Once A Decade, Nick Saban Determines the Florida Gators Trajectory. What Will Latest Game Decide?
I’ve been thinking a lot about Johnnie Brantley this week. The former Florida legacy quarterbacked the No. 12 Gators to a 4-0 start in the 2011 season, before welcoming the No. 3 Alabama Crimson Tide to Gainesville. On the opening play of the game, he connected with Andre Debose for a 65-yard touchdown, giving the Gators an early 7-0 lead.
Then, he threw a pick-six to Courtney Upshaw early in the second quarter, giving Bama the 17-10 lead. Just before halftime, a sack caused the former Gatorade Player of the Year to twist his ankle. He left the game, forcing freshman Jeff Driskel into the spotlight, and Alabama ran rampant, winning 38-10.
It was the last time Alabama played in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium; until today that is.
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about Johnnie Brantley this week. I thought about calling him, seeing if he’d be willing to take a trip back to 2011 and talk about the game that disrupted his career and arguably changed the trajectory of two programs. A few times, I even picked up the phone, even pulling up his number a time or two, finger hovering there, debating whether or not to call.
I know he still lives here near Gainesville and he and his wife just had a baby. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to make the call; to say “would you mind taking a break from a busy life with a new baby to recap what I imagine is one of the more miserable days of your life?”
So I didn’t. But I’ve thought about Brantley and Driskel and Upshaw and Trent Richardson and Nick Saban and that game all week. I was a student at Alabama at the time. The Tide was the No. 3 team, yes. They had won a more recent National Championship, taking home the crystal ball for the 2009 BCS National Championship, after defeating the Florida Gators in the SEC Championship.
But we still weren’t quite sure if Saban’s early success was sustainable. For that matter, there was no indication Will Muschamp would be successful at Florida either, but the program as a whole had put together more consistent stretches of winning in recent years than Alabama had.
That 2011 game could’ve gone Florida’s way and it wouldn’t have been surprising. A 24-10 deficit at halftime was significant but not insurmountable and if Brantley and been back in the game, it’s much easier to imagine the Gators mounting a comeback in the second half. But that didn’t happen.
Instead, the same coach who brought LSU into the Swamp in 2002 and kicked off the Ron Zook era with a 36-7 loss, did it again in 2011. Saban marched into that hostile arena, looked across the field at a new Florida coach looking to build on the championship’s of the previous coach, and proceeded to kick his teeth in, over and over.
A year after winning the 2002 game, Saban won a championship with LSU. Nearly a decade later, in the same season he defeated Muschamp and Brantley in 2011, the Tide won a second championship under Saban. It was the front end of a back-to-back stretch, and the title that really demanded Alabama and Saban be feared each and every year thereafter.
It’s hard not to draw similarities to this game. A sell-out crowd (the 2011 game hosted the second-largest crowd ever at the time—90,888), two teams dreaming of a championship. A coach looking to build off past championships and chase his own. Another coach with the ability to stop that dream in its path.
And the chance, at least the chance, of the Gators pulling off the upset.
More than anything though, this game is a measuring stick. As Nick Saban said this week (according to Marty Smith of ESPN), this game will determine, “who you are, where you’re going and what you have to do to get there.”
Gators Head Coach Dan Mullen said much the same earlier in this week.
“Anytime you get the opportunity to play the No. 1 team in the country is a great, great deal. I think it'll be great for this team to see where we're at at this point of the season. Obviously it's a long year. The outcome of this game certainly is not going to define the season on either way. There's a lot of football to still be played throughout the course of the year, but it'll be a good measuring stick to where we're at at this point of the season with this team.
“I think early in the year, things are a little different. We’ve had some big ones against them, and big ones later in the year. Obviously last year’s probably had more implications than this game does this year. I’m sure – whatever the result of the game is, I’m sure both teams are viewing it as hope we have another opportunity—both teams want to play this team again at some point.”
In other words, whichever team loses can walk away and say, “Ok what did we do wrong? Let’s fix it to get back to Atlanta…with a likely chance of facing this same team again.” So for the Gators, who are a 14.5 underdog, even a close loss allows them to walk away with a smile.
Of course, that’s not why they’re here. That’s not why they play. It’s a comfort in a loss, but it’s the last thought while on the field. On the field, the only goal is to win; to say, this is who we are as a program—winners and contenders.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Johnnie Brantley this week. About how his injury well and truly let the 2011 game slip out of control. How that game in turn sent two programs on different trajectories; Florida flashing with empty promises until Mullen brought consistency. How it seems once every 10 years or so, Nick Saban comes to the Swamp and determines the fate of the next few years for the Gators program; from sending the Zook era slumbering along until Meyer, then Muschamp behind the eight-ball on big games and never able to overcome the deficit.
So what will the future—both near and far—look like for the Florida Gators? If history is any indication, win or lose, close or blowout, this game will tell us.
We were at the 2011 game. The one thing I remember was that the fans were not in the game. The fans were complaisant. I remmeber how shocked I was about the quit crowd.
But not this weekend. We were loud!!!
It was disappointing the booers that one time. In all kinds of weather they need to cheer. Hopefully this weekend the fans will be loud again.
Note we were in the south end zone. We were perfectly in line with the fake interception. It was not just two yards off but more like three yards off. Horrible refereeing.