Florida-Charleston Southern: What We Learned and What We Didn't

(Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)

After a day of eyebrow-raising scores and reports, the Florida Gators poured onto the turf at the Swamp on Saturday night fully expecting to return a sense of normalcy to what might be described as one of college football’s most bizarre opening weekends.

By kickoff time in Gainesville, college football fans had already heard of Iowa escaping with their lives (twice!) against Northern Iowa, Syracuse taking Minnesota into OT, Navy’s botched two-pointer against Ohio State, and UMass almost putting it to Kansas State. 

Yes, the stars certainly seemed in alignment for scares and upsets Saturday—but Charleston Southern was on the menu at the Swamp and all the tarot-card readers and 1-800 psychics couldn’t have willed anything other than a Gator victory.

And what a big victory it was: 62-3.

But what can you learn from a season opener like this? More importantly, what didn’t we learn? No disrespect intended to Charleston Southern, but a traditional game analysis of Florida’s blowout over the Bucs would tell us little beyond the obvious.

But there was something interesting to learn from this matchup and a “reading between the lines” approach to reviewing the game shows Urban Meyer is a very patient, cunning, and mischievous head coach. 

The first thing we learned is the 2009 version of Urban Meyer’s spread option is alive and well. What was surprising was how quickly Rainey and Demps began their quest for top honors in the backfield next to Tebow. Is this a case of intra-squad competition by design? Perhaps, since nothing could please the Gator coaching staff—and the Gator Nation—more that to see these two cut, slash, and burn defenses in an attempt to one-up each other.  

Everybody wearing Blue and Orange wins in that type of contest and the second round begins against Troy.

The offensive play and audible relay systems, an area of preseason concern due to coaching changes, did stumble on occasion and add to the penalty yardage totals but didn’t appear to be suffering beyond repair. However, the real test of this process will come when the Gators take to the road and visit Kentucky in Lexington later this month.

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