ENOUGH OF THE HYPE

Sorry Deonte, you're NOT the next Gator stud WR.  You can't excel at one position, Mario, much less three.  Garcia, it's a tough call, but the vote is in, and you need to worry about getting a college degree.

It happens every year.  A handful of players are given expectations they can't possibly meet, no matter where they were ranked by Scouvals (Scout/ Rivals/ other recruiting "masterminds").  There's always an excuse for them year after year.

For Deonte Thompson, a consensus top-3 WR coming out of high school, he's been at Florida for 2 years and has 18 catches to show for it.  He was redshirted his freshman year and played sparingly last season.  I don't care who else is on the team, elite players earn their touches early and often.  For a case study on Deonte, see Dallas Baker.

Mario Fannin struggled holding onto the ball his redshirt-freshman year, but the kool-aid drinkers thought, "If only he can grip the ball better, he'll be unstoppable."  Last season his lack of playmaking was blamed on the coaching staff and gameplan (which is a very strong argument).  But what did he do when he touched the ball?  Not enough.  Now everyone is making him the crownjewel of Malzahn '09 offense.  A virtual spitting-image of D-Mac running the Wildcat, right? No.

Making the call on Stephen Garcia is tough, but he has two things going against him.  One is his rollercoaster career at SC to-date.  His story is known, so I won't go over it, but he's been a headcase throughout his short college career.  The second thing going against him is Spurrier's lack of QB success since returning to the college game.  Most of the time, you can just point to Spurrier's laziness in recruiting to figure out why he hasn't done well at SC.  But Garcia was a legitimate elite QB coming out of high school.  So there's more to Spurrier's demise than his inability to consistently recruit top talent, and Garcia is living proof.

There are always exceptions.  See Jason Campbell, who spent three years with three OCs and mediocore numbers, only to legitimize his #2 QB prep ranking with a undefeated senior season.  Cases like his are rarities though...more often we're looking at guys whose game just can't cut it in college, or who can't handle the freedom and lifestyle college can bring.

So who else am I missing from the past or present?

THE TE-BOMB WILL DROP IN '09

It happens to the best of them eventually, and I really believe there's a mathematical equation that makes sense of it all.

Well-liked player/team succeeds...then succeeds more...then more.  Then hated.

No one had a bone to pick with the harmless Patriots back before Belichick and Brady showed up.  Three Super Bowls later, we don't really pity Brady when his ACL gets shredded.  The guy's nice enough, but we tend to label these types as the second coming of Hitler after a while.  Welcome to the party, Timmy.

2009 should bring a load of success to Gainesville.  The roster is stacked.  Losing Harvin won't really phase them, considering the amount of team he spend injured on the bench.  And the schedule fairs nicely--UT, UGA and FSU at home, plus a bye week leading up to the Gator's trip to Baton Rouge.

Week after week, Tebow's going to put up numbers.

He's going to skip around the field.

He's going to keep being squeeky-clean on and off the field.

He's going to win...probably 14 games.

Some will ignore that he's potentially the best to ever play college football.  Some will poke holes through his game (particularly when his name comes up in NFL draft conversations, a blog topic sure to be covered in the future).  All the respect he's gained from the fans of SEC foes will slowly decipate.  

To be continued...