Buddy Blog: Checking Out The Point Spread And Weather For Gator Homecoming.
Photo Courtesy of UAA
Just under a two-touchdown favorite, an upset alert and a forecast only a Gator could love.
By Buddy Martin
Florida is 12.5-point favorite over South Carolina in The Rebound Bowl, which ought to make homecoming a pleasant occasion for renewing old friendships, applauding old heroes and wondering why your old parking spot now requires a second mortgage.
Provided Florida understands the difference between hosting a celebration and participating in one. South Carolina has not been invited down to admire the decorations.
Instead, the Gators seem to be on upset alert. Only in college football can you be favored by 12.5 and still feel obligated to check the back door.
The betting line says Florida should handle this. The little voice in the back of the Gator fan’s head says the betting line won’t be sitting beside him if things go sideways.
That voice has attended a few games, too.
The weather forecast doesn’t look particularly good. The football forecast could be splendid.
There are plenty of inducements. All gates for Saturday's homecoming football game between Florida and South Carolina will open two hours before kickoff at 10:45 a.m., the University Athletic Association has announced.
Also, all concessions in the stadium will be 50-percent off from 10:45-11:45 a.m.
Which almost brings it back to normal!
This will be the 500th game in The Swamp.
Five hundred.
That is a lot of Saturdays, a lot of sweat, a lot of bad officiating witnessed exclusively by the home crowd. A lot of young men growing old in photographs while the people who watched them insist they remember every play.
And some of them do.
At the end of the first quarter, Steve Spurrier will have two minutes to acknowledge members of his 1996 national championship team and his 1966 teammates — the ones still here to answer the roll call.
There is your homecoming.
Not the souvenir shirt. Not the hospitality tent. Not somebody explaining how much better everything was when he was an undergraduate and somebody else was paying.
Those men.
The youngsters who helped build something before anybody knew what it would become. The champions who finally delivered what generations of Florida fans had been accused of imagining.
Spurrier connects them. The quarterback who won Florida’s first Heisman Trophy in 1966 became the coach who brought home its first national championship 30 years later. That is not merely a résumé. That is a considerable portion of the family history.
Two minutes will hardly cover it.
“I won’t have time to say much,” Spurrier told me. He did want to thank Jeremy Foley, his staff, school president Kent Fuchs and the UAA board of directors and board of trustees.
Of course, Spurrier has always been capable of accomplishing quite a bit before the other fellow gets organized.
He has called having the field named for him “the greatest honor I ever received” — even better than winning the Heisman Trophy.
When the naming was announced, his public statement called it “the biggest, most special honor I have ever received.”
Think about that.
The Heisman made him the best player in the country.
The name on the field made him part of the address.
Long after the last person who saw him play has gone, some father will explain that name to some child walking into the stadium for the first time.
And if the father gets carried away, they may miss kickoff.
Spurrier didn’t merely win here. He changed what people expected here. Six SEC championships and that national title will do that to a place. So will a 122-27-1 coaching record, with only 7 losses in 89 appearances as a player or coach on the field that was named after him.
Before him, Florida fans could turn next year into a religious observance.
He made this year worth discussing.
Now he will stand on the field bearing his name and recognize men from two teams separated by 30 years, joined by a lifetime of orange and blue.
Even a cynic ought to take his hat off for that.
Then Florida needs to get back to work.
Nostalgia is wonderful. It cannot pick up a blitz.
A 12.5 spread is an opinion, not a restraining order. It does not keep South Carolina out of the end zone. It does not prevent a dropped pass, a foolish penalty or the sort of turnover that makes 90,000 people suddenly remember an urgent reason to sit down.
The Gators can make this a splendid football afternoon. They can give the returning champions something to applaud besides one another.
But they ought to approach it with the understanding that homecoming opponents have a deplorable habit of wanting to win.
Nobody ever arrived in Gainesville saying, “We’re just happy to help with the anniversary.”
And South Carolina has its own chapter in the Spurrier story. The man being celebrated once coached the Gamecocks to their first victory in The Swamp and an SEC East championship. Sentiment has never been much of a defensive scheme.
So honor the old Gators.
Listen to the Head Ball Coach.
Remember what those teams accomplished, and what it took.
Then make the visitors uncomfortable.
The skies may open. The ponchos may come out. The expensive shoes may lose an argument with the weather.
None of that has to spoil homecoming.
Rain is manageable.
Having to explain how a big favorite lost the 500th game in its own Swamp would be a considerably longer afternoon.
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