Meet Papa Smirk: Column on UT-UF
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Read the whole thing here.
Earlier this week, Tim Brando drew a parallel between Lane Kiffin and Sarah Palin. Brando's point was that Kiffin had energized the Tennessee fan base, just as Palin set Republican hearts aflutter, but that it remained to be seen how he'd translate to the nation at large. When the rubber met the road, would Kiffin prove he could withstand the rigors of the SEC? Or would he turn into football's version of Palin, an overhyped west-coaster who couldn't handle the heat of SEC football?
By halftime, Kiffin's Vols had their answer and Tennessee-Florida had its structural metaphor. Urban Meyer is the favored and proven candidate, but Lane Kiffin is the brash-talking insurgent who didn't need to win, he just needed to prove he could compete.
Florida fans came expecting a funeral, a smorgasbord of revenge stuffed into 60 minutes of football. Instead, they stood in the heat and watched a slobber-knocking and plodding affair. Clearly, Florida was the better offense and the better team. Urban Meyer came to a knife fight armed with two handguns and a howitzer cannon, Kiffin arrived with a salad fork and an oyster cracker. He tossed the oyster cracker at a Gator coed with fat arms, and dueled as best he could with his salad fork of a quarterback, Jonathan Crompton.
In the end, we learned 14 important things about both teams.
1. CBS and ESPN need Meyer and Kiffin to hate each other.
And if two mega-corporations need something to happen, and control as much of the sports arena as these two do, they can craft the story lines by taking sentences here and there and turning them into major controversies. CBS played up the angst with alternating shots of Kiffin and Meyer alongside the Green Day soundtrack "Know Your Enemy" as the game began. The montage was designed to ignite Gator bloodlust, and terrify Volunteer fans. If they'd played it on the scoreboard at Ben-Hill Griffin stadium, 15 people in orange would have simultaneously been stabbed to death with shivs embedded inside Little Debbie snackcakes.
2. Tim Tebow and Urban Meyer in suits look like an uncomfortable scene from Entourage: Gainesville.
Can we institute a new sports rule: When you're not wearing your football uniform or coaching on the sideline, there are no slow-motion shots?
It's so uncomfortable.
You could almost hear Meyer whispering, "I know a great Bible study party after this game. Two words: bourbon cake ... and truffles."
In his vest and glasses, Tebow looked like a Depression-era banker. Also, and I know several teams do it, but wearing suits to a college football game is really dumb. What's dumber than wearing the suits? Showing people wearing the suits.
3. Tennessee's offense is awful.
Immediately after the UT game, I put on other games, Washington at USC, and Michigan State at Notre Dame, and watched both teams tossing the football around the field, actually completing passes that travel more than five yards up field. I was positively giddy.
When will those days return?
Tennessee running backs Montario Hardesty and Bryce Brown are warriors out there. So is the entire offensive line. Can you imagine lining up against Florida on play after play when they've stacked the line to stop the run and yet you still have to run the football?
Hardesty ran 20 times for 96 yards. Those 20 rushes would have probably been 150 yards against a regularly aligned defense.
4. Florida lacks playmakers at wideout, and this is going to hurt them down the road.
Florida's leading receiver? Try tight end Aaron Hernandez who had four catches for 26 yards. Most of that yardage, 18 of them, came on a second quarter third and long play when Florida correctly guessed that Tennessee was going to blitz and hit him on the tight end screen for a first down.
Why does that matter? Florida is going to face an awful lot of stacked defenses from here on. Excepting that Tebow pass to Hernandez, Florida's next three longest pass plays were for 14, 10, and 10 yards.
What's even more interesting, Florida didn't even attempt to throw the ball down the field. Now Tennessee has a strong secondary and their gameplan was to make the Gators drive the field on them in small chunks of yardage, but that's got to make Gator fans a bit leery that they weren't able to exploit any mismatches down the field and stretch the defense.
If you're a Gator fan, you'd like to think that was because Florida chose to take what Tennessee gave them. I'm not so sure. I think the reality is that Florida is not very explosive on offense. At least nowhere near as explosive as they were last year with Percy Harvin.
I've said for a while that I think there's a great deal of separation between Florida and the other teams in the SEC. After this game, I take that back. I think Florida is going to have several tough games this season, and I'm not sure they'll finish the SEC gauntlet undefeated.
5. Someone needs to tell CBS studio analyst Tony Barnhart that everyone knows he dyes his hair.
One of my rules in life, if I ever think about dying my hair, I'm relying on a guy friend of mine to say, "Dude, everyone knows you dyed your hair. You like ridiculous."
At SEC Media Days everyone was whispering this about Tony "Chestnut Brown" Barnhart. Just becuase you're on television doesn't mean you need to dye your hair in a misguided attempt to look younger. Please stop. And when you stop, find your three best male friends and kick all of them in the groin for letting you dye your hair to begin with.
6. Lane Kiffin might be the new Les Miles when it comes to game interviews.
You know how when Les Miles hits the interview, you feel like he could say anything? From commenting on United States policy with Kim Jong-Il in North Korea to why he likes Paul Newman's salad dressing?
Put it this way, when I'm watching an LSU game and it's close to halftime and a team is taking the knee, I don't change the station because I want to hear what Miles might say.
Well, Kiffin might be the new Miles.
He told Tracy Wolfson, "See you later," to end the first interview. Which at first I thought was a reference to winning the game and getting interviewed at the end, but then he vanished at halfime and left Wolfson hanging. While Miles is wacky, Kiffin is so intense you halfway expect him to eat the microphone, spit it out, and flex for the camera. In fact, if this happened, I wouldn't even be surprised.
In the end, Wolfson went to Kiffin three times before she went to Urban Meyer.
Why?
Because they figured he was more likely to say something incendiary ... and they're right.
7. Brandon James is human. And he's going to be feeling that Janzen Jackson hit in the end zone for the rest of his life.
I don't know about the rest of Tennessee fans, but when I saw Brandon James get absolutely destroyed on Tebow's final pass of the half, I replayed the hit 18 times. In super slow-motion. In real speed. I paused the television, I got up and walked around in front of my screen and watched it anew, I was like Jim Garrison with the Zapruder tape in "JFK."
If I could download that hit and watch it every morning when I woke up, it would make my life better. Why?
A.) That Jackson hit saves four points. Because minus that hit, it's a touchdown catch.
B.) Somewhere Jabar Gaffney slammed down his television remote and said, "That's a touchdown, bro."
C.) I consider this somewhat revenge for the three consecutive punt-return touchdowns -- and the near kickoff touchdown to begin the game
Here's the rest. Labels: florida tennessee papa smirk
Posted by Clay Travis at 9:42 PM
 
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As a Gator fan, I must say, I can't argue with most of your points. However, while we do lack a big-time play maker at wideout, we have done a good job at splitting up the role among different guys. Our speedy, stretch the field guy, Deonte Thompson, was out with a hammy.. and it seemed like Urban didn't trust putting in some of the younger, less experienced speedy receivers. So I think if we can stay healthy we'll be ok at the position.
I am also a Bucs fan, and have seen Monte Kiffin's defense for years, and on passing situations, that defens was eerily similar to the Bucs in the late 90's.. and that is saying something.. It is designed to force you to make short passes and just dare you to go deep. We did not try even one deep pass, which was very frustrating to watch, but I've seen some of the best NFL quarterbacks get picked off 3 times in a game trying to throw deep into that defense, so I'm glad we took what they were giving us.
Another thing I noticed about the Vols was that it was very obvious Lane wanted to prevent forward passes by Crompton at all costs. He only threw like 6.. and 2 were picks.. so I dont understand why we didn't adjust and say, we are going to make him throw it and beat us. Yeah we stacked the line, but we were giving up dump offs and screens.. why not totally load up on the line and make this guy beat us.. if we make him throw more passes over 5 yard, we get at least 7 picks, you know?
I've never seen an offensive gameplan so hamstrung by a quarterback's mental stability.
Ever.
I think I may be wrong on the missed grounding call.
Don't you have to be in danger of being sacked to be accused of grounding? Like, if your quarterback just dropped back from center and hummed it fifteen rows deep out of bounds as soon as he began his drop, would that actually be grounding?
Great analysis, as usual. I especially agree with the drama of the Lane Kiffen sideline interview. Considering the way CBS and ESPN ran the "singing Rocky Top all night long" story into the ground, I found it hilarious when Lane said to Wolfson in the postgame interview. "I can't hear you ... they're playing Rocky Top"
Also, I wondered if it was just me that thought Danielson was a little over the top in his criticism of Crompton. It just seemed so... impolite... or something.