Playing Dirty: Florida

Unfortunately, LSU is playing another football game this weekend. Let’s try to have some fun previewing the Gators with David Wunderlich of GatorCountry.com.

1. Before I go on making a bunch of shoe jokes, let’s address the elephant in the room. LSU is a train wreck right now. Things are bad. So just go ahead and roast us as much as you can in one reply. Get it all out.

I can’t believe hiring a pair of newbie coordinators because of their tangential ties to the 2019 coordinators didn’t work out. When your head coach is a recruiter and motivator but not a tactician, you definitely want as much inexperience in play-calling as possible. But hey, at least the Cajun Chizik can stock a team with talent for his successor. Does two straight Cotton Bowls sound good? Maybe look into the guy who did that following the last time Coach O got fired. I hear he’s available.

2. Okay now that we’re done with that, do you think Mullen will do more or less groveling for a Playoff spot after a 3-loss season this year compared to last year?

Dan Mullen does not grovel. He does not whine, complain, prevaricate, or obfuscate. If you, or the better part of his fan base, could understand the world on the level he does, then every word coming out of his mouth would not only be seen as accurate but justified.

Did he not almost beat Alabama two years in a row? Plus after last week, surely LSU partisans would agree that the house of horrors that is Kroger Field — and definitely not a lack of preparation from the offensive line coach every fan wanted to fire two years ago — could reasonably cause even an elite team to have eight false starts. And surely falling to the No. 1 overall team could be a stroke of bad luck that might change in a rematch. I mean, did they not almost beat Bama in consecutive tries?

3. Is it comforting or worrying to no longer be Jimbo’s signature win in Aggieland?

A former Saban assistant finally demonstrating that it’s not literally impossible for one to beat the Nicktator only makes Will Muschamp and Jim McElwain look worse. So yeah, it’s all good. At least Florida lost to an actual good A&M team.

4. The Florida defense last year made Spencer Rattler the preseason Heisman favorite, so we can expect a 300-yard rushing performance from LSU Saturday right?

People say Todd Grantham is not a championship coordinator, but they don’t specify who it is who’d be winning the trophy in question.

The defense actually has actually been the more reliable side of the ball this year, at least once Mullen hits the shock collar button after ol’ Todd goes back to giving receivers 12-yard cushions on 3rd & 3. I’m not sure even Grantham could get this year’s Tigers to 300 yards on the ground, but he could make Max Johnson look like Joe Burrow for a half with some of his galaxy-brained coverages and blitzes.

5. Tell me your favorite shoe jokes. I know you’ve heard them all so I wanna know which one is the best?

Nothing will beat Marco himself quote-tweeting a story about someone throwing a shoe at DaBaby with, “My bad fam”.

Because look, after becoming a fan punching bag for his extremely soft coverages and missing open-field tackles, he hit the haters with a double deuce of a blowout Combine performance and becoming a 3rd round draft pick. And then he started the first four games for the Cardinals before getting injured. He gets all the last laughs, including those at his own expense.

6. Who’s having a worse time right now: the Noles or the Jags?

That’s a tough one. The Jags are speed running the collapse of an Urban Meyer regime, which usually takes a couple of years instead of a couple of months. It’s going to get uglier before it’s over. The Semis, meanwhile, are showing enough life that they’re going to muddle through another year or two of mediocrity before Norvell either really turns it around or gets canned.

I’ll say FSU, if only because they don’t have the money to pay two different coaching staffs not to be there on top of a third that will actually be working on the premises. They’re stuck with what they’ve got regardless. Jacksonville will be rid of Meyer soon enough, and he’ll at least gift them another premium draft slate in the process.