL Passing Efficiencies

I will start with passing efficiency of the primary NFL starting quarterbacks. I got my stats on them from ESPN’s stats page for the regular season, so if you’re looking for the passer rating standings, there you go.

2008 NFL Passing Efficiency

Rank	Player	Team	Passing Efficiency	Pass. Rat. Rank
1	P. Rivers	SD	154.6	1
2	D. Brees	NO	144.4	4
3	K. Warner	ARI	143.3	3
4	C. Pennington	MIA	142.1	2
5	M. Schaub	HOU	141.1	7
6	A. Rodgers	GB	139.3	6
7	P. Manning	IND	139.1	5
8	T. Romo	DAL	138.5	8
9	M. Ryan	ATL	134.7	11
10	J. Garcia	TB	132.8	9

Here, Philip Rivers still rules the roost. There’s a little movement in the rankings, but no one slides more than two spots one way or the other.

None of these numbers really pop out though, even Rivers’ mark. That is because college quarterbacks routinely achieve loftier numbers, such as Sam Bradford’s 180.3 mark that led the college game in 2008.

For comparison, Rivers’ efficiency score would land him at 14th-best in the country between Ball State’s Nate Davis and Nebraska’s Joe Ganz. There is a good reason why college quarterbacks can go higher than the pro guys, and while I think you know what it is, I’ll take a look at it later.

The lowest passer efficiency score was by Cleveland’s Derek Anderson. He managed a 103.0 passing efficiency. By comparison, the 100th-ranked college passer was Kentucky’s Mike Hartline with a 104.7 score.

College Passer Ratings

Now it’s time to see how the big men on campus fared using the NFL’s report card. Their stats came from the NCAA stats site.

2008 NCAA I-A Passer Ratings

Rank	Player	Team	Passer Rating	Pass. Eff. Rank
1	S. Bradford	OU	127.0	1
2	T. Tebow	UF	122.1	4
3	C. McCoy	TEXAS	121.6	3
4	D. Johnson	TULSA	117.7	2
5	C. Clement	RICE	116.5	7
6	M. Sanchez	USC	113.0	6
7	G. Harrell	TTU	112.9	8
8	C. Keenum	HOU	110.9	9
9	Z. Robinson	OKST	110.2	5
10	C. Daniel	MIZZ	107.5	10

As you can see, the college guys do better overall on the NFL’s scale too. In fact, Bradford’s season would shatter Peyton Manning’s all-time record of 121.1 for a single season. The other two Heisman finalists would edge him out too, for that matter.

There was a bit more movement in these standings after conversion than in the NFL standings, with Oklahoma State’s Zac Robinson taking the biggest fall at four spots. I don’t know if that has more to do with formulaic differences, but I have a feeling it has more to do with the fact that there are a lot of quarterbacks in I-A college football. The bunching that ensues means small real drops could get magnified as relative drops.

The lowest passer rating in the pros was by the Browns’ Anderson again with a score of 66.5. Kentucky’s Hartline, Mr. 100th Place in college, had a rating of 69.4.

You know there has to be something inflating the college stats. I mean the No. 32 college quarterback in passer rating was Illinois’ Juice Williams, and he managed to post an 86.4 rating. That would tie him for 14th place in the NFL with Eli Manning and Donovan McNabb.

Adjusted College Passer Ratings

The inflation factor was something we all know. They’re sweet, they’re fluffy, they’re cupcakes.

As I said above, I’m looking to judge relative value. NFL teams don’t get to stock up to a third of their schedule with arena league teams, but the top college teams can schedule anywhere from three to five teams (depending on the conference) that cannot compete on the top team’s level.

In 2008, the power conferences were the six BCS leagues plus the Mountain West Conference. Because I’m feeling charitable, and because their name is in the BCS contracts too, I counted the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame as a power team for this part too.

So, I took the top ten quarterbacks from these conferences and took out all stats against teams that are not power teams. You can argue that in 2008 Central Michigan and Troy were much better foes than, say, Washington or Washington State, and you’d probably be right. Even so, I had to draw the line somewhere.

Here is what the passing efficiency stats look like for the top college quarterbacks from power teams against power teams:

Top QBs from Power Teams Against Power Teams

Rank	Player	Team	Pass. Eff. Adj.	Pass. Eff.	Diff.
1	S. Bradford	OU	181.0	180.8	+0.2
2	T. Tebow	UF	166.3	172.4	-6.0
3	M. Sanchez	USC	164.6	164.6	–
4	C. McCoy	TEXAS	163.0	173.8	-10.8
5	G. Harrell	TTU	162.7	160.0	2.7
6	Z. Robinson	OKST	155.8	166.8	-11.0
7	J. Ganz	NEB	153.4	153.7	-0.3
8	M. Stafford	UGA	150.6	153.5	-3.0
9	B. Johnson	UTAH	148.4	149.4	-1.0
10	C. Daniel	MIZZ	146.7	159.4	-12.7

Bradford’s and Sanchez’s numbers didn’t change much because Oklahoma played only one cupcake (I-AA Chattanooga) and USC didn’t play any.

You can see, however, that three of the other five Big 12 quarterbacks and Tebow benefited some from feasting on weaker, non-conference competition. At least in Tebow’s case he didn’t fall behind anyone as a result. No one else changed that dramatically, though Texas Tech’s Graham Harrell somehow got better against better competition.

Philip Rivers moves up into seventh place now that we’ve focused on quarterbacks from the top of Div. I-A and only how they do against other top teams. The college quarterbacks still have crappy BCS conference teams on their side, but at least the empty calories have been removed.

Finally, let’s take a look at the passer ratings of the college players.

Adjusted College Passer Ratings

This table contains the same guys, only this time it’s using the NFL’s system.

Top QBs from Power Teams Against Power Teams

Rank	Player	Team	Pass. Rat. Adj.	Pass. Rat.	Diff.
1	S. Bradford	OU	126.8	127.0	1
2	T. Tebow	UF	117.6	122.1	-4.5
3	G. Harrell	TTU	115.9	112.9	3.0
4	M. Sanchez	USC	113.0	113.0	–
5	C. McCoy	TEXAS	112.0	121.6	-9.6
6	J. Ganz	NEB	103.8	103.0	0.9
7	B. Johnson	UTAH	103.2	103.5	-0.3
8	Z. Robinson	OKST	103.0	110.2	-7.2
9	M. Stafford	UGA	98.5	101.7	-3.2
10	C. Daniel	MIZZ	97.2	107.5	-10.3

So Peyton’s record is still falling at the hands of the new Heisman winner, but no one else is breaking it this year. Philip Rivers also moves up a spot to sixth, behind only the three Heisman finalists, USC’s new blue chipper, and a guy who runs an offense called the “Air Raid.” Not bad, Phil.

Missouri’s Chase Daniel again takes a hard hit in the rankings. This is no surprise to readers of the excellent Dr. Saturday site, where editor Matt Hinton showed that Daniel was only able to light up bad defenses this past season. Maybe it was the thumb injury, or maybe he wasn’t that good. I don’t know if we’ll ever find out.

Even as Daniel struggled to post big numbers against teams with a pulse, his adjusted passer rating was still higher than 30 of the 32 regular starting NFL quarterbacks. Why are there so many college quarterbacks with monster passer ratings?

Think Spectrums

I don’t mean to keep singling out Mike Hartline; I promise I have nothing against him. He just happened to finish exactly 100th in passing efficiency, so that got him chosen as the representative for the bottom of the college football quarterback pecking order.

His adjusted passing efficiency is 97.6, and his adjusted passer rating is 62.3. The former is higher than the efficiency for the NFL’s worst regular, Derek Anderson, but the latter is lower than the former Oregon State turnover machine’s rating. In other words, they are about even when it comes to performance relative to their rankings within their respective leagues.

That is why there are a lot of college guys at the top of the hypothetical combined rankings. There would be a lot at the bottom of them too, and plenty in the middle as well. After all, there are 119 teams in Div. I-A but only 32 NFL teams.

Quarterbacking quality is a spectrum, and college football simply has more guys to put on its range than the NFL does.

My goal wasn’t to try to tell you that college quarterbacks are better than pro quarterbacks because, as I said at the beginning, that’s patently untrue. I only wanted to show how the two major systems of rating quarterbacks compare so you can have some sort of reference when seeing one or the other.

Neither method is perfect, and there might even be a better one out there. Until you can convince the NFL or NCAA to adopt it though, passer rating and passing efficiency the big ones we’ve all got.

Now, at least, you can eyeball the differences in them and make a pretty good guess as to how college and pro quarterbacks are doing relative to each other and their respective leagues.

Spikes is Back, Harvin is Gone

The decision as to whether to turn pro or not depends on a lot of things.

One consideration is which position you play. Some positions, like running back and defensive line, easily translate to the next level. Others, like quarterback and receiver, are notoriously difficult to play well in a rookie season.

Another consideration is the year’s draft class. If your position is stocked with good guys, the numbers dictate that someone is going to fall to the second round when he could be a first rounder in a normal year.

From there you can go forever on smaller considerations like the type of scheme you come from, whether you’re injury-prone, and things like that.

The second consideration appears to be why Brandon Spikes will again be in Gainesville next season. With higher profile guys like Rey Maualuga and James Laurinaitis coming out, this year’s draft is stocked at linebacker.

While Spikes made a lot of improvement this season, most notably in leadership and pass coverage, he reportedly would be the guy who gets bumped to the second round. For that reason, it makes sense for Spikes to come back.

Percy Harvin is leaving however. I don’t think it was considerations one or two that got him, but more likely a host of other ones. The primary concern would be his injury-prone nature. I’ve said it several times: it makes more sense to be paid millions to rehab than to do it for a scholarship.

He also is coming out at the right time. Similar players Ted Ginn and DeSean Jackson had good years, so players like him are enjoying success now. Plus, he can operate the wildcat that is so en vogue.

He will have stiff competition for draft position from Michael Crabtree and Jeremy Maclin, but if he can be healthy by the combine, Harvin will do fine for himself. The fact that he can be both a credible running back and receiver means he can have a nice long career in the mold of a Brian Westbrook or a Marshall Faulk.

I am very excited about the 2009 Gator defense, now that it officially has every member of the two-deep coming back. It could end up the best in school history. It will definitely have a shot of getting there statistically thanks to the schedule rotating Miami, Hawai’i, and Ole Miss out for Troy, FAU, and Mississippi State.

I also wish nothing but the best to Percy Harvin in the NFL. I have no doubt that if he can keep in one piece, he will excel on the next level. Thanks for being an awesome Gator, Percy, and you might give me a reason to actually pay attention to some part of the pro game next fall.

Bad News for Heisman Haters

The Heisman Trophy is a big deal in college football. If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be site after site on the internet dedicated to it and teams wouldn’t put signs up in their stadiums commemorating past winners.

A strain of fan does exist however that despises the award. It doesn’t exist very strongly in the Florida fan base thanks to Danny Wuerffel and Tim Tebow bringing it home in recent memory. Those fans that do hate it cite factors like that fact it’s a popularity contest, it is historically biased against positions other than quarterback and running back, and it generally is unfavorable to players who aren’t from glamor programs and conferences. There is a lot of truth in those criticisms.

Well for the first time in history, the top three Heisman vote getters are returning to school. We knew about Colt McCoy coming back for months, and Tebow announced his intentions over the weekend. Yesterday, Sam Bradford too said he will be back at school in 2009.

After a chaotic race in 2007 and one of the quietest races I can remember in 2008, we’re not going to be able to go 20 minutes without hearing the word “Heisman” next season. Every play from every week with these three will be dissected, and we’ll see people breathlessly fawn over “Heisman moments.” In other words, we’re going back to 2005 with Bush,Leinart, and Young duking it out only worse.

If you hate the Heisman, have your mute button handy all throughout 2009.

2008 Review: Risers and Fallers

Before last season, I looked at teams’ records in close games to see if they were potential risers or fallers from the previous season. The rationale is that in close games, luck determines the outcome as much as anything. If a team was particularly lucky or unlucky in 2007, you’d figure they would regress to the mean in 2008 and rise or fall accordingly (all else being equal).

All else is not equal, so it’s an imperfect method. However few teams change dramatically from one season to the next, so it works pretty well at predicting which way the teams it singles out will go.

I chose to look at games decided by eight points or less because a touchdown and two-point conversion could tie them. If a team’s difference between close games won and lost was three or more, I labeled it a potential riser or faller. If the difference was two, I put the team on a “wait list.”

I later found out that this type of study is something Phil Steele puts in his magazine every season, but he uses seven points instead of eight. I also looked only at BCS teams, whereas I think he does all of I-A. Either way, here’s how the 2008 bunch (by my figures) made out.

Potential Risers

First, let’s start with the positive.

Seven teams were picked as risers: Maryland, Minnesota, Michigan State, UCLA, North Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Washington. In my writeup, I expressed doubt that UCLA was going to do it, and I hinted that Washington might not either.

As it turns out, those two Pac-10 teams were the only potential risers who did not improve their records. All others won at least two more games, and Minnesota even won a robust six more games than in 2007. Together, the potential risers improved their records by an average of 1.43 wins.

The teams that were wait listed were Alabama, Arizona, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Ole Miss. UL was the only underachiever of the bunch, and like Minnesota, Ole Miss saw a six-game uptick in its wins. Alabama was close, winning five more in 2008 than in 2007. Together, the wait list teams increased their win counts by an average of 2.8 games.

In all, the potential risers and wait list teams increased their win counts by an average of exactly two wins apiece.

Potential Fallers

Now on to the harbingers of doom.

Eight teams were identified as potential fallers: Arizona State, Boston College, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Northwestern, Oregon State, and Virginia. I expressed some skepticism towards ASU and Northwestern falling off, and I ended up half right.

Northwestern was the only team of the bunch to improve its record, winning three additional games in 2008. Oregon State held steady with a 9-4 mark in two straight seasons. The Sun Devils fell the hardest, winning five fewer games in 2008. Together, the potential fallers won 2.13 fewer games than in 2007.

The teams on the wait list were UConn, LSU, NC State, Texas, and Wisconsin. The Wolfpack and Longhorns bucked the trend, winning one and two more games, respectively, in 2008 than they did in 2007. Defending champs LSU dropped off the farthest, winning four fewer games. Together, the wait list teams won 0.8 fewer games in 2008 than in 2007.

In all, the potential fallers and their wait list brethren won 1.62 fewer games than in 2007.

Conclusion

This particular form of prognostication was not 100 percent accurate, but I challenge you to find one that is. Eighteen of the 25 teams identified by this method went in the direction predicted and one held steady. Even counting Oregon State as a miss, that is still a 72 percent hit rate.

Who are the potential risers and fallers for 2009? Stay tuned because I haven’t run the numbers yet, but once I have them done I’ll let you know.

A Couple of Good Reads

Pete Fiutak of CFN and Matt Hinton of Dr. Saturday each make their case as to why Florida is rightfully the top team ahead of Utah, USC, and Texas. If you need some ammo against anyone trying to claim that UF is not the rightful champion, here you go.

Also, the International Herald Tribune takes a look at the similarities between Florida and USC.

Meanwhile, recently-name offensive coordinator Steve Addazio is in the running for the BC job despite being hospitalized for a knee infection. It’s great that he gets a shot at it, but I’d be shocked if anyone by BC defensive coordinator Frank Spaziani gets it. Also, TEs coach John Hevesy has left for a title and pay upgrade of some sort with Dan Mullen at Mississippi State.

Tebow is Returning

With these words, Tim Tebow announced his intention to return to campus next season. It wasn’t as dramatic as the 04s’ return announcement where they dropped and broke a fake crystal basketball trophy, but it will do.

The immediate reaction has been to already name Florida as next season’s sure preseason No. 1 pick. Given that it took months for the consensus to form around Georgia as 2008’s preseason No. 1, it’s a bit hasty. However when at least 10 starters on defense, most of the offense, and the Heisman-winning quarterback are all coming back from a national title winning team, it makes sense to go ahead and call it now.

Tebow dropped hints all along the way that he would come back, the first probably before he even thought about 2009. During his famous speech after the Ole Miss game, he said that his goal for the season was to go undefeated, something that had never been done before at Florida. That signaled to me that no matter how the year ended, he’d have that unmet objective in the back of his mind.

Then of course throughout December he was asked about staying or leaving. The whole time he did an admirable job of making it sound like he was going to give the NFL a fair shot, but you could hear in his voice and read between the lines that his heart is not with the pros yet.

Percy Harvin hasn’t decided his course of action yet, but he meets with Urban Meyer today to help make up his mind. It’s encouraging that he said he’s leaning towards coming back, but honestly I’d tell him to leave if he asked me for advice. He’s been hurt so often, why risk another bad injury when you’re not getting first round money for it?

Ryan Stamper says that on the plane back from Miami, Brandon Spikes told him he’s coming back. I wish I still had the links (sorry), but I’ve seen one place where Spikes said Tebow’s decision would influence him greatly, and another where Charlie Strong said his advice would be to stay. Strong’s rationale was that Spikes might grade out a second or third round pick by the NFL draft report, and that the coaches only tell players to go if they grade out as first rounders.

Only one other Gator asked for a draft evaluation, and that was Brandon James. He has no intention of leaving early, but he desires to play in the NFL and wanted to know what he needed to do to get there. Makes sense.

I always try to control my expectations for this team, but I can’t this time. There is no reason to think that Florida shouldn’t be the national title favorite (catastrophic injuries not withstanding) with so many people coming back from a title-winning squad. I felt the same way about the 2006-07 basketball team, and the same applies with these guys.

How long is it again until September?

National Champions

You don’t gotta win pretty, you just gotta win. National champions, twice in three years.

It’s like the 2008 team was magically transported to 2006 where they beat the Buckeyes like they did all season, and the 2006 team showed up tonight to win a tough, gritty, and close game.

Yes, Urban Meyer can win with his own players.

Yes, Percy Harvin is the best skill position player in the nation.

Yes, Tim Tebow was the best quarterback on the field tonight.

And yes, Florida is rightfully named national champions.

BCS Title Game: 7-7 at the Half

My brother texted me not long ago to say that we’re lucky it’s not 21-7 at the half. I don’t fully agree with that because letting teams gain yards but then stiffening up in the red zone is what the defense has done all year. Nothing new there.

Tebow is not having a good game on his handoff/keep reads though. On a couple of the 4-9 yard losses, Tebow should have kept it instead of handing it off. The two INTs don’t help his cause much either,  but he’s been pretty sharp throwing the ball except for those.

In short, the Florida offense is not executing very well. The Oklahoma offense is executing very well, but the Florida defense is stopping them when it counts.

If Florida’s offense can step up the execution and the defense can keep it up, we should be in good shape. We’ll see.