It’s a brand new year that will be filled with new hopes and high expectations for all 16 members of the Southeastern Conference. The 2024 season wasn’t exactly a case of the SEC putting its best foot forward. It’s true that expanding to 16 teams made an already tough Southeastern Conference that much tougher. Each team became a cannibal, feasting on other league members. Perhaps we’re not all that far from an era when we’ll see an SEC champ with three or four losses.   In postseason play, the SEC is currently 6-5 with Georgia, Texas and Ole Miss still playing and with a chance to help erase some of the embarrassment of Alabama losing to Michigan and South Carolina going belly up against Illinois. Right now, the SEC isn’t looking nearly as tough as the Big Ten, which should send alarms through the league offices in Birmingham. For the SEC to match its slogan, the league has to mean more than break even in the postseason.   Here is a team-by-team look at all 16 SEC teams and their 2024.   SEC FOOTBALL Alabama (9-4): It’s never easy to follow a legend. Ask Ron Zook. Ask Will Muschamp. Ask all the coaches who followed Bear Bryant until Nick Saban showed up. In following Nick Saban, Kalen DeBoer has lost four games, the first time that’s happened since 2007, which is also the last time the Crimson Tide failed to win 10 games. It’s going to be a long, lonely winter in Tuscaloosa, and if recruiting and the offseason produce another 4-loss season, Kalen DeBoer better have his next gig lined up.   Words of wisdom for the Bama coach who probably would like to find a cave where he can hide:   "If anyone wants me tell them I'm being embalmed." -- Casey Stengel   Arkansas (7-6): The marriage between head coach Sam Pittman and offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino was good for 459.5 yards and 30 points per game. They made it through the year without a divorce. Now it’s the offseason. Will Bobby hang around for another year or will he do what he’s done a bunch of times in the past, which is to bolt? The grass always seems greener for Bobby Petrino.   Words or wisdom for Bobby Petrino:   “Don't talk about yourself so much ... we'll do that when you leave.” -- Rodney Dangerfield   Auburn (5-7): Confusion reigns on The Plains. Auburn faithful believe the Tigers are still relevant on the national stage and teetering on the verge of making Bama the little brother in the Heart of Dixie. Someone clue them in that Auburn is 28-33 since 2020, the last year the Tigers had a winning season. After dealing with Auburn alums, Hugh Freeze must be asking himself “What the hell was I thinking when I left Liberty?”   Words of wisdom for Hugh Freeze when dealing with Auburn alums:   “ Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. ” -- George Carlin     FLORIDA (8-5): Billy Napier not only survived the 2024 schedule that was described as the nation’s most brutal, but he won eight games. In doing so he essentially gave the finger to all those pundits who were calling for his head even before the 2024 season began. Billy’s job is secure at least until DJ Lagway declares for the No Fun League after the 2026 season. Billy never seemed outwardly fazed by all the talk that he had one foot out the door, especially after that disastrous 1-2 start, but he has to be inwardly saying “I told you so” to all the naysayers. Can he lead the Gators back to the promised land? That remains to be seen, but one thing for certain is that Napier will be the head coach until DJ Lagway has thrown his last pass as a Florida Gator.   Words of wisdom for the Gator Nation who have a coach for two more years at least:   “I’m the one who’s telling you the way it’s going to be.” -- Chili Palmer     Georgia (11-2): Good old Kirby Smart really puts the fear of God in his players. They know if they get caught driving DUI or recklessly the punishment will be severe. Trevor Etienne still talks about the two laps he had to run around the practice field every day for a week. Poor baby. Maybe that’s why talented recruits flock to Athens. They’ll play harder for a coach whose connections will get them off the hook for -- how can we phrase this -- their youthful indiscretions.   Words of wisdom for the Georgia faithful who believe they're being picked on by the rest of the SEC:   “ When you are younger you get blamed for crimes you never committed and when you're older you begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed. It evens itself out.” -- Casey Stengel Kentucky (4-8): Prior to laying a 4-8 egg in 2024, Mark Stoops kept getting offers to coach for big bucks at places where football is actually the most important sport on campus. Always, Stoops said thankee but no thankee and remained at Kentucky. Here is what we can surmise by his willingness to stay at UK: At places like Texas A&M and Miami, two of the places that have been interested in hiring him away from Kentucky, they will fire you if you don’t win big. At Kentucky, the faithful think a trip to Nashville for the Music City Bowl ranks right up there with making the College Football Playoff. Therefore as long as Mark Stoops keeps the Wildcats going to such exotic locales as Birmingham for bowl games, he’s got a job. There are worse things than gainful employment for more than $7 million a year.   Words of wisdom for Mark Stoops who is in a job from which he can't get fired:   “Don’t let the green grass fool you! Don’t let it change your mind.” -- Wilson Pickett   LSU (9-4): Brian Kelly has won 29 games in three years at LSU, two seasons with arguably a quarterback who might be second in talent only to Patrick Mahomes and 2024 with talent that ranks among the top five nationally. How do you lose 11 games in three years with that much talent? Think of it like this: Brian Kelly, who was hired on the pretense that he’s a football savant, has won one fewer national championships than Coach O, who has never been confused with a savant. And just think, LSU is on the hook for $10 million a year for seven more years if they want to buy him out or fire him.   Words of wisdom for the LSU nation that is starting to question the wisdom of Brian Kelly as HBC:   “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” -- Albert Einstein   Mississippi State (2-10): For reasons that only someone under the influence can reasonably explain, quality coaches such as Murray Warmath, Darrel Royal, Jackie Sherrill, Dan Mullen and Mike Leach not only did time as the HBC at Mississippi State, but actually won more football games than they lost. Jeff Lebby went 2-10 in his first year in Starkville, which can be seen from 30 miles out thanks to the football stadium. From a distance it looks like the mother ship has landed to take ET home. ET will probably come back to find Elliott before Mississippi State has another successful run. They will dwell among the catfish at the bottom of the SEC pond in perpetuity. Words of wisdom for the Mississippi State faithful wondering if they'll ever win again:   “Life is like a dogsled race. If you ain’t the lead dog, the view never changes.” -- Lewis Grizzard   Missouri (10-3): The Tigers won 10 games this year, in large part because they played the easiest schedule in the Southeastern Conference. Let’s get real here. Who cares? We’re still trying to figure out how it is that Mizzou is in the SEC. There is nothing SEC about the Tigers, who have far more in common with their cousins in the Big Ten. Columbia is a long way from anything SEC and once you get to a ball game there, the atmosphere feels nothing like an SEC game is about to take place.   Words of wisdom for Mizzou fans who may not feel like they actually belong in the SEC:   “ If you don't know where you're going, when you get there you'll be lost. ” -- Yogi Berra   Oklahoma (6-7): They don’t keep records of such things, but if they did then the Oklahoma Sooners would have set some sort of record for most injured football players in a college season in 2024. This is why Brent Venables will be back to coach the Sooners in 2025. That he went 6-7 with such a banged up roster is fairly remarkable. It earned Venables a mulligan after posting a second straight losing season. He won’t be given a third even if his 2025 team stages a repeat of 2024 by setting injury records.   Words of wisdom for Brent Venables:   “ You fail all the time, but you aren't a failure until you start blaming someone else. ” -- Bum Phillips     Ole Miss (9-3): When the Rebels are right, they might be the best team in the country. The problem is they have enough nights when they are no shows that they blow an ideal chance to win a national championship. Do they show up tomorrow and blow the doors off the Dookies in the Gator Bowl or do they go into a 60-minute coma that has folks asking if Lane Kiffin is nothing more than another Dan Mullen -- a great offensive mind who can’t be bothered by all the details?   Words of wisdom for Lane Kiffin:   “Remember, half the doctors in this country graduated in the bottom half of their class.” -- Al McGuire   South Carolina (9-4): Forget what happened in the Citrus Bowl, which used to be the winter home of the Tennessee Vols. Sure, it’s embarrassing to lose to Illinois, which has Big Ten fans gloating. The Gamecocks, predicted to finish just above Vandy in the SEC, won nine regular season games, finishing on a 6-game streak that included beating three ranked teams. Okay, so it was the Aggies, Mizzou and Climpson. Nobody pays attention to who but they do pay attention to NINE. Yes, Shane Beamer coached a team of absolute nobodys to nine wins.     Words of wisdom for Gamecock fans who feel they were disrespected:   “ It is the team for every guy who has to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for short money on a job he does not like. And it is the team for every woman who looks up ten years later and sees her husband eating dinner in a T-shirt and wonders how the hell she ever let this guy talk her into getting married.” -- Jimmy Breslin     Tennessee (10-3): One of the major scoops by ESPN during Tennessee’s blowout College Football Playoff loss to Ohio State in frigid Columbus was how those clever Tennessee equipment guys had cut vents in Nico Iamaleava’s jersey and lined them with flannel so he could keep his hands warm. Memo to ESPN: The Green Bay Packers did that for Bart Starr in the famous Ice Bowl, played at Lambeau Field in 1967. Memo to Nico and to his coaches: It takes more than warm hands to beat a well-coached, quality team on the road. The Vols under Josh Heupel are road kill when it comes to playing decent teams away from Knoxville. They need to figure out how to win road games.   Words of wisdom for Josh Heupel trying to find wins on the road:   “They could surrender to us but I wouldn’t count on it.” -- The Sundance Kid   Texas (12-2):  Steve Sarkisian has an Alabama scalp under his belt thanks to a 2023 win in Tuscaloosa. That’s all well and good. Now he has to figure out how to beat Georgia. He’s currently 12-2, both losses to the Poodles. Texas faithful should pause their “how tough can this be?” chatter about joining the SEC until they can beat Georgia.   Words of wisdom for Texas faithful:   “ As I say, we tried to remove the tusks, but they were embedded in so firmly that we couldn't budge them. Of course, in Alabama, the Tusk-a-loosa. But, uh, that's entirely ir-elephant to what I was talking about.” -- Captain Jeffrey Spaulding   Texas A&M (8-5): Mike Elko was hired because the Aggie faithful thought as long as Jimbo Fisher was the head coach, they would lose four or five games every single year. Year one after the $75 million buyout of Jimbo and the Aggies went 8-5. Again. The Aggies have been in the SEC since 2012. Texas, which thinks it is “Big Brother” to the semi-rural Aggies, finished 11-1, made it to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game, and won its first round College Football Playoff Game. The Aggies have yet to make it to Atlanta despite record spending.   Words of wisdom for the Aggie faithful:   “Money didn’t matter 2 night; it sure didn’t matter yesterday. Just when you think you’ve got more than enough, that’s when it all up and flies away” -- Prince Nelson Rogers   Vanderbilt (7-6): Hope springs eternal in Nashville where the ultimate Southeastern Conference bottom feeder just posted a 7-win season that concluded with a Birmingham Bowl win over Georgia Tech. The Commodores have spent so much time in last place that they could change their name to the Catfish. To put Vandy in its proper perspective, the Commodores have won 373 football games since becoming a charter member of the SEC. By comparison, Boise State, which joined Division I in 1994, has won 368 games. Boise State has never beaten Alabama much less taken down the Crimson Tide when ranked No. 1 nationally. Vandy did that. This year. Vandy! Whodathunkit ?   Words of wisdom for the brie and chardonnay set at Vandy:   “The sun doesn't shine on the same dog’s ass all the time.” -- Jim “Catfish” Hunter

For more than 20 years my Christmas column has tried to recreate the excitement I felt on December 25, 1964, when I raced down University Avenue to Florida Field in my brand new, white Florida Gators football jersey with the No. 11 stitched on by the folks at Jimmy Hughes Sporting Goods. Once I found an open gate to enter the stadium, I ran around Florida field channeling my inner Steve Spurrier and throwing imaginary touchdown passes to Charlie Casey, I felt a tingling sensation all over my body. In my mind I heard the Florida band blasting out “Orange and Blue” and the roar of a crowd gone crazy.   I knew I was a Gator for life back on September 18, 1960 when Ray Graves held two fingers in the air to go for the win instead of kicking an extra point that would have tied Georgia Tech. That was my first college football game, my first time ever in a crowd so big (something like 39,000 if memory serves me correctly), but that day on the field in 1964, the stands empty except in my mind, I WAS Steve Spurrier. I WAS a Gator.   There’s a difference in sitting in the stands or in the press box than it is even in a totally empty stadium. There at midfield, looking up at grandstands that seemed to go on forever, my feet on the same field where real Gators fought and won football games, it was a special moment that sealed it forever that the Gators would be the only team that would ever matter.   I’ll say it once again: Mickey, Yogi, Roger and Whitey retired or were traded away, so there went the Yankees. Brooks, Frank, Boog and Jim Palmer, same thing. So long Orioles. The Colts traded Johnny Unitas and then they one day packed up in the middle of the night for Indianapolis. Indianapolis Colts has never had quite the ring of Baltimore Colts. The Baltimore Ravens just don’t do it for me. Bill Russell and Cousy retired. The Celtics had a rebirth for Larry Bird, but even he retired because his back gave out. The Chicago Zephyrs became the Baltimore Bullets who became the Washington Bullets who became the Washington Wizards.  The Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins. The new Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers. Now there is such a thing as the Washington Nationals, no ties whatsoever to the Senators, Twins or Rangers. The Kansas City Athletics, formerly the Philadelphia Athletics, became the Oakland A’s and now they’re orphans waiting for a new stadium to be built in Las Vegas. The Raiders left Oakland for LA, came back to Oakland and now they live in Vegas. No matter where they are the ghost of Al Davis will haunt them forever. The St. Louis Cardinals became the Arizona Cardinals and the Los Angeles Rams, formerly the Cleveland Rams, became the St. Louis Rams only to become the LA Rams again. Carroll Rosenbloom sold the Colts, bought the Rams, croaked and his former Vegas showgirl trophy wife owned the Rams. People have forgotten more football in a nanosecond than Georgia learned in a lifetime.   Maybe you’re starting to catch on. I never could depend on a pro team but there has always been the constant that is the Florida Gators. Sure, players come and players go, but the University of Florida is in the same place it has always been, the Gators are still the Gators no matter who wears the uniform for one or four years. The Florida Gators were, are and will always be the Florida Gators, the only team that will always matter to me.   I dread the day when a Gator jersey will resemble something out of Euro soccer -- “I keeck a touchdown!” said Alex Karras -- and we have corporate logos turning our beloved blue jerseys into walking billboards. I long for the faith to pray that notion straight to the depths of hell, but I fear that the day is not far off.   But, even when the day comes and the Florida Gators presented by Publix play the Chico’s Bail Bonds Georgia Bulldogs in Jacksonville or the Maker’s Mark Bourbon Kentucky Wildcats in Rupp Arena in Lexington, I will still be a Gator. I will always be a Gator.   No matter what.   I don’t think anyone should be too surprised by that. I’ve been called everything from a homer to unthinkable names by Georgia fans. I guess they never saw the humor when I nicknamed them the Poodles in 1999 and it went viral. The internet wasn’t nearly as expansive as it is now and social media hadn’t even been invented yet, but that caught on like wildfire.   And it stuck. I still call them the Poodles. I still loathe them. I still believe that the only time a true Gator ever pulls for Georgia is when a Georgia win somehow benefits the Gators quest for a championship. My ultimate Gator fantasy is the Gators score a touchdown with 15 seconds left and rather than kick the extra point, they go for two. And they make it.   Florida 94, Georgia 0.   It doesn’t end there, though. The Gators execute a PERFECT onside kick and recover. Rather than a victory formation, they throw the bomb. It’s like a grown man beating up a 5-year-old and yet it feels righteous. Florida 100, Georgia 0. A perfect ending to a perfect day.   As the clock nears midnight here in Gainesville, I’m almost deafened by silence. My stepfather, who rarely had a quiet night in the final weeks before his death back in November, is not calling me. I know he’s gone but my mind and heart have not adjusted to his loss. They wait impatiently for his call in the middle of the night, the one that leads me to his bedside where I ask him what’s wrong? Sometimes he smiles, sometimes he cries. Vascular dementia is so cruel. He knows he needs something but what? He can’t remember. He cries because he can’t tell me because when he called he believed I would have the answer to something he can’t remember. It was cruel that he needed and I was unable to deliver anything except to hold his hand, touch his cheek and tell him everything would be all right when I knew in my heart it wouldn’t be.   It hurts deep because I remember how bright and intelligent he was, this man who called VMI, Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt alma maters. This man who read hundreds, even thousands of books in his life and who could carry on an intelligent conversation about anything. It hurts deep because this was a man who served three tours in Vietnam and was with a Marine tank unit during the heavy fighting of Tet. He was brave. He was proud. He never stopped believing in God, country, family and the United States Marine Corps.   In place of his cries for help that I anticipate but are no longer, my 96-year-old mom sobs gently. She can no longer see and her mobility is so limited. She is lonely. Her best friend forever has gone to a place where there always will be a forever. After 52 years of marriage, she feels a void that can’t be replaced. She knows he is in heaven. She knows in her heart that the day will come that she will see him again, only this time there will be no disease ravaging his brain until the point when it stops telling him to swallow and he aspirates. He will see her the same young beauty he fell in love with. She will see the same strapping Marine who had that confident, disarming grin.   I try to comfort her but nothing can take the place of a companion so close that they could carry on 5-minute conversations from across a loud and crowded room. A look, a smile, a gesture, a raised eyebrow, a shrugged shoulder, a nod of the head. They spoke to each other loud and clear and yet nothing was actually verbalized. I marveled at the depth of their love for each other that they could telepathically carry on full blown conversations. I’ll never know that. I don’t know more than three or four people in my 73 years who could. They could. They were connected and now they are apart. He’s safe. He has no pain or sorrow or tears. She’s alone and the pain in her heart almost overwhelms her. She longs to be with him but feels an obligation to remain on this earth to help God oversee my sister Donna, my brother Gregory and me. So she hurts and we hurt with her. We pray that her pain will somehow lessen, but we know her. We know it won’t.   So what does all this have to do with a sports column on a website devoted to the Florida Gators. Perhaps nothing if you aren’t the sentimental type. Perhaps everything if you have felt the loss of someone you loved dearly. Dom and Carleta Underwood were so connected that they gave each other’s lives new meaning from the first “I love you.”   Long before there was Jerry Maguire, he had my mom at hello and she had him the moment she answered.   There are people in your life who you love. Today, tell them you love them and not some casual “love ya” or something that almost numbs those very powerful words, but tell them in such a way that they feel what is in your heart. Take the time. You won’t regret it.   There may be some people in your life that at some point in the past, whether long ago or recently, you had a falling out. Maybe you haven’t spoken in a long time. Maybe it wasn’t even your fault, nothing has been resolved and fingers of blame are still being pointed. Pull those fingers back in. Call or go by or text or email, but take that first step. Love is a powerful thing and even if your heart isn’t overflowing with love the gesture alone will say words that you can’t bring yourself to say.   Christmas cards and Christmas gifts are wonderful whether we are giving or receiving, but nothing -- absolutely nothing -- can do for someone else on Christmas Day like reaching out to say “I love you.” The Bible tells us we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Take a moment and consider the fact that when we love our neighbor or our friend or our brother or sister or mother or father we are allowing God’s love to flow through us. There is nothing more gracious than to send the perfect love of God to someone.   Consider this, also. We can never know completely what goes on in another one’s mind and heart. That moment you reach out might be the one thing that ends a miserable moment, day, week or year. That moment you reach out might be the one thing that lifts someone from unheard of depths and back into real life.   I’m reminded that when we point a finger at someone we have three pointing back at us, so I think I should start. Today, I’m going to tell friends and family alike that I love them. I’m going to call some people and let them know that whatever is amiss in our relationship, I still love and care for them. If I have hurt or offended you in any way and I don’t know about it, please contact me and allow me the opportunity to at least try to make it right.   This is my Christmas gift to friends, family and the many friends and acquaintances I have collected through the years writing about the Florida Gators.   Merry Christmas everyone. I love you.

For the second time in five weeks, I grieve the loss of a dear, dear friend. On November 20 Dom Underwood passed away after his battle with vascular dementia came to a peaceful end. Five weeks later, I find myself still grieving the loss of a truly wonderful man who was my mother’s husband, best friend, companion and confidant for 52 years. So many things I miss about him, but most of all the lessons he gave in unconditional love. He loved freely and didn’t ask or demand anything in return.   Yesterday, I lost another dear friend, this one the feathered variety. My yellow collared macaw passed away after a sudden but devastating illness. Her name was Ralphie. I won’t bore you with the details on how a female got the name Ralphie, but she hatched 31 years ago and adopted me seven weeks later. I say adopted because you NEVER adopt a macaw. I was there in Chiefland the day she hatched, and by the time she was four weeks old, she knew who I was. When it came time to take her home on my birthday, she was ready to go, totally unafraid and comfortable being held. Seven weeks old, riding in a car for the first time, completely trusting me that I was going to take care of her. She trusted me completely from August 21, 1993 until the moment she died.   I fed her from a bottle. She was supposed to be weaned at 12 weeks. Twelve weeks came and went. She was still on the bottle. She would fluff her feathers, cry real tears and beg for her bottle. I gave in. Ralphie was nine months old when she gave up the bottle, no thanks to me. I had to go out of town for 10 days. She stayed with a friend who didn’t buy the tears. I came home and she was eating real food.   She loved to ride in a car, especially if she could sit on my shoulder and look out the window. Food was always an adventure. She loved things like rice, macaroni and cheese, green beans, baby lima beans, scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes, blueberries, grapes (green), apple (only Granny Smith), cheese, french fries (Checkers, not McDonald’s) and orange juice. She felt a need to try whatever it was I was eating. I could give her the same thing in her food bowl but she had to come to my plate because what I was eating had to be better than what I had shared with her. She begged to try coffee until she discovered that hot coffee and her tongue were mortal enemies.   She loved the music of Elvis, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles and Guy Penrod. She had a particular love for hearing my sister Donna sing. Donna is the minister of music at Bay Street Baptist Church. She has a beautiful voice. Upon hearing Donna sing, Ralphie would chime in. Well, she always thought she was singing but in her tiny macaw brain she thought the two of them were making beautiful music.   She loved football and basketball games on television, especially if she could sit on my shoulder. No, she didn’t know the game, but the sounds of the crowd and bands blaring excited her.   For 31 years, this little bird thought I was her mother. She was raised in captivity and wouldn’t have had a clue what to do if she had been forced to make a go of it on her own in the wild. She depended on me the way a small child depends on mom to take care of their every need. When I was living in Altamonte Springs, she was frightened by a car backfire as I was walking to my car with her on my shoulder. She flew away. She had never flown before, never had a reason to fly in fact. She disappeared. For more than two hours I tried to find her without success. Just when I thought she was gone for good, I checked my watch. It was 6 p.m. Dinner time. I started calling her name and she answered, about 30 feet up on the top branch of an oak tree, no idea where she was or how she got there, much less how she was going to get down. I called the fire department and they sent out a truck with a gondola. I’m not good with heights but I went up in the gondola to rescue Ralphie. When I reached out, she climbed onto my hand and went straight to my shoulder. When the gondola got close to the ground, it jerked and there was a loud sound. Ralphie flew again. This time to a palm tree right in front of my condo. The process was repeated, only this time she was wrapped in a towel. When we got into the condo, she bit my ear several times. Her way of telling me her big adventure was no fun at all. When I moved home to Gainesville to help care for my parents, Ralphie bonded with both of them. They adored her. They gave her treats but most of all, they gave her love and she loved them back. When Dom passed away, Ralphie went into a nearly three week depression. She would hop down off her perch, walk on the floor to where Dom’s bed used to be and then she would scream to anyone who would listen, her way of asking where an important member of her flock had gone to.   In the Amazon jungles of Peru and Brazil, yellow collared macaws live in flocks that sometimes number several thousand. They fly sometimes 30 miles from their nest in a single day, yet at the end of the day they will fly back to the same tree where they started. How do they know which tree among thousands and thousands is the place where they make their nest?   Ralphie didn’t fly 30 miles away but she made a nest in the bottom of her cage. She got in her cage at night for sleeping and when she perceived something was wrong. She gave us no clue that she was sick until Christmas Day. She clung to my chest as I drove her to the University of Florida vet school, one hand on the steering wheel, one hand to hold her close and keep her warm. She let out these tiny groans. I talked to her the entire drive to the Archer Road ER, played some music hoping it would calm her.   When it came time to admit her, she cried and tried to hold on to me. She was scared and she was being taken from “mom.” They labored over her throughout the night but mid-morning Thursday, I got the call that her kidneys had shut down.     I held her the last time Thursday afternoon. She was in an oxygen chamber, struggling to breathe when her little heart gave way, breaking mine the moment she took her last breath. Just 48 hours earlier she had climbed up my leg and onto my shoulder to “help” me write. Christmas Eve she climbed up my leg, got on my shoulder and bit my ear. Not a bite intended to hurt because her beak was powerful enough to rip my ear off. This was her way of telling me it was OUR time and 10:30 meant time for maple walnut ice cream.  She would sit on my hand and pick out the walnuts, carefully licking the ice cream off before she devoured her favorite nut of all.   Thursday night I sat in the same chair where we used to sit for late night ice cream. I couldn’t eat any ice cream, didn’t really want any because my friend whom Dom Underwood dubbed “the little green child” wasn’t there to share it with me.   Dom and Ralphie. Two marvelous friends who loved me unconditionally. Since November 20 there has been a void because Dom is no longer here. Tonight the void has been doubled. I grieve. I ache. I pray to God a selfish prayer hoping that they passed away knowing I loved them even a tenth as much as they loved me.

Playoffs, Smayoffs. Bowl games still matter to the fans because they can have fun. And Gator fans did that at the Gasparilla Bowl. By CARLTON REESE  GatorBaitMedia.com On Sunday morning, tens of thousands of Tennessee Vol fans woke up in 20-degree Columbus, Ohio, the continuation of a weekend nightmare not simply because their football team was humiliated the night before. For them, there were no roller coasters, tiki bars or games of beach volleyball leading up to the big game.  Perhaps an uplifting visit to the National Veterans Memorial and Museum or the Franklin Park Conservatory provided something memorable for the trip; otherwise, regrets are about the only thing Vol fans took back home with them. Welcome to the era of the national college football playoff, where the old debates about mythical champions have finally been vanquished so that we get it right, no matter the costs. Up to this season, every year of college football was rife with debate about who should either be playing for the national championship or even who should actually be the national champion. Even with a 12-team playoff the debates remain; only no one will argue over who the champion is in the end. So what a relief for our beloved sport! We finally “get it right” – but did we? College football, in its organic form, from the late 1860s grew into a second national pastime over the next hundred years with teams playing mainly a regional schedule and harrowing over conference championships and wins over rivals. As such, teams competed mainly for the sake of competition and rivalry, and not until the early 1900s was there ever such a thing as a postseason thanks to the Rose Bowl game, first played in 1902 and then annually since 1916.  As the popularity of such games grew, more bowl games emerged so that eventually there were too many. Bowl games weren’t created or mandated, they simply emerged over time and lasted for a century, eventually factoring into who would be determined as “national champion.” The wise sage Reese Bobby claimed “if you ain’t first, you’re last” and generations of college football fans seemed to have taken this seriously: to them, what matters is who wins the national championship – anything else renders your program at the bottom looking up. So we now have this 12-team (soon to be 16-team) playoff where the final landscape of college football is to be a battlefield littered with 133 rotting corpses and one victor. Today’s millennials have no recollection of spending late December on Bourbon Street with a New Year’s Day game awaiting at the Superdome.  During the day, other bowl games would be gracing the TV sets of the bars and restaurants and the whole scene was a party. Finally, there was a game, and win or lose there was a vacation of revelry shared by strangers all happening to wear the same colors. Perhaps it was for a national championship or maybe for bragging rights – either way, the game was a big deal and getting there was a tribute to your team’s great season and a reward to the players and fans alike. Perhaps New Year’s Day was spent on the sofa. For a college football fan, there was no better day of the year than that one spent watching the Cotton Bowl then the Rose Bowl and that inevitable evening battle between the Orange and Sugar. Each game was a championship in and of itself. Fast forward to 2024, where those Vol fans no doubt see it all as a giant waste of time.  Playing a road game on the campus of another team, especially one located at some frigid latitude, was more of a curse than a reward. It’s fair to ask, “Who is happier today, Vol fans or Gator fans?”  The question answers itself. With the playoffs, we have turned the rowdy saloon into a neighborhood Chili’s – the former rather unpredictable where most have a great time and the latter a more safe haven offering the measured “standard pour” at the bar with the typical uninspiring appetizers. At least  Tennessee fans were able to travel out of state for their miserable adventure – Indiana had its best season in forever and followed the trail of tears to South Bend, within their own borders. Southern Methodist went 11-2 and earned a trip to Nowhere, Pennsylvania. Clemson won the ACC despite a mediocre season and at least enjoyed a vacation in Austin, Texas. The 40-year-old fan who wears a hockey jersey to church can’t imagine a world without a playoff, or six overtimes, or a thousand points on the board. He’s a fan! The world needs every call to be reviewed, telecommunication through helmets and nothing allowed on the field that can’t happen in Madden NFL.  Today, the automaton sports world beats the days of Earl Weaver arguing with the umps any day of the week. The Gators did not make the playoffs and that seems to be the measuring stick for any football program today. On Friday night on Dale Mabry Avenue in Tampa, hordes of Gator fans chanted in unison, “It’s great… to be… a Florida Gator!” and there is little doubt none were despondent about missing the playoff.  On Cumberland Avenue in Knoxville Saturday night, Rocky Top was being played with all the enthusiasm of Tap. With the institution of a playoff, the long-range design is simply the elimination of bowl games. None have any meaning these days, so we are told, so why even bother? But in our zeal to create a football tournament we are losing one of the truly unique elements of the sport that helped to fuel its mystique.  The Sugar Bowl was special because it was the reward for winning an SEC Championship; the Rose Bowl was the reward for the Big 10 and Pac 10 champions. The Cotton and Orange Bowls brought in champions from the SWC, Big 8, Big 12 and ACC depending what decade you were watching.  Admittedly, the games were special even if they more often than not failed to pit the two best teams in the country. The bowl system was part of college football’s immense rise in popularity – a playoff is thought to take that popularity and increase it exponentially.  The results of this experiment won’t be known for years to come, but at the moment it seems the sport will be filled with more disappointment than rapture. With 134 teams in Division-I, college football is still at its best as a regional sport.  Equitable scheduling is impossible nationwide – it’s not even possible within a 16 - team conference! Playoffs work when the sample size is small enough for equitable scheduling, which takes place in the NFL even as imperfect as it may be. But there has been this push for national hegemony in college football the past 50 years and finally a semblance of it has appeared. It just doesn’t taste as good as we thought it would.  Just ask any Vol fan.

"Hey Santa, we’re good people down here, and we follow the rules — a lot more nice than naughty — so why did it take so long to get  rewarded with our gifts for good conduct?" A belated letter to Saint Nick: Sorry for the tardiness, but frankly, we didn’t know if you were still accepting our letters from down here after two years with no response. We recently found out that our letters were going to the wrong Saint Nick and apparently wound up in Tuscaloosa. Fortunately, we just got your good address and decided to write even though we were late, so just apply it onto next year if necessary. Frankly, Santa, we’re having problems keeping up with the new calendar brought on by the 12-team playoff and have some questions about why things are as they are. For instance… What about the cycle of success, when history seemingly gets it wrong and your team is on the downside? It starts to feel like fate is conspiring against you. After all, in the charmed culture of winning, you are supposed feel entitled by earned stripes and anticipated blessings as normal, like you are exempt from the curse of failure. So this lack of success was mistakenly delivered to the wrong door and therefore the reversed fortune surely must be an anomaly.  Over the decades, Gator fans have  experienced healthy sample sizes of both. The difference is that the stench of losing never goes away and it takes much more than hard work to get back on top of the mountain.   When all else fails, when you must resort to mystical intervention, we may chose to invoke your Santa Claus effect, hoping and wishing against reality because that’s all we’ve got left.    Hey, we’re good people down here, and we follow the rules — a lot more nice than naughty — so why did it take so long to get  rewarded with our gifts for good conduct?  Conversely, with somebody like Billy Napier at the helm, we were beginning to wonder what was the deal with nothing to show for patience except lumps of coal in our stockings for nearly three years. Santa, you finally showed up in November, 2024, and we almost didn’t recognize you. Welcome back Daddy White Beard! We’re happy that you’re packing the good stuff in that sleigh again. I do have this one complaint. Can you send us guys in the real media a code breaker so we can decipher what’s going on with all this player buying and stealing and jumping bean mentality? These are the good times again and the Gasparilla Bowl made it feel like the Good Lord was smiling down on the Gators again. However this has been a rough few days and sometimes it felt like things were slipping away. It felt like they were coming from everywhere to pick off Gator players. This time it was the news that starting LB Shemar James had declared for the NFL Draft. James, a junior linebacker who was second in tackles (64) this season and declared for the draft via Instagram. In 2024, he recorded 25 solo tackles and 2 sacks.  James and Elijah Badger joined a continuously growing list of Gators to have declared for the draft, including Graham Mertz, Jason Marshall Jr., Cam Jackson, Derek Wingo, Montrell Johnson Jr.and Jeremy Crawshaw. On the plus side was the landing of four of the Top 10 recruits from the state — WR Dallas Wilson (via Oregon), WR VernellBrown, S Hilton Stubbs and CB Ben Hanks. Oh yeah, and the pickup of UCLA star receiver Michael Sturdivant. Talk about targets for wunderkind QB DJ Lagway! Receivers Room ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Dallas Wilson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Vernell Brown ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Tre Wilson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Aidan Mizell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Tank Hawkins ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Naeshaun Montgomery ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ J. Michael Sturdivant  Thank you Sugar Daddy Santa! We love what we ‘re used to college football — we really do — but we worry about its life expectancy.  I’ll make this short and to the point.  And BTW, thanks for your real live interview in the Altoona Mirror (you can Google it): Throughout the world, children have asked Santa for dinosaurs, art supplies, Squishmallows, video game consoles, sporting equipment and remote-controlled “fart machines.” “I’ve had about five kids ask me for one this year. I don’t even know what a fart machine is,” Santa said. “It’s not even a whoopie cushion.” Santa said he refuses to bring money as a gift to children since it can’t be made at the North Pole.  “I also do not like to promise young children cellphones,” Santa said. OK, one more thing. No more Boise or SMU next year — and a little less Big Ten. That is all. Except for this: Do you really expect us to believe there is an Altoona Mirror?

TAMPA -- If he had enough hair to let down, Billy Napier would have done it Friday night as he sat at the podium in the bowels of Raymond James Stadium while sandwiched between Chimere Dike, DJ Lagway and the human eclipse that is the enormous Desmond Watson.   Billy was having fun, perhaps the most fun he’s had in three years as he answered questions from a media that all but had his coaching obituary written a little more than two months ago. Fun is what you have when you’ve finished a season that began so poorly with four straight wins to secure an improbable 8-5 record.   Fun is what you have when you’ve just won the last game of the season in blowout fashion and you’ve just allowed Watson to channel his inner Gale Sayers to convert a third-and-1 on Florida’s final scoring drive of the Gasparilla Bowl. It was an idea cooked up in practice as the Gators prepped for Tulane, which played for the American Athletic Conference championship a couple of weeks ago but on this night was completely overmatched.   “ We started out, we just had a run where he was a blocker, and we had a play-action pass where he was kind of a decoy,” Napier said after the Gators left Tulane languishing like a lost ball in the tall grass on the side of the road, 33-8. “And then just watching our players when we put that package in, the guys were like, ‘Hey, give him the ball! Give him the ball!' And we literally put the play in on the field at practice.”   The Gators were already ahead 26-0 late in the fourth quarter when Watson lumbered out on the field with the ball on the Tulane 26. Taking a handoff from backup QB Aidan Warner, Watson rumbled over the left side for the yard it took to earn the first down. Big Dez running with the ball felt like an earthquake, almost as if the entire stadium was turned sideways on its foundations. It was only a yard, but Napier and Watson's teammates celebrated as if Big Dez had outrun the entire Tulane team as he sprinted 99 yards with the ball tucked high and tight. Following a delay of game penalty, Watson lined up in the I-formation as the fullback, leading Anthony Rubio through a hole for an 8-yard gain. Watson lost his helmet on the play so he had to leave the game, but he was mobbed by teammates who were already in a celebration mode.   Sitting at the podium, dwarfing Napier and easily twice the combined size of Lagway and Dike, Watson grinned when asked if he could also catch passes.   “I can do it all,” Watson quipped. He spoke softly but ever so confidently. Everyone in the room grinned with him.   He’s a senior. This was his final game as a Florida Gator, but he has a memory now that will last a lifetime.  After all, how many 460-pounders can say their feet danced through a hole as they carried the ball for a first down?   This 4-game winning streak to close out the 2024 season is a memory that could end up lasting a lifetime if Napier and the Gators can use this momentum to truly turn the corner of a program that was teetering on the verge of irrelevance. Three consecutive losing seasons and five losers in the last 12 after going from 1980-2012 without a single sub-.500 season have transformed the Florida football program from perpetual SEC and national championship contender into one riding off into the sunset.   An 8-5 record doesn’t mean the Gators have turned the corner on the journey back to contenders, but every journey begins with a first step and this streak is as a good place as any to begin. Against Tulane, the Gators did it without bringing their offensive A-game. Despite 529 yards -- 305 through the air and 224 on the ground -- and a nearly 18-minute time of possession advantage, the Gators left points on the field.   Plenty of them. Lagway, the game’s MVP who completed 22-35 passes for 305 yards and a TD, threw a pair of interceptions. One killed off a promising drive, the other was in the end zone on a third-and-goal from the Tulane four.   Penalties turned a first down at the Tulane 29 into a second-and-29 that eventually became a 44-yard Trey Smack field goal. Another penalty nullified a 8-yard touchdown run by Jadan Baugh in the fourth quarter, resulting in another Smack field goal, this one from 30 yards out.   A first quarter sack in the red zone turned another potential touchdown drive into a 34-yard field goal by Smack. In the third quarter, a first-and-goal at the Tulane three netted -3 yards on two running plays and a hurried incompletion on third down. Smack kicked a 24-yard field goal on that one.   At the podium, Napier playfully chided Lagway, “ “You know I told DJ, I said, ‘What if we scored touchdowns on all those possessions?’ We’d have a lot more points right now.”   Following a 6-0 halftime lead, the Gators scored three second half touchdowns -- a 7-yard Lagway to Tony Livingston pass, a 25-yard run by freshman KD Daniels and Rubio’s 8-yard run. The Daniels TD ranked right up there with Watson in terms of entertainment value. On fourth-and-1 from the Tulane 23, Lagway fumbled and the ball went backward. Daniels alertly picked up the ball and plowed straight ahead, but instead of going down, he burst through to the second level, then sprinted his way to the end zone.   A lot more than three touchdowns would have looked good on paper, but they weren’t exactly necessary the way the defense was playing. This was Florida’s fourth straight game in which the defense played a definitive role, unimaginable thinking back to the way the defense played in September. Tulane came into the game averaging more than 205 yards on the ground and 209 through the air. They couldn’t get either working against the Florida defense kept the Green Wave from sustaining any kind of drive until the very end when they scored a meaningless touchdown with 29 seconds left. The Gators picked off three Tulane passes, one by Trikweze Bridges on the Green Wave’s first offensive play of the game, another by walk-on Alonzo Allen Jr. in the third quarter and a fourth quicker pick by freshman linebacker Myles Graham.   The Green Wave managed only 194 offensive yards, the lowest total allowed by the Gators all season. Tulane QB Ty Thompson completed only 11-29 passes for 125 yards. The Tulane running game netted only 69 yards on 27 carries, just 2.6 per attempt. Tulane converted only 3-13 on third down, 1-4 on fourth down.     What the defense did against Tulane was indicative of the final four games of the season. The Gators got stops and they got takeaways. A year ago, the Gators had only 22 sacks and seven takeaways. In 2025, bolstered by four games of dominance to end the season, the Gators wound up with 39 sacks and 25 takeaways (11 fumbles recovered, 14 interceptions). In the final four games, the Gators had seven fumble recoveries, five interceptions and 19 sacks.   “I think one of the reasons we've been able to turn it around is we played really good defense down the stretch, and today was no different,” Napier said. “I think we stopped the run, we made it one-dimensional, we kept the shots in front of us. I thought we did a good job tackling on the perimeter.”   Turn around the Gators did. After a 1-2 start that included humiliating home losses to Miami and Texas A&M, the Gators went 7-3 the rest of the way. Three of the losses (Tennessee, Georgia and Texas) were to teams that are in the College Football Playoff. Against the toughest schedule in the nation, the Gators knocked LSU and Ole Miss out of contention for the playoff and they beat Tulane, which played Army for the AAC championship. Important when contemplating the future is Florida's 6-1 record when Lagway was the starting quarterback.   Back in September and prior to forcing Tennessee into overtime at Neyland Stadium, Napier was thought to have one foot in his coaching grave, the other out the door at The Heavener Center. Reports of Napier’s demise obviously were greatly exaggerated. Billy is Florida's football coach for the foreseeable future.   The trick now for Billy Napier is to prove that the Gators aren’t one-season wonders. They will get the rest of December off, then it will be time to crank things up again in January. When January rolls around, Billy Napier’s buzz haircut will go back to looking like it is spray painted on, but until then Napier, his staff and the Gators have earned the right to have some fun, share a few smiles and even let their hair down a little bit.   A one-season 8-5 record offers no assurance that the Gators have turned the corner on a rocky road back to relevance in the Southeastern Conference, but it is a good place to start. The question now becomes is this one-season achievement sustainable? Do the Gators have the momentum necessary to get back to the days where a 9-win season was considered a bad year?   There will be time enough to figure that out, but for this moment, it’s time for Billy Napier to channel his inner hippie, complete with long hair that blows in the wind.

Gators concluded their season with a commanding 33-8 win over the Tulane Green Wave in the Gasparilla Bowl at Tampa's Raymond James Stadium on Friday.