It’s been quiet in Gainesville this week, with only whispers here and there to gauge how Tebow is recovering.   While other SEC teams have fought gloriously with each other this week, we scour the papers and internet to hear any updates we can scrape together about our fallen general.   Will Tebow play?  Is he going to be a different quarterback?  Is Brantley ready to go?

 As he improves, Tim and us all must get back to the task of focusing on the season, looking ahead at what’s to come, and preparing by looking at what the other teams have for us.  That begins for us now as we march towards LSU Saturday night in Baton Rouge, but before we get to Leslie and his Tigers…

3. Arkansas – Ryan Mallet, the team rises and falls with you.  After the ‘Bama defense gave Mallet fits the week before, he returned against a previously unbeaten Texas A&M team, dropping 4 TDs.  The Razorbacks live and die by Mallet this year, as Ronnie Wingo Jr and Michael Smith have spent most of the year looking for one big run per game, and spending the rest of their time setting up the pass game.  Alabama saw that in week 4- giving their all to stopping Mallet and seeing great results.  Granted, he pulled it together again in Week 5, but the fact is that a good defense that can pressure up front and get in Mallet’s face will yield some questionable throws without a solid running game to depend on.  Sounds like a Florida defense to me.

As for Arkansas’ defense…

If Tebow still wasn’t ready by 10/17 and Brantley was inexplicably unable to play, it still looks like the Gators could put up yards against Arkansas.  After a tight week 1, the defense has given up 52 points to a floundering Georgia, 35 to a stellar Alabama team (see you around SEC Championship time?), and although A&M was held to a mere 19 points, they did gain 458 yards during an awful offensive performance riddled with mistakes (2 fumbles, 87 yards in penalties).  For every compliment you give Mallet on his good weeks, you have to give demerits to the defense, which doesn’t seem to be able to bend without breaking.  They allow 100+ yards on the ground weekly (even in their great week 1 win versus Missouri) and have given up 300+ yards in the air two of the four games (Missouri was a joke, but Alabama managed to almost be the third 300+ yard air attack).

So, why should we fear them?

Bobby Petrino must have been overjoyed to get Mallet, because his team, already 0-2 in the SEC this season, would be much more Vandy looking this season without him.  Fact is, though, that Ryan Mallet can play and a solid quarterback having a great day is always a fear for an opposing team, no matter who he has around him.  Mallet threw touchdowns to four different receivers against A&M (which, I want to restate, had no losses and was averaging 500+ yards per game on offense), so the Hog defense got to sit on a team playing from behind most of the day and made some plays because of it.  If we get the Ryan Mallet who played last week, our 10/17 matchup could be something.

2. South Carolina – Can anyone figure out the Gamecocks this season?

After looking subpar to start the year with a nothing performance at NC State and a horrible loss against a Georgia team that just got worse from there, Spurrier and his boys have gotten to 4-1 by week 5.  The squeaker win over Mississippi State being their only win of any merit, South Carolina is still putting numbers in the win column, relying on a stout defense and a dependable, but low scoring offense.  The once high flying offenses of Spurrier’s Florida have been toned down in favor of the standard SEC philosophies of run the ball, stop the ball, and time management.  Quarterback Stephen Garcia has spent the last couple weeks averaging less than 20 completions per game, with only one 300+ yard passing game to his credit the whole season (in the loss to Georgia).  This past week’s stomp of SC State (they do like to play state schools) wasn’t as impressive as the week before, taking out unproven #4 Mississippi State and finally ending the Gamecocks 0-22 record against top 5 ranked teams and taking the Rebels down for the second time in a row.

In direct opposition to Arkansas, the ‘Cocks saving grace is their defense.  The past two weeks, they’ve given up a total of 264 yards passing (Snead only managed 107 on a 7-for-21 day) and have looked good in their only two SEC games this season.  They unmasked Miss St, who had no business at #4, and put up better offensive numbers in their loss to Georgia then they did against cupcake Carolina state college clubs, but what is most confusing is that Spurrier is the mastermind behind it all.  Long gone are Steve’s gunslinger days, as he has fully embraced the SEC he so overhauled in the 90’s. 

Between now and our meeting with South Carolina there is a lot of SEC ball to play, with their next two weeks against Kentucky and Alabama giving us the best time to see what kind of team they really have up in the southern of the Carolinas.  That defense is formidable, so if they can withstand a tenacious Wildcat team without losing their quarterback and outlast an Alabama team looking to distinguish itself in the unbeaten trio of SEC West squads, they might be some form of trouble for us down the road.

But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves by worrying about anyone other than…

1. LSU – This is our first real game of the season, against a ranked “powerhouse” of the SEC West, but, if you listen to the national media, this isn’t a scary team this year.  They’re lucky.  They win ugly.  They’re overrated.

Aren’t they sporting a 5-0 record right now?  3-0 in the SEC?  Allowed a meager 13 points or less in 3 of 5 games this season?

The Tigers may not be for real to some, but their record so far this year says otherwise and, as we’ve heard so many times before, a win is still a win, no matter how solid or shaky or lucky it may be (remember all the Gators in 2006?).  LSU should be thankful for their #4 ranking, but now has to buckle down and prove their reality, starting this week with Florida.  Truth be told, that’s one of the main fears we have this week.  LSU knows they’ve been nationally ridiculed and want to prove they can win against the elite of the SEC, not just the Vandys.  Florida is the first of several big SEC games against big names like Auburn and Alabama, so dropping the ball against the Gators spells certain doom for them the rest of the way.  They have a chip on their shoulder, have something to prove, and a team like that is dangerous regardless of who’s better than who on paper.

Edging Georgia (who was held to one first down in the whole first half) this week in the closing minutes, the Tigers still looked unsure about their offense, spending time on the sidelines too often while their defense sailed in and saved the game for them as they did in their four straight goal line stops against Miss St.  Too often, LSU wins this season require some sort of error by the other team (this week it was a failed 2 point conversion and an excessive celebration penalty enforced on the kickoff, followed by another Georgia penalty on the ensuing drive), but the Tigers are good enough to see those mistakes and make you pay for them. 

While the offense has been spotty, with a quarterback who went two games without touchdown throws and a running game that has yet to show us a 100 yard back (Miss St held the team to 30 total rushing yards), the defense has been anything but.  For any who follow the NFL as they do the NCAA, you can make the comparisons to the Super bowl winning Ravens, as they did what was required to get a lead, then let a solid defense hold the game for them.  If your defense stays healthy, this tactic can work, but it’s a slippery slope and leaves room for one mistake to ruin the whole game.  It’s a gamble every week to put up just enough points to win, but LSU has made a season out of this tactic as their new defensive coordinator John Chavis is putting a “D” back in Tigers (I think it goes somewhere between the “g” and “e”). 

Ah, but fear not too much my Orange and Blue friends, for we have the second ranked defense in the land and LSU remains tame looking on offense.  Add to that the #3 offense in college sports against a defense that, as we’ve stated above, needs mistakes to thrive and it doesn’t seem that scary after all.  I mean, we are playing at night, and that used to frighten me when I was six, but we should be able to get past that and focus on the game, regardless of who we have at quarterback this week. 

And about that…

Leading up to the LSU game, many have questioned whether Coach Meyer was pushing Tebow too much, saying he was ready to the media when he might not have been.  To me, that was brilliant.  Of course Urban’s going to say Tebow’s ready, because now we have an LSU team who doesn’t know which quarterback to prepare for, so they’ll spend time preparing for both Tebow and Brantley, who I still believe is one of the top five QBs in the SEC right now.  If Tebow is out there on Saturday, they might be more prepared for him, but preparation doesn’t play and can only take you so far.  If Brantley plays, you know the Tigers aren’t going to be as prepared; there’s not enough footage to properly practice for a QB of the future playing now and, even if there was, you know Les focused on Tebow stopping. 

Don’t be scared this week, folks, we’re still a #1 team and there’s not a soul in Baton Rouge who can do a thing about it, so pull on your jorts, your orange, and your blue and if you can’t be in Louisiana this week, make some noise at home and we’ll see you at 5-0.

Joshua Bauer is a Columnist for GatorTailgating.com.