Saturday, September 19, 2009

Saturday 09/19 (Gainesville) Quickie

Gainesville -- From what I could gather, wandering around town yesterday, the sense of anticipation here for today's Florida-Tennessee game couldn't be bigger.

It's weird: It's not a "wow, what a big game - I hope we win!" vibe. It's more like "Just how much of a throttling can this be?"

There are two camps: Those who think it will be an absolute rout (my pick is 49-6) and those who don't like all this talk about how it will be an absolute rout. As a practical matter, I am part of the former, but I appreciate the sentiments of the latter (which includes much of my wife's family, so I am careful about how extremely I express my bullishness).

Anyway, it should be a great Saturday. Tons of intriguing games with results far more up-in-the-air than the one at The Swamp. That's another point: Has there ever been more hype for a game in which a team is favored by 28.5 points? That alone is a testament to Lane Kiffin's p.r. strategies -- even if Tennessee is going to get crushed, they are in the national conversation.

I'm going to try to tweet as much as possible from the game or tailgate scene, throwing in a few pictures, if I get any good ones out of my iPhone.

Meanwhile: I snuck my weekly college football picks beneath this post. Scroll down to see them (or just click here). The red- (or scarlet-) letter pick is obviously Toledo over Ohio State.

More on the radar today:
*Boise State wins shootout: Is Fresno State that good, to challenge the Broncos, or is Boise State just overrated? I will continue to presume the former.

*Corp or Barkley? Why is Carroll playing games?

*Twins pull within 3 of Tigers. Hmm...

*Tomlinson not playing Sunday. That's an L for those of you who start LT.

*Think the Yankees are a lock to win the AL pennant? Ichiro feeds doubts.

*Kazmir had been knocking on the door for a while, but the AL playoffs' biggest X-factor got his first win as an Angel.

And happy new year, to all my Jewish folks out there.

-- D.S.

2 comments:

Bill Simoni said...

As an Ohio State fan, let me say that today's game tells you more about Colorado than anything else...hope you're enjoying your unexpected (as of halftime) nail biter.

Steve Sprague said...

The UT UF game perfectly shows the burden of expectations as you tweeted. Florida dominated that game for the most part, yes there offense didn't score a lot, but their D was sick. I don't know about anyone else but I never got the sense that UT was a threat to win. Yet Kiffin can still spin this as a moral victory. In truth it may be, but as Meyer should say a W is a W.