After a week off, Gators will get back into the battle

The Gators had the weekend off to heal and to prepare for a road trip to Lexington to play the surprising Wildcats of Kentucky.

Before the season started, I remember wishing we’d had that extra week before, rather than after, facing LSU. In the crazy college football season of 2007 it turns out that we can really use that extra week of preparation for Kentucky as well. Because, in case you missed it, Kentucky shocked the college football world by beating LSU Saturday evening in triple overtime. I’d like to think we softened LSU up a bit before they headed to Lexington and perhaps we had something to do with the upset, but really it looked like the Wildcats just wanted it more and they alone deserved all the credit for taking down the No. 1 team in the land.

The LSU-Kentucky game reminded me a lot of our game against LSU, with the home team playing from behind for most of the game and then staging a late-game comeback to win. Kentucky needed three overtimes to finally put LSU away, but LSU, by virtue of its gambling head coach, was able to put us away in regulation, continually extending drives by going for it on fourth down.

Now we head into vaunted Commonwealth Stadium for a date with the Wildcats. Courtesy of their defeat of LSU, the Wildcats are the highest they’ve ever been ranked in the BCS standings (Have they ever entered the BCS standings?). They’ll be playing with confidence, but I think these Gators realize they have no margin for error and they’ll play that way. I look for a breakout game for Andre Caldwell as he is finally healed after not seeing significant game time since he was injured against Tennessee. I think it’ll be a shoot out — UF 34, UK 27 — with Caldwell, Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin all contributing.

The Gators lost one of their own this past week when young Michael “Sunshine” Guilford was killed in a motorcycle accident. His passenger, Ashley Slonina, also was killed in the accident. He was featured on SportsCenter prior to last year’s title game for portraying Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith in practice, and earned the nickname “Sunshine” due to his resemblance to the character from Remember the Titans.
The newspaper accounts all contained one of my least favorite phrases in reporting: “toxicology results are

pending.” You know what? Who cares? It doesn’t make the episode any less tragic, especially when talking about a young person. We all know we shouldn’t drive impaired whether it is determined he was impaired or not. Making an example of someone’s tragic ending serves no good purpose in my mind — it only clouds our memory of the departed. Besides, if it turns out he was completely sober, it’ll never be reported. The media will only make a big deal of things if he’d had a drink.

My hat is off to Coach Mark Richt of UGa for demanding his players act with a little class. After his Dawgs narrowly escaped Vandy in Nashville on a last-second field goal (courtesy of an untimely Vandy fumble late in the game) many of his players gravitated to midfield and began to celebrate the win by dancing on Vandy’s star emblem at midfield. Coach Richt forwent the postgame handshake so that he could run his own players off the emblem, sending them to the locker room to enjoy the victory without showing up the home team. Again, hats off to Richt, but what is with those players? Has UGa fallen so far that they really need to show up Vandy?

The BCS standings are out. The SEC has an amazing three of the top seven and seven of the top 21. The ACC has only three teams in the standings. Meanwhile, every Seminole I know is saying that since our teams both have the same records now that we must be equal as well. Are they serious?