Monday, October 31, 2005

On not quite a win

Okay, so a win on Saturday would have rocked. Beating Florida is fun, from what I remember, and undefeated seasons are fun (or so I hear), and having a pretty solidly established SEC playoff spot going into the upcoming Georgia-Auburn game would be especially fun. But I'm a reasonable person, and I know that even without the W, good football is the most fun of all. And a weekend with Spartan 47 in it is a good weekend, regardless of the outcome.

Spartan 47 was one of those plays that would have been fantastic if it'd gone smoothly, and was immensely satisfying and entertaining when it didn't. For those of you not bright enough to tune in: Georgia is down 14-3, second and seven on the Florida nine-yard line. As soon as Joe Tereshinski (who's having a fairly rough introduction to Florida football in his first-ever career start) gets the ball in hand, a Florida linesman charges through, stepping on his foot and knocking him down. But as JT goes down, he chucks the ball back to Thomas Brown. Then JT picks himself up off of his stomach on the ground, races to the goal line, catches the high-arcing pass from Brown, gets creamed by Todd McCullough, and still has the presence of mind to reach out and break the plane of the end zone as 230 pounds of Florida LB rides his ass to the ground.

Was it pretty? Hell, no. Was it fun to watch? Hell yes, and a much-needed shot of morale for a team that, innate skill aside, was playing kind of like a team with half of their starters taped up on the sidelines and their backup QB cutting his teeth on a strong Florida defense. No, we didn't come out of it with a win, for a variety of reasons that I don't really need or want to go into right now. If we had won, Spartan 47 would have been the new 70-X Takeoff, and JT would be enjoying his very own parade right now. Five missing points doesn't make it any less exciting or impressive, and only slightly less cool.

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