Good Gator Pix [Gator]

A couple of pix sure to be unpopular with the non-Gators who may read this blog...the first comes from my Gator daughter, and the second was taken from the Orange and Blue Hue blog.

What Superman would be if he didn't have to deal with kryptonite [Gator]

Tebow Skips Senior Season, Ascends Directly Into Heaven

MIAMI (SP) -- Shortly after leading the Florida Gators to a national championship with a 24-14 win over Oklahoma, junior quarterback Tim Tebow announced he would skip his senior season and ascend 
directly into heaven...{Read the rest of this story here}


I guess this is meant to be a jab at the press, including the Fox announcers, ESPN announcers, CBS announcers, and every other person who has ever met Tim Tebow. I just think it's funny, mostly because Tebow doesn't believe all this stuff. (And I don't think his friends and family would ever let him.)

Thanks to Bob Henley for sending this my way.

(And if you haven't seen this video, then you probably don't watch much sports news.)

More to come [Gator]

Where do I begin?

A great, great, great day to be a Florida Gator. From the moment that Major Wright separated Oklahoma's Manny Johnson from his senses, it was a wonderful thing to watch the Gators capture their 3rd National Championship. [The picture is from GatorSports.com]

And there's more to come, we think. It's good to be on top. It's good not to be Florida State or Miami or Notre Dame or Tennessee or many other teams that can only look up from their position far down the mountain.

One of the best things about this was being able to share it with my children, having been able to attend games with them this year, so they got to experience what a championship season is like. It's good.

Great to be...

Quick post in the middle of a really busy week (while I wait for some video to render - that's a story for another time. Follow me at www.twitter.com/TimMcDaniel if you want the play by play.)

The real story is the Gators - back in the championship game. And this is how they got there...

My Enemy...only in a football sense

As a Gator fan I have a unwritten contract to despise everything that has to do with FSU and Georgia. They are our rivals - okay, not Georgia so much, since we own them. And there's no way you can like your rival's coach.

That's easy with FSU. Yes, I know, I've heard it..."Not like Bobby Bowden? But he seems like such a nice, Christian man." I don't buy it. I don't like him.

And Georgia's coach? Well...rats. I can't not like him, which is really terrible from a football perspective. After all, not only is he the head coach at Georgia, but he used to be on the staff at FSU. Trouble is, he's genuine, a good coach, and really represents Christ well.

Was I mad at what he had his team do on the goal line last year, stomping and jumping around? No. It was a tactic which worked well...last year.

And since we throttled them last week, it's all good.

I say all that to explain why I'm posting this video of the Georgia coach and his family. Because it's good. And inspirational. I hope Georgia does well for the rest of the year.

"It will be a big deal." - Urban Meyer

Great to be...

Other games might not go so well. (LSU and Georgia are on the schedule)

But it's always great to play Tennessee. Neyland Stadium is beginning to be like another home game. The Gator Sports Shop should set up an outlet store there.

The best part of winning any rivalry game is to read the newspaper of the opposing school afterwards. This article is good...but the comments at the bottom of it, from loyal fans of the Stumbling Vols, are priceless.

This picture, from the Gainesville Sun, of a guy going with the Heath Ledger/Joker look...how appropriate, if not a little creepy.

Go Gators.

Hurricanes Don't Roar, They Only Whine

Apparently, Miami coach, Randy Shannon was angry about the late field goal by the Gators last Saturday. Upset about Urban Meyer's decision to keep playing football, Shannon whined, "Sometimes, when you do things and people see what type of person that you really are, you turn a lot of people off." Was he talking about himself?

Loved Tim Tebow's response. "They're paid to stop us and Coach Mullen (offensive coordinator Dan Mullen) is paid to score. If they don't do that, oh well."

We see what kind of person you are, Randy.

Accepted

The big news from yesterday is that Shae received notice (via e-mail) that her application has been accepted for the University of Florida.

We're proud of her, especially since we hear that they are tightening their acceptance rate. It's not easy to get in, like it obviously was when I went there.

Go Gators!

Bowling with Sam and Shae

Spent New Year's Day at the Capital One Bowl in Orlando, cheering for the Gators and Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow. Shae and I wore Tebow jerseys. Unfortunately, the Gators lost. We had a good time.



Shae as we wait to get in. You can see Sam sitting in the background



Sam was tired after staying up all night.




Actually, he was happy. He's just serious about eating.


This is on the ramp on the way to our seats. Sam would make a new friend shortly after this picture.



Ashley Pounders and Shae.



From our seats, high in section 312.



The Gators on the field.



Fireworks were at eye level.



Apache flyover



My favorite picture and memory of the whole day

Four...and Counting

Best sign from the game tonight - "You Have Been Percycuted".

I would add "and Tebowned."

The only Heisman question is - who's #2?

(Photo from Yahoo and the AP.)

Losing to the Dogs

First cats, now dogs. Gators lose. Painful.

Can't Hold That Tiger, Again

Yeah. Last year's Gators could finish a game. This year's group hasn't figured out how to do that yet.

No more Tigers on the schedule. :)

Can't Hold That Tiger

Auburn 20, Gators 17. Sad. Hope it's not the Year of the Tiger, because Florida plays the LSU version this week. :(

More great stuff from my new favorite sports columnist

Gotta love it...
Adams: UT not keeping pace with Florida : Columns : GoVolsXtra.com:

"So the Vols went out and supposedly signed one of the top groups of receivers in the country. One of those highly touted wide receivers, Brent Vinson, had a chance to demonstrate his talent on a reverse against the Gators. He lost 9 yards."

Knoxville Sentinel Writes About Tebow

The only thing better than a good putdown of your rival is when it comes from their own fans...

Adams: Tebow power drives Gators' show of force : Unknown : GoVolsXtra.com:

"Leading 42-20, Meyer wasn't even thinking about playing it safe from his own 1-yard-line. Instead, he sent a message to one of Florida's three biggest rivals when he had Tebow throw from his own end zone. The message: 'You can't stop us.'"

Fantasies

September means football and football means...fantasy football and pick-em's and all sorts of other time-wasting activities associated with football.

So, after week 1, here's the update on my fantasy league pursuits...(and no, I don't spend much time on any of this - much.)

Game: Pigskin Pool - USA Today Pro Football Picks

League: PPL2007 - This is mostly members of Headquarters in Springfield. (invited by my sister, Tammy)

My Team: Great to Be a Gator - that's  a name that says it all.

Results so far: Tied for 2nd after picking 13 right in week one. Not bad.

Game: Pro Football Pick'em

League: Exit Pick'em Football - league started by our youth pastor, Jason Goss, and includes students and adults. (Exit is the name of our youth group.)

My Team: Controlled by Monkeys - don't you ever feel that way?

Results so far: Tied for 2nd after picking 9 right in week one. If only I would've used my USA Today picks.

Game: College Football Pick'em

League: Exit College Pick'em. ibid.

My Team: Own Ohio Renting the Other 49. A maybe-not-so-obvious reference to the Gators' total domination of Ohio State athletics in the last year. Big news if you haven't heard - the NCAA won't allow Florida and Ohio State to play each other anymore. It turns out that slavery is illegal.

Results so far: Tied for 1st after picking 17 correctly in week one. Missed the USF-Auburn game.

Game: Survival Football. This is interesting. You have to pick a winner each week, and you can't pick the same team to win more than once for the whole season. If you pick a team and they lose, you're out.

League: Exit Survival Football.

My Team: If I'm Lion I'm Dyin' - because I'm a Lions fan and they kill me every year.

Results so far: Alive. Picked Seattle to beat the Bucs. This is farther than I got last year.

Game: Salary Cap Football.

League: Exit Salary Football.

My Team: Hair is Overrated. Another obvious statement.

Results so far: Last out of seven. My guys had a down week.

Game: Fantasy Football. This is the kind where you draft players and have to keep up with it over the season. It takes the most time, but I don't expect to spend too much time on it.

League: Exit Fantasy Football. The league has a matchup element, where not only do we collect points, but we are competing head-to-head every week.

My Team: Flaming Platypi. 

Results so far: 1-0, and in 4th place after defeated Yo' Mama. I expect to get better - Ladanian Tomlinson is my main guy and he had an off week.

I won't give updates every week - but I'll let you know from time to time how it's going.

Shae's First Gator Game

Got to go to G'ville and let Shae experience her first Gator game on Saturday. It was almost the full enchilada. Rode up with Gary Robles and his son Adam, parked in our traditional parking area, made the walk past the union and up to the stadium, then spent about an hour looking for tickets to scalp.

We were successful - as expected - and got half-price seats, though rather high. (It's a little harder to scalp for 4.)

The only thing we missed was walking on the north side of the stadium past the Krishnas and seeing the band come into the stadium.

But Shae loved it, the Gators won (despite a sloppy third quarter), and we got home safely - about 2:30am.

Go Gators.