re: Florida Will Win the East this Year

He's about it at WR though. We still don't have a TE. That UVA kids better be good

9 wins is ok with beating UG

Unproven. Could be jerry rice. Could be average.

Highly recruited does not always equal highly productive.

Florida's offense is not scaring anybody and the D will likely be good, but if they continue to be asked to win games it will wear them down.

Schedule is brutal.

9 wins only buys him another year. 2015 would then be a hot seat year where anything shy of winning the East would get him fired.

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East is weak again, anything's possible. Whoever wins will get destroyed by the west in the seccg.

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Riiiiiight. Every eam in the West is weaker this year than last. (Ole iss and Miss St. the exceptions, but neither is strong enough to win it all this year) There are three teams and possibly 4 in the East that can play with any of the teams in the West this year. (Ga., Fl., SouCar., and Mizzou, maybe)

People need to stop looking at that 4-8 record as a predictor for Florida this year.

Last year, Florida lost their All-American return man, and a guy that was supposed to be a starter at WR, Andre Debose, in fall camp. Then, arguably their best and most consistent OL, Chaz Green, goes down for the year as well.

This is already an offense that wasn't expected to do more than be average.

Then you enter the season with your ALL-SEC Guard, Jon Halapio, playing with one arm because of a torn pectoral muscle, your starting RB Matt Jones can't play all Fall practice because of a viral infection that sidelines him for a month before the season. Your starting QB misses most of fall camp with appendicitis.

That is a nightmare scenario.

Then, your LT gets hurt in your first game and misses most of the Miami game (and eventually is gone for the season a few games later).

Then, your starting QB and your All-American DT get injured and lost for the season within a few days of each other.

The list gets worse, but I won't bore you any further. Suffice to say, it was epic and terrible.

The team that lined up at the end of the season was nothing even close to what it could have been, fully healthy, in August.

The team in 2013 is 100% healthy. The roster has more playing-ready personnel at every position. There seems to have been an upgrade on the offensive coaching staff. UF also has one of the most experienced QB's in the conference behind a healthy, veteran OL.

The defense has a veteran front, good LB's, and one of the most talented secondaries in the SEC. The special teams have an ALL-SEC punter, ALL SEC return man, and is one kicker short of being one of the best in the country.

Honestly, given all that, what's not to like? The only reason UF isn't the clear favorite in the east this year is because no one is sure exactly how much to blame Will Muschamp for last year's debacle. And that is made even harder by the fact that he was the SEC coach of the year in 2012.

No one knows for sure. We'll find our soon.

I will say, that in the Miami game, UF had lost 4 of their starting OL. That is pretty crazy.

Even with that, Driskel completed over 60% of his passes for almost 300 yards. UF had 2 100 yard receivers. He also had a passing TD and rushing TD.

He had one REALLY bad play on an early INT.

Other than that, the second INT wasn't his fault, it was a blown route by the WR, and the 4th down conversion was a failure of coaching. That should have been an instant Time out.

He's not my favorite QB ever, but he got a lot of heat last season that was undeserved. And although people fell in love with Tyler Murphy early, he wasn't nearly as good as Driskel against the better teams on the schedule. In retrospect, Murphy got broken in against 3 of the worst teams in the league. Once he played better teams he fell apart.

Driskel, as a QB, was 4-2 against top 15 teams in 2012. That is pretty fricken good. He's also 12-3 as a starter which isn't bad either.

The defense was responsible for a lot of UF's success in 2012.

But Driskel had to make HUGE plays down the stretch to beat Texas A&M that year. He had a huge game in the red zone against South Carolina, that turned what could have been a close game into a rout.

He had bad games against LSU, UGA, and Louisville, but the defense and running game bailed him out of 1 of those.

He really had a clutch game, while playing injured on the road, against FSU.

And that was all during his first season as a starter.

It's hard to blame him for the Miami game. He made one, really bad play, and then his team made 4 other really bad plays that resulted in red zone turnovers. It was a perfect shite storm, and as the QB, he takes most of the blame, but it wasn't all on him.

The reason Murphy initially looked better in 2013 was because he had a better survival instinct. He would run when shite got bad, like it almost always did, and even he eventually got hurt. He also couldn't throw the ball nearly as well as Driskel.

Missouri fans probably won't remember this, but Murphy missed an easy wide open Trey Burton for a TD that would have made the entire first half that game very different had it been converted. Instead of being down three after the 2nd half KO return, UF would have been up 1. Totally different dynamic. And that is just one play out of hundreds last year.

Driskel may not be the best ever at Florida, but he's decent, and if he gets support from the rest of the offense, Florida will be dangerous running 100% out of the shotgun.