Why does the ACC's finest scare me?

Okay. Here is my first column on the Gators. It's 2:30 a.m. and the UF-FSU game is in 13 hours, so I'm kind of rushing to "publish" the article before the actual game. There may be spelling-errors. I didn't proof-read this bad boy because I'm tired and staring at Lee Corso on Sportscenter is distracting me from the task at hand.

So here is the rough draft of my first column on this blog. Enjoy (all 13 people who have found this blog):

Being a sports fan—especially a fan of high stakes college football—is similar to a bank robbery. The people robbing the bank are scared because they know they’re f-ed if they fail. The policemen and SWAT team are scared out of their minds because they know they’re dealing with people so far out of their minds that they’d consider robbing a bank. But the people with the biggest fear are actually those stuck in between—the hostages.

Being a college football fan is like being a hostage. The entire experience is spent more worried about what could happen than enjoying what has happened. It’s the burden of following division-1 football (Sorry, still can’t get used to calling it FBS. Sounds too much like a TV station).

Every team has that bank-robber rush going the entire year, or until they realized they did not have the right personnel for the job they were hoping to do (**COUGH michigan COUGH**). In this analogy, winning the national title is like Dalton Russell walking right out of the bank he just robbed, in front of the leading investigator, at the end of “Inside Man.”

Right now, the Florida Gators are so close to completing the caper. Ever since the Georgia thumping, there has been an underlying feeling that it would all work out. The Big 3 conference has the strongest teams and it looks like Oklahoma will come out of the 3-way nuclear war as the only team alive, assuming they can outplay Mike “I’M A MAN! I’M 40!!!” Gundy’s boys and avoid a brain fart against a Missouri Tigers squad that, despite being national title contenders at the beginning of the season, always gives off a “lets just keep it close, we’ve exceeded everyone’s expectations already” vibe.

UF’s roster is so loaded that fans have only felt queasy once, which was the Major Wright brain lockup/comeback/blocked extra point/Tebow stop choke-job. Ever since the Mississippi stunner (and subsequent Tebow “you won’t find anyone that works harder” press conference that made every Frat boy cum his pants), the Gators have played exactly like they were expected to. Maybe it was the threat of a firedanmullins.com popping up, but all of a sudden the offense started clicking and hanging up half-a-hundred on every team in the SEC. There was no more drive charts that read: option left. shovel pass. option right. tebow up the middle. shovel pass. option right. option left. shovel pass. All of a sudden, the wide receivers with an average forty of 4.32 running deep routes—and seeing the ball come their way. The last 7 games have been like the montage in “Remember the Titans” after sticking Petey Jones to defensive back, complete with the Pouncey twins ruining the “Gators Eat Free” buffet.

Which brings us to today. I’ve had a feeling that this was a national championship team ever since the Georgia game, yet I feel worried about FSU. It doesn’t make sense. We’re more athletic, hands down. We don’t get five receivers suspended for fighting with a fraternity. We have a Heisman trophy winner with national championship experience at quarterback. Our best receiver isn’t a pothead. Our coach is half the age of their coach and actually knows what is going on with his team. Yet, I feel a little uneasy about this game.

Why?

Maybe it is our Heisman trophy winner. For all the super human feats and no-homo man crushes he has generated Tebow has never had a defining moment. Is Tebow clutch? Who knows? In the games that UF has lost, he’s played pretty well, but there is only one way I measure how good a player is at the end of a game. How many “legend” moments does he have? Has Tebow played any game where he orchestrated a late game drive to win it? The type of drive that you can hear the NFL-films voice going “Florida Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow methodically driving. The defense is no chance for number 15 on this day. The seconds ticking away, it is the only thing that can aid the defense at this point. But Tim Tebow remains cool.”

But a bigger factor in my fears might actually be the Seminoles. UF has taken the last four games and FSU seems due to steal one. Over the last four years the Seminoles have been plagued by under-achieving athletes and incompetent quarterbacks. I wanted to say this year is different, but it really isn’t. While a lot of teams have storied histories at certain positions—Penn State is “linebacker U,” USC is “running back U”--, Florida State should be known as “choke quarterback U.” Has anyone looked at the line of signal callers that have started for FSU? Drew Weatherford. Xavier Lee (kind of). Wyatt Sexton. Chris Rix. In that group, the best one was probably the guy who succumbed to Lyme disease and proclaimed he was God.

Current quarterback Christian Ponder fits right into this group. The first game I saw him play had me sold. Against Wake Forest earlier in the season, Ponder was handed a great chance to rally his team and make himself look like a leader. He had already thrown two interceptions earlier, but he got a second chance when backup D’Vontery Richardson became the bizzaro-John Elway and blindly threw the ball as if to prove he had never read the playbook and couldn’t believe he had made it this far without anyone noticing. Ponder stepped in to relieve Richardson and immediately threw a pick of his own. Alas, he was the prototype Seminole QB. Play as an underclassmen and have everyone use that as an excuse for your play? (Check.) Ability to make highly-recruited supporting cast look bored? (Check.) Ability to lose a game single handedly? (Huge Check.)

So, again, why am I scared of this game?

It really comes down to two things.
1) It’s at the Doak. Where only Seminoles get out alive… but in all seriousness, you can’t underestimate 80,000 fans who hate everything about you. And FSU fans sure do hate the Gators. (Sidenote: Sure, Gator fans don’t care for Florida State either, but we’ve had bigger fish to fry lately) The Tomahawk is one of the best cheers in sports and you know it will be in full-force if Tebow gets sacked or Antoine Smith breaks a huge run.
2) Have you watched the ACC this year? It’s a basketball conference trying to be respectable in football. The result? A bunch of mediocre offenses battling it out for a shot at a BCS bowl. There has not been a group of teams more inconsistent since… ever. Which means there are two Florida States (kind of like the freaky two faced lady from those Avis commercials). Good Florida State beat Maryland 37-3 last week. Bad Florida State couldn’t keep up with Boston College the week before. Good Florida State can, at the very least, cause an epidemic of heartaches in Alachua County on Saturday. Bad Florida State loses this game 63-17.

Here’s the main point: FSU may be the other school in Florida, but they could turn into the crazy attention-deprived sibling looking for revenge.