Interview with Chris Canada from Gatorsfirst

Written by Chris Canada, Gatorsfirst.com Co-Founder

This is the first in the gatorsfirst.com series of season previews & interviews for the upcoming 2009 college football season from around the nation. Check back every day to see more previews from other blogs around the country, with a much more in-depth preview of other conferences and teams than we could ever provide.

Today’s interview is with Florida Gator fan Chris Canada. Chris is one of the co-founders of Gatorsfirst.com. He is a University of Florida alum and is now working as and industrial engineer in Texas, not to far from fellow co-founder James Brown. You can view all of his positional previews here: QBs, RBs, WRs/TEs, OLs, DLs, LBs, DBs, and Special Teams.

Gatorsfirst (G1): How did you become a fan of your team?

Chris Canada (CC): Being raised in South Florida during the 80’s and 90’s, you could imagine that I was a diehard Miami fan growing up. I mentioned this in my preview of the FSU game last year.

I hated the Gators for numerous reasons, but most of all was because of the ridicule my Gator friends gave me during Miami’s tough spell following their NCAA sanctions, which happened to coincide with Florida’s first national championship game, and win the following season.

However, all things changed when I was choosing colleges while in high school. Once I stepped onto the Gainesville campus for my first visit, I knew the University of Florida was right for me. The day I officially became a Gator was sometime in mid-December of 2001, when I found out that I had been accepted.

Over the next few years, I had to endure the Ron Zook era. When I entered college, I was still a big Miami fan, as all of my favorite players were there, and a lot of hated Gators were still in Gainesville.

However, as my time in Gainesville lengthened, the older players from Miami left for the NFL, and the newer players from Florida became something that I could call my own, as I had been in Gainesville from their start.

Players like Dallas Baker, Chris Leak, Reggie Nelson and Ciatrick Fason quickly became my favorites. My allegiances were become stronger with each new recruiting class.

By the time the Zook experiment was over, and Urban Meyer arrived in Gainesville, almost every player on the team had started their collegiate career during my stay. Even though I still feel favorably about the Canes, and root for them on occasion (especially against FSU), I know that the Gators are my team. And that’s how I became a fan of the Mighty Gators!

G1: Describe the Gameday Atmosphere.

CC: Gameday in Gainesville is a thing of beauty. Cars, trucks, vans, buses, RVs, and even motorcycles line the streets, clad in their Gator paraphernalia as far as the eye can see. Campus loses all sense of standard rules you would expect from an institution of higher learning.

Every square inch of grass space throughout campus is completely covered with vehicles. People set up their tents, with equipment ranging from grills to televisions, in search of that great gameday experience. Beers flow like the salmon of Capistrano.

For the past few years, I’ve woken up to multiple texts from the Gatorsfirst gang that simply say “Gameday”. And I reply in form. It puts a smile on my face.

While in undergrad, I took the lead with setting up campus tailgates for my fraternity. These obligations included picking up a keg, ice, cups, and gameday food that is essential for a good tailgate. All the while, making sure that I get to the designated spot on campus no later than 7:30am.

Why would I subject myself to waking up so early for a Gator tailgate, even though I may even have a hangover from the night before? Because it’s gameday, and that’s what you do!

While the tailgating experience is great, the in-stadium experience is that much better. During pregame, the crowd is electric. You’ll have the traditional cheer led by Mr. Two-Bits, the “Orange and Blue” cheer where the student section yells “Orange” while the the Alumni section retorts “Bluuuuue” over and over again, as well as the intro for the Gator football team as the Jaws music plays and the announcer proclaims “The Swamp, Only Gators GET OUT ALIVE!!!!!”. It gives you chills.

All throughout the game, the band is riling up the crowd with their various fight songs. You can expect to start chomping at the beginning of every kickoff, chomping for the Gatorbait cheer, or simply sing along to the fight song after a score (“Cheer for the Orange and Blue, Waving forever…).

The chomping is quite a sight to see. Imagine 90,000 fans chomping their arms in unison. You can’t really understand why EA Sports has designated the Swamp as the toughest place to play in the country until you’ve stepped foot within Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. It is a spectacle to behold.

After a Florida win, you can most likely find me and 50,000 other students at the various bars that line University Avenue. My favorites include the Grog House, the Swamp Restaurant, Gator City, and the Salty Dog Saloon. It’s Great to Be a Florida Gator!

G1: Give me some thought on your coaching staff. Are you satisfied? Do you wish your team ran different schemes? How is recruiting?

CC: It’s hard to be upset with a coaching staff that has won two national championships in the four years that they have been here. Coach Urban Meyer is the savior of a program, bringing things that had lacked during the Ron Zook years.

I’m obviously satisfied with the spread offense, as it’s fun to watch, and with the right personnel, you can see how effective it can be. And Urban is a very smart man. He knows that the fastest kids in the country are in the south and speed is what makes the spread system work. It’ll be interesting to see Scot Loeffler’s new I-Formation sets, as many of these kids haven’t played out of those types of sets since high school.

As for the defense, Charlie Strong has now been in Gainesville for nine years, and his schemes and techniques have been the real core of the Gators championship success. We all know how dominant they were against Ohio State in the 2007 BCS Championship Game, and also how they stopped the highest scoring offense of all time last season in the 2009 BCS Championship Game.

This current staff has done a great job recruiting over the past five years. Coach Urban Meyer and his staff have consistently brought in superior talent, often times bringing in top-5 classes. With the future departure of many players to the NFL following this season, expect the Gators to bring in one of the best recruiting classes of all time!

G1: Who is a player we might not know from your team that you are excited about this season? Why?

CC: As I mentioned in my defensive line preview, I’m really looking forward to seeing Omar Hunter in action. He was a high touted 5-star recruit, and from multiple sources, I’ve heard that he had a tremendous spring. An injury slowed him down and allowed him to redshirt last year, which is great for Gator fans, because he’ll be around a little longer.

G1: Make one point about your school, and another point about your conference, you think is overlooked on the national level.

CC: It’s hard for me to claim that UF or the SEC has been overlooked in any way recently. Florida has been on this magical championships run, has the most well-known quarterback, and the swamp has been the No. 1 toughest place to play on EA NCAA Football for god knows how long.

I guess the thing I would say that is overlooked about the University of Florida is it’s academics. It is still perceived by many as this southern party school filled with a bunch of little dumb coeds. Now, with a student body of over 50,000, I can’t deny that there are definitely some of those...

However, Bernie Machen has done a good job of turning the school into a premier academic institution, easily the best in Florida (specifically engineering, I’m biased though). The latest US News & World Report rankings have us as the 17th best public school in the nation, and second in the south behind North Carolina.

As for the SEC, I would say it still has to be the fact that people outside the south don’t understand how much college football means to those rooting for their SEC schools. I lived in California for a little while in 2007, and it was embarrassing how little they cared about their team. I wrote about it here.

G1: What do you think about conference title games? Was it a good idea to add to 12? Would you change something about the conference?

I think the conference title games are a great idea. Some people claim it isn’t fair that a great team has to prove themselves one more time after sweeping through a conference. However, I think that if a team wants to claim to be the best team in the nation, they shouldn’t be afraid to prove themselves on a big stage.

Adding the number of teams to 12 in 1992 was a very shrewd move. I’ve talked about further realignment for all of college football where there would be multiple 12 team conferences, all with their own championship game. James has also discussed realignment.

I think the layout of the SEC is perfect. I enjoy how you have one inter-divisional “rival” that allow for longstanding rivalries to stay intact. Yes the Florida-Auburn rivalry is bigger than the Florida-LSU one, but the Georgia-Auburn rivalry is like the longest standing rivalry in college football isn’t it? So I think they got it right. I would put Clemson and Georgia Tech in and a take Arkansas and Vanderbilt out, but that’s just splitting hairs...

G1: How much did you like the bowl system pre-BCS? As a fan, how much do you concentrate on 'National Championships'? Has this changed in the last decade or so?

CC: The bowl system, in general, is just an archaic method of allowing mediocre teams to showcase their top players to the NFL and make a ton of money for their schools and conferences. While that’s good an all, it doesn’t solve the problem about getting a true national champion.

The reason “March Madness” is so fun is because of the drama and anticipation of whittling down the group of playoff teams into your best set of teams. It makes for great excitement and great games at the end.

G1: What sort of changes, if any should be made to the BCS system? Does this opinion put you in-line or out-of-line with other fans of your team and conference?

CC: The BCS math is a good tool, but I think it would be better suited if it was used on a wider array of playoff teams. For example, maybe the top 8 or 16 playoff teams are determined by the BCS standings, instead of just the top two.

I know a lot of people get uncomfortable allowing numbers to determine who the “best team” is. However, I think it’s actually done a good job of sifting through the pile to find the top talent.

You can find the original article here: http://gatorsfirst.com/index.php/florida-gators-sports-news/gatorsfirst/interview-with-chris-canada-from-gatorsfirst.html