After Further Review, The Ruling In My Mind Stands: Steve Addazio Is a Moron

I've had it.

Urban Meyer has until the Florida Atlantic 2011 game (opening day) to change coordinators, or I am ditching the Florida Gators until he does.

And it doesn't appear like that is going to happen anytime soon.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5810680

I would rather chaperone a different middle school field trip every Saturday and make conversation with an eighth-grade girl on both bus rides than watch this bulls**t Steve Addazio calls offense.

This isn't the first time that the offense has sucked, either.

Losing at Alabama is excusable. The Gators simply got stage fright on the home field of the top-ranked team in the nation and defending national champion.

Losing to LSU at home, while disheartening, is excusable, because losing to Les Miles is like losing to fate. I mean, where else does a football bounce like it's a tennis ball?

Losing to Mississippi State at home was where it started to get to be downright disgraceful, but there was the excuse of Dan Mullen knowing our offense inside and out, and how to stop it. Embarrassing, but excusable.

Losing to South Carolina at home is inexcusable, at every level.

I'm not surprised. I specifically stated that I was afraid that Florida was in trouble if Addazio called the plays. And indeed, Florida struggled mightily on offense.

This isn't just Addazio's fault, however. Now, it's Meyer's fault too. Meyer can no longer pretend that Steve Addazio is a brilliant coordinator who's just settling in. It is Meyer's fault, 100 percent, for handing wide receivers coach Zach Azzani the keys to this offense, allowing him to make some changes to it, and then handing it back to Addazio to play with and wreck.

This would be fine, if the Gator offense were an electric train that Meyer handed over to his ole buddy Steve to play with for fun. There's nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that THIS ISN'T A TOY!!! IT'S THE FLORIDA GATOR OFFENSE—WHO JUST SO HAPPENED TO BREAK RECORDS TWO YEARS AGO FOR YARDS AND POINTS!!!

Side note, and a quick question: Why do we have to use our WIDE RECEIVERS COACH TO FIX THE OFFENSE?

Meyer is a horrible man for teasing all of his fans by putting up 34 points against Georgia, and then 55 points against Vanderbilt, and then pretending that everything was OK. And I'll be honest. I wanted to believe him, because I love what coach Meyer has done here in Gainesville. I even took part in his stupid blue-out by wearing a home Tim Tebow jersey and royal blue shorts with an all-blue hat, minus an orange F on the front.

Which now stands for a certain four-letter word that I hurled at the TV numerous times. I accused Addazio of not liking women, I asked him to remove his head from Steve Spurrier's loins and I also said that he was dumber than a Las Vegas stripper.

Now, really, let's take a look at all of his major miscues (If I stated the minor ones, I'd miss the Giants game at 4:15, and I'm going. THEY know how to run an offense):

Drive No. 1: The entire first "drive." A nine-yard screen to Chris Rainey, that one's fine. No issue there. However, that's followed by a dive to Rainey. He can't weigh 150 pounds soaking wet, and you ask him to push the pile? Then a baby screen to Rainey that gets the same that it got all season—nothing. Florida punts.

Drive No. 2: Dive to Rainey, dive to Rainey again, total yards gained? Zero!! 3rd-and-10, Brantley throws incomplete to Carl Moore, but there was a lot of pressure because the offensive line broke down. Quick heads up to ignorant people—Addazio is the o-line coach, too. Another three-and-out punt for Florida.

Drive No. 3: Brantley nearly makes me collapse in shock as he throws the fourth-longest pass he's attempted all season, a 22-yarder that—SHOCKER!!—is caught for 22 yards and a first down by Omarious Hines. Then, even more shocking, Addazio calls two good plays in a row by sweeping Rainey to the left, gaining seven. Ah-ha. Finally, Addazio has woken up. The Gators have always been horrible in the first quarter, so this is nothing unusual. With the first quarter winding down, Addazio looks at the clock and says, "Oh, no!!! It's still the first quarter!!! I can't start trying to win yet, I have to look like twice the moron I usually am for another two minutes and five seconds!!! I wasn't supposed to gain yards yet!!!" So, true to form, he pulls center Mike Pouncey aside and says, "Listen, you have to bail me out here and play awful for a little while longer. Either snap that ball over Brantley's head like I didn't teach you not to, or tell the offensive line to break down blocking schemes." Pouncey apparently chose option No. 2, as Brantley threw two incompletions (one of which was nearly picked off, and had it been, it was going in the other direction. Whoever it was, I think it was DeVonte Holloman, had blockers in front of him). Florida punts again.

What? You don't believe me? Well, what was Addazio telling Pouncey, then?

Drive No. 4: Now we see Jordan Reed for the first time. Now, here's a guy you can run the dive with. He's basically the freshman version of Cameron Newton—all the same tools as Newton, just young, unpolished and needs work. He'll be a great player someday, barring Addazio doing something stupid with him. Like running three consecutive dive plays. The third one gets 13 yards, because South Carolina can't believe anybody would be stupid enough to do the exact same thing three straight times—not even a formation shift. A dive for Demps, bad idea—he's even smaller than Rainey, and though the play gets six yards, he comes off limping. Then the bubble (read: baby) screen to Rainey, which again is stopped for a three-yard loss. Florida punts.

Drive No. 5: The worst of all. Three straight passing attempts—which is what I want them to do—but ALL OUT OF THE EXACT SAME FORMATION, with Brantley in shotgun, no tailback, three wide recievers, a slot guy (Rainey) and Burton (the tight end in this case). Four-yard pass to Burton, incomplete pass to Rainey and a sack by Mel Ingram. Bad blocking on all three plays. Florida punts.

Drive No. 6: By now, it's the third quarter, and good ole Steve said to himself, "Why not just say we had a bad day? I'm kinda tired, it's late at night, so let's just suck some more and let Carolina go to Atlanta? I mean, I feel bad for them, they've never gone." They are now. First play—a pass that's tipped at the line (bad protection), and the next two plays, both passes to Rainey, accomplish nothing—except that they're both nearly picked off again, and I've heard a rumor (JUST a rumor, don't jump and quote me) that a 29-year-old woman gets heart failure way up near the top of the stadium. See? Addazio's retardation is literally killing people. Florida punts. Again.

Drive No. 7: Brantley throws ANOTHER "deep" pass, this time to Frankie Hammond, for a whopping 17 yards. This is followed up by a dive to Moody that gets nothing, a nine-yard run by Andre Debose (the MVP for Florida), and a dive to Burton that gets nothing either. Why Burton? He's the speed guy!!! REED is the Newton guy, the Tebow package!!! WHY BURTON??? QUIT IGNORING PLAYERS' STRENGTHS AND TRYING TO WIN BY USING THEIR WEAKNESSES!!!

Oh, by the way, Florida punts again.

Drive No. 8: Brantley throws off his back foot (bad protection yet AGAIN) and it's almost an INT. You would think that by now Addazio would have at least tried to motivate his o-line, or made a scheming change. He should have gotten the message that South Carolina was blitzing on a lot of plays and that they nearly had five INT's. He didn't, and it happens again, on 2nd-and-10, when he throws after about a second and a half because of the pressure. This time, however, Florida fan's worst nightmare is realized. Interception by Stephon Gilmore.

Drive No. 9: Where are Chris Rainey and Jeffrey Demps? You know, the tiny twin terrors that abused defenses two years ago under Dan Mullen and ran for at least 50 yards each a game—and that was WITH TEBOW AND PERCY HARVIN. Rainey makes his first real play of the game, a 26-yard run to the outside. But since Addazio hates making fans excited by letting either of them loose, he goes back to throwing little screen passes. The first one, to Trey Burton, works for 17 more yards. The next one fails, then Jordan Reed is sacked because of bad protection. Brantley has to throw the next one away, and is lucky it isn't grounding because Carl Moore was in the same county. On fourth down, blocking breaks down, and...you're all big boys and big girls now, figure out what happens next.

Drive No. 10: The best drive of the game, and the lone offensive touchdown—no thanks to Stevie boy. A long, slow drive that ends in Rainey taking a baby screen and going 26 yards with it. A footnote: Florida was down 29-7 at this point, and with only nine minutes left at the start of the drive, so the Gamecocks were more than willing to give Florida the screen pass, and Florida took it. A certain something in Addazio's pants turns hard because his favorite little play worked for a TD.

Drive No. 11: Incomplete pass, complete pass for first down, incomplete pass, complete SCREEN pass for five yards that stays inbounds, and then the dumbest call all game. On 3rd-and-5, a DIVE PLAY GOES TO JEFFREY DEMPS—the tiniest and fastest player in America.

Wait. Timeout.

Find the youngest kid that you know that can talk and is over three years of age. Explain the situation to him or her. Then ask what the strength and weakness of that player is. Then ask what Addazio should have done instead. If the little boy or girl says "Well, you should be throwing because you're down by two touchdowns late, but if you MUST use that player at THIS point, in THIS situation, get him the ball in space," then it's official. A little kid would be a better play-caller than Addazio.

Now back to the action. Perhaps because he's still in shock over the sheer retardation of the play-call, Demps fumbles. Carolina takes over, and Marcus Lattimore scores again.

Drive No. 12 is pretty much a desperation drive, which accomplishes about the same for any team as the average Addazio-led drive—nothing. Fittingly, Jordan Reed is sacked on the final play of the game.

It's not the defense's fault. They couldn't get off the field because Florida's offense couldn't have gotten a first down on the munchkins. The defense did a great job by holding South Carolina to a bunch of field goals, where some other teams would just say, whatever, I quit, and allow them to cross the goal line. Yes, Marcus Lattimore tore us up, and we have to work on that. But if Florida's offense can take away half the points that it hung two years ago against the Gamecocks from that game, and put it up here, they win!!!!

It was the first real subpar performance of the season for the Gators' defense, and they did better than the stats appear. It was not the first downright atrocious offensive performance, and knowing that we still play FCS terror Appalachian State, big rival Florida State, and a bowl game (God only knows what I would be saying if we failed to make a bowl game), it probably won't be the last.

I'm serious. Urban Meyer has until the first game of next season to have someone else call plays, or I will dump the Gators until he does.