Underwhelming Debuts: Florida, Ole Miss Prove SEC Power Is Exaggerated
For more than three quarters earlier today, Miami (Ohio) outplayed a sloppy Florida Gators team in the swamp. The Gators had less than 50 total yards on offense in the third quarter before finally waking up in the fourth.
Both teams finished with 212 total yards. In the end, Florida won the game 34-12 despite their horrible showing. Lucky for them, they weren't playing a team that had more than one win in 2009.
New quarterback John Brantley was overwhelmingly unimpressive and it was apparent that the Gators have virtually no weapons at wide receiver.
Even worse for SEC-ville was the embarrassing performance of the Ole Miss Rebels against the Jacksonville State Gamecocks of FCS fame.
Junior Marques Ivory and true freshmen quarterback Coty Blanchard outplayed both Nathan Stanley and Jeremiah Masoli as they combined to lead the Gamecocks to the huge win in double overtime.
Ivory tossed the first touchdown pass, a seven-yard score to Alan Bonner to put the Gamecocks ahead 41-34.
Brandon Bolden tied the game at 41 with a two-yard touchdown run, then Ole Miss took the lead in the second overtime on a two-yard touchdown run by Enrique Davis.
That's when the magic happened. Blanchard, scrambling for his life, hit Kevyn Cooper in the back of the endzone for the 30-yard touchdown on 4th down and 15 from the 30-yard line.
After calling timeout, Jacksonville State decided to avoid a third overtime and go for the win.
On a bootleg right and just as he was nearly caught for a dream-crushing sack, Blanchard found his man at the goal line for the conversion, and the win.
Surely, SEC fans who read this are going to post comments chock full of excuses and saying that Ole Miss sucks anyway, etc, etc.
Here's the problem with that, just so you all know ahead of time.
You all claim each other's wins and BCS titles as a conference, so by God, you're going to own this loss by Ole Miss as a conference just the same.
P.S. There goes that whole "The SEC is the best conference top to bottom in the country" crap...
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