Another weekend down for the NCAA and another Monday with the Gators smiling down at the rest of the teams from #1, you’ve got to love how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

We’re a defensive juggernaut this season, a ball/clock control type of team. We utilize our strengths in the run and bolster a very efficient passing game, and Meyer keeps racking up wins (49-9).  However, with our toughest regular season game behind us, you have to start wondering if there should even be anyone left for us to fear until Alabama in the SEC Championship (a conversation we don’t need to start having in October).

Truth be told, I hope that fear is alive and well in every player in the locker room right now.  I hope they are sitting around every day afraid of overconfidence, afraid of injury, afraid of arrogance, afraid of the wildcard, bitches.

So, let’s not get complacent and expect to breeze through October and November on orange and blue wings of destiny, let’s put our heads down in the mud and sweat our way to the Promised Land full of fire and humbled by our fortune.

Without further ado…

3. Florida State – Let me take this opportunity to fear anyone crazy enough to hold up a game almost an hour to keep from getting fired. 

Bobby Bowden should be feared right now… he’s not playing with a full deck, he’s playing scrabble with dominoes, and he’s leaving the illumination on while no one is currently in the residence.  Oh, and he’s forgetting to win football games as well, which scares me as much as him winning them all.

Bowden has long since said he wants to die on the field, but that idealized demise seems to be flowing further and further down the river of crazy as loss after loss is piling up and creating a blockage on the end of a fine career.  At this point, Bowden (second all time in NCAA regular season and bowl wins) will be more remembered as the old guy who had to be removed by security because he kept trying to come to work. A Milton without a red stapler, for those who like movie references.

The man has been coaching since before many of us were born (1976), but he’s blown it this season with losses to every ACC opponent faced, making it an overall 2-4 season so far with the loss to Georgia Tech stinging the most because of how important it was.  When your team walks you out on the field arm in arm and then still can’t stop a team from dropping 49 points on you, you know there’s a problem.  GT ran for 401 yards and even their quarterback, who only threw for 4 completions and a score, ran for 140 yards and 3 TDs. 

So, why am I putting them at number 3?

First and foremost, because some of our SEC opponents (you know who you are Georgia) don’t look quite so…ranked anymore. Second, even though we’ve won the last 5 games against Bowden, you’ve got to believe that some part of the coach knows that whether he decides to leave or not, this is his last year as a Seminole.  If you found out your life was over on after a certain date, wouldn’t you do everything you could in those last moments to make it memorable and leave with a smile on your face?

Now, could they really do any damage to us from a realistic, logical point of view?  Probably not, with a team ranked 108 in total defense, but the offense can put up points.  They put up 44 points against Georgia Tech and their quarterback, Chris Ponder, is a solid talent (1781 yds and 9 TDs this year) and can run the ball when they need to, though the team does have 12 turnovers this season.

I know, Bowden’s lost his edge. He isn’t the right coach for this era, whether it be owing to tired philosophies that no longer work or just a laze from advanced years (he described that heartbreaking loss to Miami in week 1 as “the greatest football game I’ve ever been a part of” and didn’t seem to disturbed by such a crushing loss to an ACC opponent, smiling the whole time), but the fact is this guy’s been winning games since the mid 70s and he may want one last exclamation point.  Be wary.

2. South Carolina - I won’t spend too long here, as I’ve talked about Spurrier’s dangerous ‘Cocks already a couple times this season, but here they are again with another win and another jump in the rankings, though still only #22 owing to a so-so victory against a poor Kentucky team.

Let me just say here that the quarterback, sophomore Stephen Garcia, looks to be improving every week (he’s got 9TDs and 3INTs so far this season) and this week saw him hurtling a defender for a key first down late to clinch the game.  He can move when he needs to and is finding receivers with greater ease, which freshman Alshon Jefferey used to rack up 138 yards and 3 TDs against Kentucky this weekend. 

This Kentucky win marks the end of a curse as Spurrier won for the first time in the last six tries when he was ranked, but a squeaker win over Kentucky doesn’t inspire the same confidence a monster win over a perceived power like Georgia or Mississippi, especially when you remember Spurrier is 17-0 against the Wildcats.

South Carolina has been improving since they looked plain and beatable opening night when they dropped just 7 points on NC State, but they’ve been so quiet about it you’d swear that Spurrier isn’t even there this year.  They’ve looked absolutely magnificent at times this season on offense, running and gunning like it was a Spurrier team from a decade ago, but their defense still doesn’t have that steel feel to them and look like they could be pushed past bending as Kentucky and Georgia almost did.

Talk to me next week after they face Alabama, but they are directly beneath Florida in the SEC East this season and are most assuredly looking forward to inviting the Gators into the ‘Cock Pit (if they don’t call the stadium that currently, I’d be willing to spray paint it on the side) in November. 

Again, though, they have to wade through a Crimson Tide to get to our game, so we may not see this the same way by then.  As of now, Spurrier’s boys are improving, and though we may not see them breaking through this year, keeping this team together could yield fruits next season, especially on their young, talented offense.  Look for Brantley to shoot out with Garcia next season.

1. Arkansas – My Jekyll and Hyde for the season, what scares me most about this team is I’m not sure which one we’re going to play, so how do you prepare for that?  It would be like if Tebow got injured and we spent a whole week saying Brantley was going to play, but you got Tebow anyway, healthy and fired up.  On the one hand, you’ve got the Arkansas team that blew up Texas A&M and Auburn to the tune of 47-19 and 44-23 respectively, the one where Ryan Mallet looked phenomenal and the defense played like rhinos on fire.  On the other hand, you’ve got the team that decided not to play defense in a loss to Georgia and then decided it couldn’t play offense at all, scoring one TD in the loss to Alabama.

Handing Chizik his first loss at Auburn wasn’t too big a thing for me this week, as I thought Auburn was over rated (like Miss St, Ole Miss, and Georgia…and LSU…you know, the West besides Alabama) and ripe for someone to expose them.  All it took for Arkansas to come together for their first SEC win of the year was to awaken their defense against Auburn, who kept QB Chris Todd out of the end zone and fought off a third quarter comeback to secure the win.  In truth, the lack of defense has been the only worrying thing for the Razorbacks this year, maybe the only thing keeping them from winning over Georgia and having the number two spot in the SEC West.

Mallet has been a godsend for Hogs, adding to the running power of Michael Smith (he had 145 yds on 18 carries against Auburn alone) and rallying a depleted receiver core to achieve, what with two wide outs nursing broken collarbones and their leading receiver missing the Auburn game due to a mild stoke (?).  Mallet is 15^th in passing efficiency (a category Tebow gets in the top of every year) is averaging just under 285 yds per game in the air, has 13 touchdowns, and has only 3 INTs on the year.  If this wasn’t one of the finest transfers to the SEC in recent memory, I’d like someone to comment who is.  Let me also repeat that he is doing it with a Swiss cheese receiver core.

A rallying cry win over Auburn should boost their rocket sauce coming in to the game vs Florida this week, but Arkansas is coming into the Swamp on a weekend that we not only celebrate homecoming, but welcome our warrior back from LSU, and Kentucky to his home field.  The volume in the stadium alone could beat Bobby Petrino’s boys and unless they bring the same defense they brought last week, it could get ugly quick and there won’t be a damn thing some Michigan transfer quarterback’s golden arm can do against our golden boy.

See you in the Swamp, where the only thing we have to fear is some ringing in our ears.

Go Gators.