Pat Dooley’s Back Nine: Florida Needs To Play From Ahead

The Back Nine comes at you after a great Saturday where everything kind of fell my way, including the Gators not losing.

10. So, what do we take from UCF’s pounding at the hands of Colorado? Well, the UF coaches had better take something, but we really can take nothing, because I believe for the most part that every game is its own game. Yes, that looked like a defense Florida can handle. But until Florida gets some stops on defense, every game could come down to how well it starts. Because this is still a football team, three years in, that needs to play from ahead. Maybe UCF does as well.

11. Obviously, the thing I took from that game was that Travis Hunter needs to be on my Heisman Trophy ballot. I don’t like to talk Heisman this early in the season, but when a dude does the Heisman pose in September, you know he’s thinking about it. The Buffs have a couple of tough games remaining (Kansas State and Utah are both at home) and the path to the Heisman still depends on your won-loss record. Hey, I don’t make the rules. Actually, there are no rules. But you know what they are. You also know there are people who will not vote for a player coached by Prime Time and that’s not right.

12. The SEC saw some amazing games Saturday, none better than the one we hoped would be great. Alabama fans would have thrown themselves off the Tuscaloosa Railroad Bridge if the Tide had blown a 28-0 lead. Unfortunately, the hero of the game is a young man who still needs some maturing. Ryan Williams, who is only 17 years old, had “KILL EVERYBODY” written on his faux eye black and his coach needs to put an end to that crap. In the name of Tim Tebow, the officials could have stepped in as well. Moving on, that was an incredible game and you only needed cable TV to realize how far Florida has to go to get to the level of those two teams.

13. I did not see the Kentucky upset of Ole Miss coming. Neither did Lane Kiffin. The Gator fans who want him to be their next head coach probably were injured jumping off the Lane Train. It’s pretty amazing that Mark Stoops has again put together a team that can’t score, but can still win games. That defense has given up a total of 30 points to Georgia and Ole Miss. That’s the stat of the year.

14. I will confess that I have no idea what is and isn’t a catch or what is permissible celebration-wide after scoring a touchdown (clearly, doing the Gator chomp in the face of a Florida defender is just fine). The sad thing about college football is that it changes from crew to crew and game to game. That said, the end of the Miami-Virginia Tech game was another example of why some people are easily confused. If the overturned call requires “indisputable evidence,” how can it possibly take all of the people in the command center six minutes to find indisputable evidence? Maybe because it was disputable. Just crazy, but for what it’s worth I didn’t think it should have counted. Also, remember my commandment Hokie fans — In college sports, you have to play around poor officiating.

15. It was a solid day on The Picks for Dr. Football, but it could have been better. A 3-2 record left the overall mark at 13-10-1, so we’re still over .500 against the spread. Yay! On to this week:

• After the way UCF played Saturday, I figured the Gators would be a slight favorite in The Swamp. And they are. The line opened with UF as a 1.5-point favorite. I’ll cautiously take Florida and cross my fingers.
• Clemson is a 14.5-point favorite in Tallahassee which seems like a lot until you stop to realize that one team is 3-1 and averaging 55 points a game since its opening loss to Georgia and the other is 1-4. Still, I will take the Semis to cover. That’s no guarantee they will cover Clemson receivers, however.
• Surprising line of the day is Missouri getting two at Texas A&M. Mike Elko is making a run at SEC Coach of the Year, but Missouri is a different animal. I’ll take the Tigers.
• Auburn is getting a few points — 23.5 to be exact — at angry Georgia and these Tigers don’t want to face this team in that kind of mood. I hate to give more than three touchdowns to any team, but I will. After all, Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun so Georgia is the pick.
• Funny conversation my friend Chris Harry and I had with my wife Karen trying to explain to her why Stanford at Clemson was an ACC game. Then she found out SMU is in the ACC. And Cal, which is a 13-point underdog at home against Miami. The ‘Canes are headed to the playoffs and there isn’t a danged thing we can do about it. Give me the Ibis-lovers.

16. The best thing that could have happened to the Presidents Cup happened when the International team swept Friday and those usually-polite Canadians were surprisingly annoying. It got my attention anyway. Congrats to the Americans and especially to the guys I refer to as Seltzer and Salsa – Xander Schauffele and Scottie Scheffler. Well done men.

17. I wonder if I can call in sick to The Tailgate if the Braves have to win a second game today. It’s a little difficult to concentrate.

18. No golf this weekend because the back is putting up a white flag. But I still listened to this playlist:

• “That’s How I’m Feeling” by the incomparable Jack White. Turn it up.
• “When I’m Gonna Lose You” by Local Natives.
• And for an old one, “To Love Somebody” by The Bee Gees. They wrote it for Otis Redding, but he died before being able to record it (see, my Facebook feeds are good for something).

WRUF.com sports columnist Pat Dooley can be heard on “The Tailgate” along with Jeff Cardozo from 4-6 p.m. Monday-Friday on 98.1-FM/AM-850 WRUF.