FLORIDA: THE BIG PICTURE

The Big Picture:  The big picture is what SNL, and most if not all Gators will use for solace in the days ahead.  Aided by Georgia’s humbling defeat, the fact is that the Gators’ goal of winning the SEC East is still very much alive.

In fact, and somewhat ironically, the Gators chances of winning the East look better than they did last week, due in large part to the Dawgs’ undressing at the hands of the Tide (who look damn good on both lines of scrimmage by the way).  This assessment is not an indictment of Georgia, who remains more than capable of making it 2 in a row against Florida, but more of an educated guess based on Georgia’s (un)fortunate draw this year, which sends them to Baton Rouge to play a very strong LSU squad, and includes games against Auburn and UT, who remains “game,” at least for now.

However, the big(ger) picture is still less than peachy as the SEC West seems to be far and away the stronger of the divisions and the Gator squad that played Saturday would have little, if any, chance to beat LSU or Alabama (or even Auburn or Ole Miss for that matter) in the ATL. 

Nonetheless, part of Urban’s reconstitution of his team this week will be to point out that the Gators’ goals of winning Championships (East, SEC and arguably, National), remain unscathed for the most part-though the margin for error has been drastically diminished.  Before Saturday, the most likely scenario was a Gator split of the LSU and Georgia games, with the Gators taking the East by virtue of a second Georgia loss to LSU, Auburn, ‘Bama (done), or UT. 

Today the Gators are losers at home as 23-point favorite, which apparently is deemed by the national media to be a worse loss than the Trojans Thurday night beatdown by the Beavers.  For those who watched both games, it seems that USC’s loss was clearly the worse of the two, but to spend an inordinate amount of time on this issue is clearly missing the forest for the trees.  The upshot of the CFB landscape in Gainesville today is that Florida no longer has the “luxury” of losing to LSU or Georgia as a loss to either, while not fatal to SEC East aspirations, would be damaging enough nationally to assure being omitted from any BCS-title consideration (assuming the Gators could win the SEC, which as stated above, seems unlikely at this point).

The sum total of this fine mess is that everything remains on the table for Florida, but not for long if there is not significant improvement between now and October 17, when a very capable LSU squad comes to The Swamp.

Up Next:  The Little Picture

-So Sayeth the Shepherd