Tag Archives: Missouri Tigers

Florida Gators 14 – Missouri Tigers 7; We Have Experienced The Defining ‘Just Win’ Game

  By The Bull Gator | November 5, 2012 - 4:59 pm | Florida Gators Football
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Just win. It has become a motto of sorts around these part over the last few seasons. On Saturday, when the Florida Gators defeated the Missouri Tigers 14-7, we experienced a game that truly defined it. If ever there was a Just Win Game, this was it. The Gators won to improve to 8-1 (7-1 SEC) on the season, but the game felt like a struggle–one during which early you thought to yourself “just win.”

Omarius Hines - Florida Gators

The Gators were once again a second-half team. Not scoring until the 9:03 mark of the third quarter raises concerns. Not doing so against a team you’re heavily favored against and should defeat rather easily raises more. But Florida finds itself in the same situation over and over again this season: thankful for the defense, and this time it wasn’t as dominating as it can be. Therefore, as we thank the defense, we also have to thank Missouri quarterback James Franklin. If Franklin had been even slightly more “on his game,” there’s a decent chance this would have been loss number two instead of win number eight.

There were offensive stats, but they were offensive. (Saw that one coming from a mile away didn’t you? Two miles? You’re more in tune to awful jokes than I thought. Kudos.) It’s not what we’ve come to expect, so I won’t go that route, but more what we’ve come to accept. This is a team that is still light years away from offensive consistency. It’s disheartening, sure, but the Gators are 8-1. If you can honestly say you predicted that (and we’re hopped up on orange and blue Kool-Aid at the time) at the beginning of the season, you’re a fabulous liar. We still love you, but you’re a liar all the same.

Brent Pease has his work cut out for him. This isn’t the WAC (or whatever conference Boise State was in, used to be in, or was going to be in while he was there). He’s learning that the hard way. The Gators are lucky they can lean back on the defense and that they can win games without being elite. However, it is a problem. Proof Point #1: the loss to Georgia. With just a smidge more out of the offense, 8-1 is 9-0 and that’s why it’s frustrating. Knowing that the Gators have the record they have and seeing that it could have been even better is painful.

We’ve been spoiled by the past and spoiled by the present. Because of the high-flying offensive teams of the past, we expect it in all versions of the Florida Gators football team. Because of the current season’s record, we expect more out of this specific version. But maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe we should expect and hope for the one thing that really matters—winning.

The Gators have not accomplished that goal only once this season. Eight other times, Florida left the field as victors. Saturday’s outing wasn’t pretty, but not many of them have been recently. We have been brainwashed to want style points and yards upon yards upon yards. It’s a hard concept to grasp, but we should always want the win first regardless of how it comes. 14-7 when it should have been 27-10 or even 38-7 isn’t ideal, but the result is the same—W.

For three seasons now the Gators have struggled to find an offensive identity. Pease may be the answer and he may not be. He needs more time, but we also need to focus on that phrase—“just win.” We worry about the other things because we look ahead to opponents like Florida State. We wonder if the Gators were to get to the SEC Championship Game how they could possibly keep up with Alabama. For now though, just win. 8-1 with 9-1 on the horizon. That ninth win may be a thing of beauty or it may be the most destructive of dumpster fires, but if it’s a win, it accomplished goal number one whether we liked watching it or not.

The Gators can check Missouri off of the schedule with a heavy sigh of relief. On to the next opponent. Just win.

Preview: Florida Gators Vs. Missouri Tigers; Welcome To The SEC Part 2

  By The Bull Gator | November 3, 2012 - 11:15 am | Florida Gators Football
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The Florida Gators have the rare opportunity to welcome both of the SEC’s new members to the conference during the 2012 college football season. The Alabama Crimson Tide are the only other team that will be able to say they did so. Oddly enough, if we go back in time just one week, those were the top two teams in the nation. The Gators have fallen since after an ugly defeat at the hands of the Georgia Bulldogs, but still possess one of the country’s better teams. And that Georgia loss may have made what many predict will be a cakewalk even more so of a…um…well…walk over cake. Translated, them Gators will be angry.

Matt Elam - Florida Gators

As I write this, the Gators are favored by 17.5 points over the Missouri Tigers. Those of us that witnessed the debacle that was the loss to Georgia may find it hard to believe this Florida team can even score that many points, let alone win by as much, but that’s just the hangover talking. We’re quick to realize that the Gators scored 44 a week before that and overall are performing better than we could have expected in 2012. That doesn’t necessarily lessen the impact of last week’s loss, but 7-1 is 7-1. 7-1 with a real chance to be 10-1 before heading into the regular season finale against Florida State is even better.

But before we get to talking about the Seminoles, we have the Tigers waiting. Some may call this a trap game, but my thought would be that it could only truly be defined as that if the Gators had beaten the Bulldogs and were sitting at 8-0. They aren’t and there could be some much needed aggression waiting to get out. That’s not good news for a Missouri team that just got its first SEC win last week. And, oh yeah, they made shirts for it. You’re new at this Mizzou, so we’ll forgive you for that, but don’t let it happen again.

This will be one of those rare instances where I won’t be watching the game live–at least not the second half. I’ll be racing home right around the end to watch the recording. You’ll already know what has happened, but I’ll be doing my best to avoid it. We’ll see if that actually works or if I can hold out not checking my phone every few minutes. I’ll be with you in spirit through it though, even if I’ll be about two hours behind you in watching it. As always, just win and Go Gators!

Florida Gators 2013 Football Schedule Released; Gators Keep LSU, Add Arkansas

  By The Bull Gator | October 18, 2012 - 7:25 pm | Florida Gators Football
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The Florida Gators 2013 football schedule has been released and the debates have begun. Although, there weren’t really that many and all remains well in Gator Nation. Without delay, here’s what the Gators will face in 2013:

Will Muschamp - Florida Gators

August 31 – Toledo – Gainesville, FL
September 7 – Miami – Miami, FL
September 21 – Tennessee – Gainesville, FL
September 28 – Kentucky – Lexington, KY
October 5 – Arkansas – Gainesville, FL
October 12 – LSU – Baton Rouge, LA
October 19 – Missouri – Columbia, MO
November 2 – Georgia – Jacksonville, FL
November 9 – Vanderbilt – Gainesville, FL
November 16 – South Carolina – Columbia, SC
November 23 – Georgia Southern – Gainesville, FL
November 30 – Florida State – Gainesville, FL

Not many surprises and there really shouldn’t have been. This is the bridge season. 2012 was the first season of the 14-team SEC. 2013 is the bridge to the future. And 2014 should show us what to actually expect in the future. For now, things remain fairly typical. For example, Tennessee remains in the third-game-of-the-season spot, LSU is still on the schedule and in October, and Florida plays Georgia in Jacksonville right around the same time of year they always do.

There are some points of note though; the first being the bye week. In 2012, the Gators were off the week before facing LSU. At that point, Florida had played four games. That won’t be the case in 2013. The Gators first bye comes after just two games. BUT…there is a second bye in late October between the games against Missouri and Georgia. Thank the calendar for that. 2012 was one of those weird years during which September had five Saturdays. In 2013, that would be November.

For the second season–and for obvious reasons–the Gators get only two SEC West opponents on the schedule. There was wonder whether the annual contest with LSU would stop, but it hasn’t…yet. For 2013, the Tigers are still on the schedule. The Gators also get Arkansas, who will visit Gainesville just one week before the Gators travel to Baton Rouge. So Texas A&M was one and done. They’ll be back, but we won’t know when for a while now.

We knew about the out-of-conference schedule, so there are no surprises there. No surprises overall really. 2013 will come and go and the schedule will look similar to those of the past (or at least the one 14-team SEC schedule we have to compare it to). Now we wait for the 2014 one to be released…a year from now.

Predicting The 2012 SEC Football Season Game By Game (If Each Team Played 1,200 Games)

  By The Bull Gator | August 30, 2012 - 12:00 pm | SEC Football
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I guess it’s not that weird, but it is different. We here at The Bull Gator started this last season and figured we might as well continue. (We’re still not sure where our inspiration came from, but we’ve seen similar things done elsewhere, so thanks to anyone that may be doing something like this.) This is our way of predicting the 2012 SEC football season. It’s more than just win vs. loss. Instead, it’s how many times a particular team might beat another. Averages, if you will.

Instead of picking Team A over Team B, we tried to determine how many times we thought Team A would beat Team B if they played each other 100 times. While Team A may be heavily favored over Team B, there’s always that chance of an upset and we try to take that into account. Need an example? Here you go:

If the Florida Gators and Bowling Green Falcons played 100 times, you think the Gators would win 75 of those games. You feel the same way for each of the remaining 11 games on Florida’s schedule. That’s 12 matchups and 75 wins per game. 12 multiplied by 75 is 900; 900 divided by 100 (because in reality, the Gators don’t play each team 100 times; they play each team once) is 9. Therefore, based on your win number for each game, you believe Florida will end up with 9 victories in 2012 for a record of 9-3. Yes, you have technically predicted the Gators to win every game, but a 75% chance of winning each time out is far from perfect.

We set two rules for this exercise. One rule is obvious: A single game must have consistent results. If you believe Florida would beat Texas A&M 75 times, then you also believe Texas A&M would beat Florida 25 times. The other was set to force each of us to pick an overall winner: No matchup can be 50-50. You have to go one way or another even if your chosen mark is 51-49. Ultimately, we’re attempting to predict outcomes and there are no longer ties in college football.

Now that the lengthy (although much shorter than last year’s) explanation is over, here are the results. Discuss, agree with, argue against below.

A few notes:

• The highlighted numbers under the SEC East standings are there to show the only place in the entire standings where we disagreed with each other. Although Vanderbilt ends up fourth overall, individually Willy had them fifth behind Missouri.

• The highlighted schools under the SEC West standings are for the two national title contenders. We both ended up with Alabama ahead of LSU in the SEC West standings; however, if you look at just our picks, that’s not necessarily true. I give the edge to Bama in every game they play, while Willy has LSU beating Bama 55-45. The reason the Tide still come out on top for him is because of greater average confidence in their 11 wins than the Tigers’ 12.

• Finally, the highlighted numbers in the individual team schedules show the games we disagreed on from a win-loss standpoint. Last year, we didn’t disagree on a single game! That’s right, not one. This year there were six, four of which involved Tennessee. I’m not proud to say that in all four of those, I have the Vols coming out on top, but that doesn’t change the fact that we both think their probably a 6-6 team.

There you have it, our long-winded way of predicting the SEC in 2012.

First Kevin Sumlin, Now Les Miles; Disagreeing With Will Muschamp Becoming The Norm

  By The Bull Gator | May 30, 2012 - 7:29 am | Florida Gators Football
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Although mild by comparison, LSU Tigers’ head coach Les Miles has joined the ranks of those disagreeing with Florida Gators’ head coach Will Muschamp. It’s not an argument of Texas A&M levels (even though that wasn’t much of an argument either), but a difference of opinion between the two regarding the annual game between their teams.

Last week, Muschamp voiced his support of keeping the game between the Gators and Tigers on the schedule every season. The stature of the teams coupled with the rivalry that has been created is reason enough for many to want to see the game on an annual basis. With the changing landscape of the SEC and the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M, Miles doesn’t feel the same way. At least, that’s what we’re devising from this:

“This is all based on some vague tradition that is not considering that you’re adding teams to the conference.” – Les Miles, LSU Tigers’ Head Coach

Miles went on to say that Florida isn't in the same state as LSU (a true fact) and that the rivalry is only there because of the enjoyment of playing each other (uh, okay). The LSU head coach has never been easy to understand when it comes to attempting to read into his words, but this much seems obvious: he doesn't value the rivalry that has been created over the past 41 years as much as Muschamp does.

Florida and LSU have faced each other 57 times (and each of those last 41 years) and have each won six of the last 12 meetings. Whether Miles wants to admit it's a true rivalry or not, it has become one and should continue long after these two coaches have moved on. It should be preserved over attempts to create new rivalries with the new SEC members. Those will come over time, but this rivalry has already flourished.

Muschamp reiterated his point again. He believes the game is good for both programs, for college football, and for the conference. He's right. Sure, the SEC doesn't need much help when it comes to big games and national prominence, but there's no need to start to eliminate valuable rivalries now.

Will Muschamp Wants LSU To Remain On Florida’s Schedule

  By The Bull Gator | May 24, 2012 - 7:23 am | Florida Gators Football
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With the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M to the SEC, many discussions have centered around what schedules will look like in the upcoming years. Will the league go to a nine-game conference schedule? Will the divisions remain as is? Will annual cross-division rivals be scrapped? We don’t know which direction commissioner Mike Slive and the SEC will take, but we do know that head coaches are in support of some possibilities and against others.

Will Muschamp has his opinions and isn’t one to shy away from them and one of those opinions involves keeping LSU on the Florida Gators’ schedule.

“I like the every year playing LSU. I think that’s good. I think that’s good for the league. It’s two national programs with the recent success we’ve both had.” – Will Muschamp, Florida Gators’ Head Coach

Muschamp is also in favor of the current eight-game conference schedule and hopes the SEC sticks with it. Regardless, he wants LSU on the schedule. The rivalry that has developed in recent years coupled with the prominence of the game is just too much to throw away and turn into a twice-every-six-years affair.

There wasn't long ago that I may not have agreed with this. I felt that the other Tigers - Auburn - presented a stronger rivalry and should be the permanent game. It could have just been a fan's perspective, but that was the game I wanted to see continue. Over time, that feeling has lessened and I'm more than comfortable having Florida play LSU year after year. In fact, I look forward to it with increasing anticipation. The rivalry has intensified and the fanbases have recognized that.

I don't hate LSU with the passion a diehard Florida fan hates Florida State or Georgia or Tennessee, but I don't have that deepdown hatred for Auburn either. It's more of a rival's respect of sorts and the desire to experience good football. The game has developed an aura about it over the years and is something I look forward to annually. While I still feel a rise of sorts during the seasons Florida plays Auburn, the annually contest with LSU has climbed the charts.

My vote doesn't count, but I'm with Muschamp on this. The eight-game vs. nine-game schedule is a different argument, but keep playing LSU. The coaches want it, the players want it, and the fans want it. The SEC should want it too.

Florida Gators 71 – Virginia Cavaliers 45; Gators Advance To Face A Surprise Opponent

  By The Bull Gator | March 16, 2012 - 7:13 pm | Florida Gators Men's Basketball
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We’ll try our best to make this about the Florida Gators’ 71-45 victory over the Virginia Cavaliers in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, but something that delayed this recap being written is occupying all of our minds. With the Gators win, most expected them to face the Missouri Tigers in the third round – a No. 2 seed by the way – but that won’t happen after they were upset by the Norfolk State Spartans. But let’s focus on the victory.

Over the past few days, Gator Nation has fallen in love with sophomore forward Casey Prather. First, there was this. Now, there is his performance in the win over the Cavaliers. All Prather did on Friday was play 22 minutes, make six of his seven field goal attempts, and score 14 points. Those were all season highs and the points were a career high. Prather didn’t have to be the hero – the Gators did win by 26 after all – but he was regardless. In mere days, the legend of Casey Prather has been born.

Playing in his first tourney game, freshman guard Bradley Beal was impressive. Beal had a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds and had his shot while the other guards didn’t. We hate to have to bring it up again, but with the exception of Beal, shots from other guards were hit or miss with miss coming up more often than not. Erving Walker: 3-for-8. Kenny Boynton: 3-for-10. Mike Rosario: 1-for-4. Patric Young, Prather and Beal more than made up for it, but IT MUST CHANGE! Sorry, it’s Friday evening and that high of winning and then experiencing an upset is still there, so we’re all easily excitable.

On to the weekend and, come Sunday, game two.

Florida Gators Get 7-Seed In West Region, Will Face Virginia Cavaliers

  By The Bull Gator | March 11, 2012 - 6:40 pm | Florida Gators Men's Basketball
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A win over Alabama and a tight game with No. 1 overall seed Kentucky in the SEC Tournament weren’t enough to impress the selection committee. The Florida Gators are headed to Omaha, NE as the West Region’s No. 7 seed to face No. 10 Virginia. It’s not ideal, but it the NCAA Tournament is upon us and these are the cards the Gators have been dealt.

The Gators’ struggles late in the regular season had everything to do with the team’s placement in the Big Dance. Inconsistent play made it hard for many to predict exactly where Florida would land. Despite that, a decent showing at the SEC Tournament gave hope of a higher seed, thereby allowing the Gators to avoid a No. 1 or No. 2 in the third round.* As it stands, if the Gators are able to defeat the Cavaliers, they will likely face No. 2 Missouri in their second game. A preview of many future conference battles, but one I’m sure we’d all prefer to avoid until the 2012-13 season.

Florida is one of many teams capable of putting together a run in the tourney, but it all starts with Virginia. The loss to Kentucky was disappointing, but the Gators will now be measured by how well they respond. This first game can go a long way to restoring confidence of a team that underachieved down the stretch.

There will be plenty more to come, including previews, analysis and more, as we lead up to the game.

*Dear NCAA, you should return the tourney to 64 teams for a number of reasons, one of which the naming of the rounds.

2012 College Football Strength Of Schedules; Battles Ahead For The Florida Gators

  By One Eyed Willy | March 1, 2012 - 3:39 pm | Florida Gators Football
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With recruiting officially in the books, the beginning of spring football just around corner, and March Madness rapidly approaching, it will be only a matter of days/weeks until college football fans officially shift their focus to the upcoming 2012 season. And given the way that the Florida Gators’ 2011 football season turned out, you can’t blame us here at Hail Florida Hail for “jumping the gun” just a bit. So with that in mind, I bring you my way too early look at the 2012 college football strength of schedules (SOS).

For those of you who have visited this site (and its predecessor site) before, you know that I love numbers. That’s probably why I majored in Finance while at UF and am now in the investment banking industry. Given this fact, I have decided that the easiest way to analyze one’s SOS when teams have yet to even take the practice field is to look at how each team’s opponents finished the 2011 season. The simplest way to do this was to take an average end of the year ranking for each team’s 12 upcoming opponents. Sound complicated? Well, it’s not really. In fact, the hardest part was trying to find a complete ranking for all 120 teams after the bowl games had taken place. In the end, I decided to go with the College Football News Top 120 (in association with Scout.com and FoxSports.com) as it seemed fairly accurate and reliable. With that in mind, let’s look at the Gators’ 2012 SOS:

As you can see, the average 2011 BCS ranking for the 12 teams that Florida will face in the upcoming football season is 46.2. One thing to note is that I had to assign some sort of BCS ranking to FCS (Division I-AA) teams. I chose to assign them a BCS ranking just below the lowest ranked FBS (Division I-A) team, therefore they were all assigned a ranking of 121. We could argue the legitimacy of this assumption for hours, but honestly that wouldn’t be much fun, so let’s just go with it for these purposes.

Using this methodology for all 14 teams in the SEC (it still seems weird to say 14 teams in the SEC!), I came up with the following SOS for the conference members:

Some interesting thoughts based on these results:

• At first glance, I was somewhat surprised that Ole Miss had the toughest 2012 schedule on paper out of any of the SEC teams. But upon further review, it actually makes quite a bit of sense. First and foremost, they play in the SEC West which guarantees that they will play teams that finished #1 (Alabama), #2 (LSU), #7 (Arkansas), #27 (Auburn), #29 (Texas A&M) and #41 (Mississippi State) in 2011. In addition, their two SEC East opponents are #11 Georgia and much improved #46 Vanderbilt. Finally, Ole Miss has a mid-season out-of-conference matchup with #24 Texas, a team which most SEC schools frankly wouldn’t schedule as an out of conference opponent even if they had to. That means that 9 of Ole Miss’s 12 opponents in 2012 finished ranked in the top 50 in 2011. Not exactly what you want to hear if you are a Rebels’ fan who just suffered through a dreadful 2-10 season.

• Missouri’s SOS seems pretty high as well considering they are playing in the water-downed SEC East. But SEC West opponents of #1 Alabama and #29 Texas A&M strengthen their SOS considerably. Plus, Missouri plays two out-of-conference games against decent competition in #61 UCF and #66 Arizona State. It should be noted that Missouri has yet to finalize its final game of the season and should they pick up a FCS school, the Tigers’ SOS would drop significantly down to 50.4.

• The two teams that battled in the BCS National Championship have the exact same SOS leading into the 2012 college football season. Both Alabama and LSU play against teams that had an average ranking of 51.91667 in 2011. Seems almost too coincidental to be true, but it is.

• And then there are the Bulldogs (both Georgia and Mississippi State). First looking at UGA, their 2012 SOS certainly isn’t helped out by the fact that the SEC East was down last year and only resulted in one team (besides Georgia) being ranked in the top 25 at the end of 2011 (#14 South Carolina). In addition to this, Georgia plays three games against teams which ended near the bottom of the rankings last year (#89 Ole Miss, #113 Buffalo and #119 FAU) and an additional game against a FCS team (Georgia Southern). All-in-all, the Bulldogs certainly can’t blame the schedule makers if people are once again calling for Coach Mark Richt’s head by mid-season.

• Mississippi State’s schedule though is simply the worst in the conference. Although these Bulldogs play in the SEC West which is no laughing matter, they counteract those difficult intra-division games with games against the two worst teams in the SEC East (#53 Kentucky and #54 Tennessee) and out-of-conference games against #112 Troy, #115 Middle Tennessee and two FCS schools (Jackson State and South Alabama). Mississippi State finished 7-6 last year. If they don’t at least duplicate that record in 2012 given the schedule they have, fans may start wondering whether Dan Mullen really is the answer.

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Florida Gators 2012 Football Schedule Has Its Benefits And Drawbacks

  By The Bull Gator | December 28, 2011 - 11:00 pm | Florida Gators Football
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On Wednesday, the Florida Gators’ 2012 football schedule was released to anticipation not experienced in quite some time. That anticipation had as much to do with the Gators as it did with the new (and improved?) 14-team SEC. We knew Florida would be facing the Texas A&M Aggies and Missouri Tigers, but we weren’t entirely sure when and how those games would impact the rest of the schedule. Now we know.

A few thoughts come to mind with the releasing of the schedule. There are those parts of the schedule that benefit the Gators, but there are also those that could be seen as drawbacks. We already anticipate 2012 to be an uphill battle for Florida. 2011 didn’t answer many questions and left us all wondering what the future would bring. If the future was supposed to be 2012, it’s now 2013. Rebuilding doesn’t happen overnight, especially with an incomplete roster. Roster concerns are a discussion for another time though. For now, the schedule.

A completely unintentional twist to the schedule is the start of it. The Gators will close the 2011 season with the Gator Bowl against the Ohio State Buckeyes. The Buckeyes are soon to be coached by former Florida head man Urban Meyer (as if you weren’t aware of that fact). Florida opens the 2012 season against the Bowling Green Falcons. Meyer just so happened to be the Falcons’ head coach 10 years ago. It’s a merely a minor coincidence and one I had to reach for, but it’s there.

To have the Gators not open their SEC schedule with the Tennessee Volunteers is a problem. Okay, so it may only be a problem to me and a select few others who feel that matchup should always kick off the conference schedule. On one side of the coin, that game hasn’t always started the SEC games for Florida. On the other, it has for a while now and we’re (read: I’m) used to it. It doesn’t create a problem per say, but starting the conference schedule with Texas A&M in week two will be a change and possibly a challenge. It might not be a change we have to become accustomed to though as 2013 will bring the first of the “true” schedule templates for the near future. 2012 is simply a blip as the conference gets comfortable with 14 teams.

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